From Wed 23rd to Fri 25th July the BIG Event will be poking around the collections, the nooks and the crannies of the University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.

The venue for this year provides oodles of potential for trying out new ideas and is a great place for a meaningful argument and a good rootle in some weird stuff. It was here at the Museum of Natural History that the famous evolutionary debate took place between Huxley and Wilberforce; it houses the University's scientific collections of zoological, entomological and geological specimens. At the Pitt Rivers Museum next door one of the world's finest collections of anthropology and archaeology is held, with objects revealing humankind's extraordinary problem-solving and craft skill from every continent and from throughout human history.

It's a wonderful building; it's not to be missed. Expect some intimate spaces; expect some super Victorian Gothic surroundings.

If that's tickled your fancy and you already have seven or eight sessions you'd like to propose DON'T LET ME STOP YOU. You can go now to the BIG Event session proposal site at http://bigevent.info/ and put your ideas down for us all to chip in on. If you need to mull it over Christmas, we'll be taking session proposals until mid January.

The BIG Event is the British Interactive Group's annual get-together where people in the STEM enagement profession get together (of course) to swap, share, give and try out. It is hosted by a different visitor centre each year and the content and style of the Event changes to suit the surroundings. It's a like a conference, but nicer.