I gave a 15 minute talk in Bristol, where I lived a long time ago, to share my idea for changing people’s lives over cups of tea.
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Afterwards, one of the people who heard me, Barney Hawes, asked if he could take a few of my leftover cups to try out at the company where he works, which creates assistive technology. I said, sure, so long as you give me honest feedback and send photos.
He took me at my word: “We enjoyed chatting around the cups you gave me,” Barney wrote back a few days later.
“We all know each other, which made it more awkward in a funny way, but it was a nice way to spend 15 minutes… Also, I remembered that I don’t like drinking out of paper cups.”
Later, I heard from two others who were there.
One asked if we could supply some cups so that her friend, who is about to go travelling, could enjoy structured conversations with the people she meets. I said, we didn’t actually make them for sale, not yet anyway, but I’ll find out.
The other who got in touch asked the same thing, and I gave the same answer. He came back with a request for a quote, for as many as 500 cups, and said he’d been talking to some people high up in the Church of England. I hope something comes out of this.