The Wellcome Trust is the foundation arm of Burroughs Wellcome, the very large UK pharmaceuticals company (perhaps best known for its work in bringing to the market AZT, one of the important AIDs related drugs). The Trust, explained Dan Glaser, the cheerful head of “Public Engagement” is to see that the company is engaged with the community in conversations about Science. And to that end, the Trust sponosred a really interest breakfast on Saturday morning … for those who were up.

Part of the problem about Saturday morning is that it comes after Friday evening, and there some some undercurrent of gossip about those who had difficulty leaving the popular watering holes before 3am. If our host, Mr. Glaser, was one of them, he seemed totally none the worse for wear and eagerly launched the conversation. I met him as we were going into the reception and dining room at the Leopold. I had the easiest commute of the group, I think!

Nick Ware — Nick Ware and I chatted about his project, joining the docs.tv, which I gather is a venture of MercuryMedia. They have a very interesting technology, an embedded flash player that can be distributed like a widget. Unlike the SNAG films project, with which they are quite familiar, this widget is a VOD/Pay-Per-View delivery mechanism. A site (blog, web page, etc) can host this widget and offer a documentary for screening as part of the page’s content. If a viewer is interested, they enter their details (email, credit card, etc) and pay for flash based screening. I thought this sounded like a very good idea.

Jamie Hall — We were joined by Jamie Hall, a scientist/researcher with Wellcome who asked about IndiePix. Trying no doubt to put me on the spot, she asked, what are you doing about science? And I quickly responded that we have this great Whales video, which is quite uplifting and one of the most important films we have released. Somewhat sceptical, I pushed the case and said I’d send copies!

Margret Jonasdottir — Margret is from Iceland and, appropriately enough, is working on a documentary of the retreating ice above the Artic Circle as seen in the work of a particularly outstanding still photographer. Her documentary is nearing completion, and we’d like to make sure we hear about it as it moves forward.

Colin Pons — Colin is a long time member of the board, and co-founder, of the Sheffield festival. He is also the Managing Director of Fear Factory Films and perhaps one or two other production companies. We have an energetic chat on several topics, and he quickly explained to me the origin of the festival in what others refer to as “the socialist republic of South Yorkshire”. However, he stressed that the good old line socialist had deserted the effort and were seeking new party homes, although they were all quite happy with Sheffield.

Sylvie Bolioli — Ms. Bolioli is a perfectly charming former marketing executive from Pepsico who has taken up investigation of the criminal responsibility of the mentally insane. In pursuit of this topic, her filmed interviews have ranged from the night beat with the cops in Miami, to private interviews with the “Unabomber” and other notorious serial killers. I suspect we’ll here more about this one.

Melanie Crawley and Heather Croall — Melanie came to sit with us at our table and we talked about the other projects Wellcome Trust is working on in conjunction with the festival. They are quite involved in the Saturday program, running events parallel to the screenings nearly all day long, including a pitching session and a public funding committee meeting and award! Heather passed by to chat with us and told the stories of the bar at “St Paul’s” (aka, the Hotel Mercure) which was briskly selling drinks until just before sunup (although she promised she wasn’t there to see the last of it). The Festival Director is spectacularly energetic, having ducked out the prior afternoon for a meeting long sought in Manchester, and then back to the festival for the evening’s activities. Everyone credits the vitality and energy of the festival over the last couple of years to her leadership.

So for a breakfast at 8am on a Saturday morning that ran until almost 11am, this was quite an interesting get together.

For

Heather — the bar at St. Pauls