If you are running a local cathathon of Stall Catchers, we're here to bring you all the information that you will need to plan & run it!
Catch on up on the first International Catchathon of Stall Catchers here!
What's a "catchathon"? All the answers in this post.
You can always email us at info@eyesonalz.com if you have any additional questions or suggestions!
Planning checklist
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Sign up here (if you haven't yet) . You will need to come up with a name for your team!
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Register your team on Stall Catchers. Here's the instructions. Tip: grab the invite link from your team page to share with everyone you'd like to invite.
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Book the venue (depending on expected number of people). You could try a local pub, library, hackerspace or similar
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Invite all your friends, family & neighbors! The more the merrier! Consider setting up a registration form on Eventbrite (or similar) to better keep track of registered participants & estimate the turn-out.
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Get some pizza! (Or a different snack of choice.)
If you use social media:
- Create an event on Facebook & invite your friends (you can make EyesOnALZ co-organizer if you wish!)
Alternatively:
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Create an event on Meetup.com (you could use an existing group you're part of, or create one! E.g. "Citizen Science NYC")
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Consider reaching out to existing groups with similar interests in your area, e.g. via Meetup.com
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Start sharing your event on Facebook, Twitter or any other media that you use!
Before the event:
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Remember to email or contact your participants via social media with a reminder, including the address, time & schedule of the event; include links to Stall Catchers & the game tutorial
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Consider translating some of materials (e.g. tutorial subtitles, getting started guide) to your language - contact us if you need help!
Running the meet-up on the day, step-by-step:
- Introduce Stall Catchers. You can use these bullet points to help you:
- Stall Catchers is an online game that allows everyone to contribute to Alzheimer's research
- Anyone can play Stall Catchers - from kids to their grandparents, no specific knowledge or scientific background is required
- In Stall Catchers players are helping researchers at Cornell University to analyze Alzheimer's research data - players themselves are not studied
- By viewing microscope-acquired movies of a live mouse brain, players are helping to find stalls - blocked blood vessels in the brain where blood is not flowing
- Don’t be afraid to make mistakes! We have methods in place to extract value from all your answers, right or wrong, so there is no way you can mess up the research
- Every contribution, large or small, helps researchers get closer to understanding the relationship between stalls and Alzheimer's disease. This fundamental understanding could lead to a potential - and first ever - treatment for Alzheimer’s disease
- But to get to a treatment, many more research questions need to be answered. They cannot be answered fast enough if the researchers work on it alone, so need YOUR help!
- Stall Catchers is a chance for friends, families, caregivers & people living with Alzheimer's themselves to directly fight the disease that affects them and their loved ones
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Show intro video (http://tinyurl.com/SC-GetStarted) to everyone at the same time. Answer questions if there are any.
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Have everyone register and make sure they join your team! If you set up your Stall Catchers team in advance (recommended), share the invite link with the participants to make it easier.
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Start catching! Remember to keep encouraging the participants, and checking in with them to see if everyone is doing OK.