I would like to thank everyone involved in ensuring that our fourth Dunbar SciFest was our most successful community science festival yet!

The glorious weekend sunshine brought out droves of visitors from throughout Edinburgh, the Lothians, the Scottish Borders and beyond.

Visitor numbers are still being collated but numbers are well up on last year, when we attracted 6,800 visitors over seven days; we anticipate that over the 11 days of Dunbar SciFest 2014 we will have had over 8,000 visitors!

Dunbar SciFest could not happen annually without the dedicated support of countless people. First and foremost the phenomenal team of 11 unpaid volunteers that make up the organising team.

Without their unstinting enthusiasm, hard work and sheer determination, and the weeks of unpaid evening and weekend work undertaken by Andrew McLachlan, Anne Marie Gibson, Audrey Cameron, Gwen Edwards, Helen McLachlan, Jenny McGlinchey, Laura Pulner, Rebecca Scott, Richard Moore and Terry Shevlin, this community festival simply wouldn’t happen.

The whole-hearted support of all the staff from Dunbar Primary School (particularly the management team, P1 teachers and janitors), the Bleachingfield Centre and Dunbar Library, means that we have great venues to host our science festival.

Without the support of our sponsors, this uniquely educational event could not happen, so sincerest thanks to East Lothian Council, Scottish Government’s Office of the Chief Scientific Advisor, EDF Energy, Community Windpower Ltd, Viridor, Dunbar Community Council, the University of Edinburgh and Asda Dunbar.

It’s so wonderful that over 200 fascinating local scientists, from over 60 different organisations, are prepared to provide their time, expertise and resources, year after year, to entertain and inspire the next generation. Between them, they delivered over 100 events (over 250 individual activities) creating this uniquely educational and entertaining family-friendly event. They were thrilled to report that this year, children’s interest in science is noticeably increasing and they are amazed by how knowledgeable our local children are, thanks to Dunbar SciFest and the fortnightly Dunbar Science Club.

The army of over 50 parent, grandparent, teacher, Dunbar PS P7 and Grammar School pupil volunteers ensured the weekend ran incredibly smoothly. Thanks to Asda for donating the refreshments that kept the volunteers and event providers going throughout the weekend! Thanks also to Amy Marah from the Garden Path Cafe, Lauderdale Park, for running the SciFest Cafe and Lindsay Baigrie from Sunny Sundaes for providing the ice cream!

The visitor feedback over the busy weekend was universally and resoundingly positive – the atmosphere was amazing and the events and activities were hugely popular. As always, we’ll learn lessons from this year and all of the evaluation feedback will ensure that next year will be even better.

Everyone involved is a superstar and I am so grateful to each and every one of you. Dunbar SciFest is a testament to ‘parent power’ and the widespread support provided by the extraordinarily dynamic Dunbar community. Dunbar SciFest really does deliver inspirational science in an inspirational place.

Dee Davison Voluntary co-ordinator of Dunbar SciFest & Dunbar Science Club