Football likes to talk about dreams, from West Ham’s “I’m forever blowing bubbles… then like my dreams they fade and die” to Manchester United’s “Theatre of Dreams” at Old Trafford, dreams remarkably on a par this season.
It often seems that the dreams of the players are of the vast pay packets, fan’s adulation, and the lifestyle. The corruption and exploitation in the global game are more the stuff of nightmares, while the fans dream mainly of victory and beating that lot down the road. I’ve been to matches at the Grecians and the Chiefs, and oh how much friendlier was the atmosphere at the rugby, even when it was the Plymouth derby.
Yet even in football, it is possible to have dreams of community, to play as a team instead of individual starlets, and in that choreography to create something beautiful.
It is good to work together, to feel that you’re making a contribution to something that becomes more than the sum of its parts, to gel as a team, to see that whole coming to fruition.
And that’s why I want to celebrate all the people and organisations that have made TEDxExeter what it has been over the last five years: our curators Jeanie and Claire who first had the dream and nurtured it into reality; our organising team and volunteers (below); our speakers and performers; our sponsors and friends; our audiences in Exeter and across the world; and our suppliers and event managers.
So here’s to all of us, to the dream team! And here’s to TEDxExeter 2016!
