Dentology Podcast with Nicki Rowland

Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Nicki Rowland

Episode Release Date – Monday 15 October 2024

Andy & Chris (00:01.226)
It’s always nice, isn’t it, when we do a recording and we kind of get a guest, friend coming back on. It is, it is. And I think it’s always almost not, I don’t mean like a new thing, but it is. It’s called different and it’s like another great conversation. Exactly. we find out more. Yeah, it’s brilliant. And also the conversation we’re about to have is all about something that’s kind of evolving over time and where it was at the very beginning. a ditty-bitty idea.

It’s this itty-bitty idea anymore. itty-bitty idea has grown into something bigger. Let’s welcome back Nicky Rowland, Nicky’s well-known face and voice in dentistry, co-founder of the exceptional leadership academy, the ELA, Consultancy and Training Organisation that supports dental businesses to thrive and grow. But also, and what we’re talking about today, is Nicky is the founder of the Magic Dentist Charity. Welcome back Nicky, how are you? Hello.

Nicki (00:42.104)
I’m

Nicki (00:53.337)
Thank you so much. Yeah, I’m not too bad. It’s been a bit of a gruelling year. I’ve been having treatment for breast cancer all year. So to be fair, the Magic Dentist has been my absolute fuel. That’s what’s kept me going, got me out of bed every morning. It’s not been easy, know, setting up a charity is never an easy thing, but it’s kept me focused.

Andy & Chris (01:02.037)
Wow.

Andy & Chris (01:08.736)
Good. Well, no, I bet.

Nicki (01:17.033)
and just the results that we’re seeing are just awesome and we’re having so much fun. I mean I’ve always been in a very scientific world since I left university but I think this has helped me unleash my creativity and my big kid, that is for sure.

Andy & Chris (01:24.992)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (01:30.678)
Well, I must admit the things I’ve seen on LinkedIn is you know It just looks like it’s a bit of a hoot really when you come to do some of the training with the kids It’s like fascinating

Nicki (01:45.333)
It is and I think that’s the whole point of the exercise. It’s a multi-pronged attack. The magic is just bringing awe and wonder and fun and entertainment to everybody involved. So not just the children but the parents, the primary school teachers and the dental care professionals that are getting involved. I think our industry’s had such a tough time and continues to.

Andy & Chris (01:58.602)
Mmm.

Nicki (02:14.028)
and to bring some magic into the workplace and have so much fun with it, it’s just so uplifting. It’s a real wall boost as well.

Andy & Chris (02:16.778)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think where kids are involved, anything that can be…

couched in the context of fun. You’re on the right path, aren’t you? We were talking just before we started going live here. August 22 was when you came on for your episode with us. And we were saying we can’t believe it. It is amazing. Over two years ago. And if we think back to then, I think the Magic Dentist was just an idea. It was kicking around. You were just kind of working out how to get it started and where it’s at. now it’s a registered charity, which is incredible.

Nicki (02:30.637)
Absolutely.

Nicki (02:39.231)
I can’t believe it’s over two years. I know!

Andy & Chris (02:55.828)
Could you perhaps just explain to people that wouldn’t be familiar with what magic dentists is? What it is? Yeah, exactly what it is and what you do and kind of what it looks like for people.

Nicki (03:05.935)
Essentially I’m on a mission to make sure that every child in the UK has access to dentistry and we know that’s a huge challenge you know with the dental deserts I mean where I’m positioned in the UK I’m surrounded by dental deserts North and South South Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire and the Humber. You know it’s devoid of dentistry and it’s just the impact that’s having particularly on children. The schools that I’ve been going into here locally

Some of the children are seven and eight, never seen a toothbrush, don’t know what to do with it. We’re seeing five-year-olds and younger having full clearances of their milk teeth under a general anaesthetic in hospital. It’s just stuff we should not be seeing in a civilised society.

Andy & Chris (03:38.987)
Bye.

Andy & Chris (03:53.078)
I mean, get that. The thing is to get to seven or eight years old and I’m not parking the blame at the parents door and kind of absolving dentistry of any responsibility here, but I find it remarkable that there’s parents that have never introduced their children to a toothbrush and some toothpaste. it because they don’t have good dental hygiene or do they just not think about it? I mean, there must be, because ultimately at the end of the day,

The parents are the ones who govern what your child does, doesn’t it? virtue of them being parents, the man and the woman, after you got together, kind of there was some intimacy. I would hope that oral hygiene was… Not necessarily man or woman, Andy, I would like to say, just to… No, no, no, but it’s… Oral hygiene would be quite important in that setting. So you assume that the parents perhaps…

Nicki (04:33.517)
Yeah.

Nicki (04:36.953)
Yeah, it was on the agenda.

Andy & Chris (04:49.056)
do understand the importance of it but it hasn’t translated through to kids Let me put that question to Mrs Rowland, what do you think? mean is it parents, kids, combo? mean it’s a fascinating one really isn’t it?

Nicki (04:52.399)
Yeah.

Nicki (05:00.495)
I think there’s three things here really. I mean, there’s a huge fear of the dentist, full stop, which stops a lot of parents going in the first place and taking their children. Secondly, I think there’s a huge education piece in and around it. I think a lot of parents haven’t been educated. They don’t understand the knock-on effect, just not just to their oral health, but their systemic health. So I think there’s…

There’s numerous things, but also, I mean, I’m knocking on the doorstep of Hull here. We have so many homeless people, the poverty crisis has hit hard, and that is a big national picture now. mean, I’m going to be working with the Harris Foundation in London, and Lord Harris oversees the foundation, and there’s a lot of primary schools within the academy that he oversees, and a lot of those children are homeless.

you know, if they’re lucky to live in a B &B. I mean, it’s a shocking state of affairs. So I think parents really genuinely are struggling to put food on the table. So things like a toothbrush and toothpaste are just bottom of the agenda. They just don’t even compute because, yeah, feeding the children is priority. It’s really tough out there. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (06:02.432)
Wow.

Andy & Chris (06:19.874)
I remember when I remember when we when we spoke to you last time about the itty-bitty idea and I think the some of the stats and were like Overwhelming ready because you sort of think

Nicki (06:33.816)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (06:34.024)
I can’t believe that you, because part of me says, you know, it’s nuts, isn’t it? That you have to come up with an idea that you then have to engage people to then basically get someone to teach a small child how to clean their teeth.

Nicki (06:50.809)
Yeah, yeah, it is.

Andy & Chris (06:51.658)
And this is being driven through schools, which is great because obviously the kids go to school. I guess it doesn’t catch everybody if you’ve got kids who are homeless. It won’t catch them. I guess the work you’re doing.

Nicki (06:55.533)
taste.

Nicki (07:05.115)
Well actually Andy, does. Some of these children, well majority of these children actually do go to school in London and literally the teachers, yeah it does, the teachers wash them, help them brush their teeth, put them in a uniform, teach them, feed them, everything.

Andy & Chris (07:15.826)
Also, it does catch it does catch virtually everybody

Andy & Chris (07:25.354)
Flipping it.

Nicki (07:25.847)
And then they just, you know, they reverse all of that at the end of the day and hand them back to the parents. So yes, we are catching homeless children in schools and that’s why we’re taking the approach that we are.

Andy & Chris (07:36.63)
Do you find any schools, Nicky, that you’ve approached who’ve been not welcoming, or is everybody welcoming? They’re saying, no, no, great. It’s a great thing to be doing.

Nicki (07:47.979)
I’ve been very surprised Chris but so far so good.

Andy & Chris (07:50.996)
Mm-hmm.

Nicki (07:51.405)
And I think the reason for that is that the poor old primary school teachers, they’re just overwhelmed with everything that they’ve got to deliver. And they’re now having to deliver oral health education as part of the national curriculum. And they really don’t know where to start. I mean, I’ve got a lot of friends who are primary school teachers and they are having to make it up as they’re going along. They’re given a framework for the national curriculum, but they’ve got to find all the content and build out the content.

Andy & Chris (08:02.789)
Mmm.

Andy & Chris (08:07.274)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (08:17.204)
I didn’t realize it was part of the national curriculum. is. And well.

Nicki (08:19.533)
Yes, yeah it is, it is. So what we’re doing or have done at the Magic Dentist is we’ve written a whole education piece to be taken into primary schools. So it’s six main lessons and we’ve got everything from the basics of the anatomy of the tooth and why you get toothache if you don’t brush, all the way through to a lesson about diet. We’ve got one about exercise because it is about the whole body. You know we hear about the mouth being the gateway to the body.

Andy & Chris (08:47.498)
Mm-mm. Yeah.

Nicki (08:50.609)
You know, we want children to be healthy per se. It’s not just about their teeth, it’s about everything. So we’ve built out six lessons and each of those lessons has a workshop alongside it and within those lessons, the children learn a magic trick. And part of their homework, all the magic tricks have got underpinning oral health messages.

So I’ve got one here. I’ve learned how to do this myself, which I can’t wait to show people. But part of the child’s homework is then to go and perform that magic trick to parents, friends, anybody at home. So we’re turning it on its head so the child is being empowered to educate the adults. So really then try and nail this problem that we’re having of adults not doing the right thing as well.

Andy & Chris (09:33.514)
Wow.

Andy & Chris (09:37.433)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (09:41.532)
Also, I love the idea you kind of, it’s gamification but without using tech. And so many things these days require you to have, you know, a subscription, a mobile phone, tech. Whereas for lots of the people you’re trying to get to, they’re not in that world. So turning it back into the core basics, they can still get involved and take part. And that passing it back up the generations is really smart, really smart.

Nicki (09:44.952)
and I’m

Nicki (10:06.266)
you

And it’s how we spread the word and how we get those oral health messages viral. next year, when we officially launch our Adopt-a-School program, we have got some really exciting stuff going on. I mean, the precursor to the Adopt-a-School program is our Train the Trainer program. So what we’re doing is training dental care professionals. It can be an oral surgeon. It can be a reception team member. It doesn’t matter. Just somebody who’s committed, who wants to make a difference. We’re training them up.

Andy & Chris (10:24.352)
Right.

Nicki (10:36.541)
to go into schools to teach the teachers how to deliver the education piece and within the education piece we’ve brought the book to life we’ve got two animations and alongside the animations we’ve got exercise books we’ve got stickers with QR codes on so the children can take the stickers home stick them to the bathroom mirror scan the QR code and it takes them to the brushing animation and we’ve brought the little tooth bunny and the girl in the book to life in that particular animation

As I say, there’s magic tricks. The children are going to learn to make the magic tricks. as they’re making them, they’re consolidating all the messages. As say, we’re going to go and ask them to teach them and perform them. And again, it’s an empowerment thing because a lot of children that we’re seeing get bullied at school because oral health issues can make them smell. They can get excluded.

Andy & Chris (11:16.064)
Mmm.

Andy & Chris (11:32.354)
Mm-hmm.

Nicki (11:35.899)
there’s a lot of mental health issues in and around oral health. So if we can empower children to take back control of their oral health and their systemic health, that that’s the whole idea of driving this. So once the teachers are taught, we’re hoping it will be a bit of a snowball effect because historically,

Andy & Chris (11:44.469)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (11:54.781)
Mmm.

Andy & Chris (11:58.378)
Yeah.

Nicki (12:01.231)
and this is a bit of a pattern that I see, dental practices tend to go back to the same school every year and just teach the next taunch of children coming in. But what we want to do is empower and teach the teachers. So our trained dental care professionals can go to the next school, the next school, the next school and spread the word as well. So that’s the model. So we’re looking for people to sign up to our train the trainer events, which will be rolling out in January. We’ve done our launch. We’ve done our guinea pig session in Lincoln.

Andy & Chris (12:17.609)
Right, okay.

Nicki (12:31.746)
Lincoln’s the capital of our dental deserts. So that’s all been launched. So we’re really looking at the minutiae of detail and the feedback that we’ve got from that to make sure we’ve got it nailed down. So, but sorry.

Andy & Chris (12:34.56)
Alright.

Andy & Chris (12:39.509)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (12:43.296)
But if you could let us have the, I was gonna say, if you could let us have the link so people can find it, if they wanna get involved and they want to become a somebody who trains the trainers, if there’s a link that they could click on to find out how to get more information about it, that would be great.

Nicki (12:56.759)
that would be awesome, Andy. We don’t write this second because we’ve got to plan locations. I’m talking to some dental groups that are involved. So we have to decide where in the UK those sessions will be. But I’ve got my team behind me. The Train the Trainer events delivered by myself. Dr. Ash Sonnage. You guys probably know Ash. He’s a magic dentist.

Andy & Chris (13:07.592)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (13:16.469)
yeah.

Andy & Chris (13:20.019)
Yeah.

Nicki (13:20.895)
So he’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant. We’ve got another guy called Callum Weaver on board. He’s our magician that’s inventing all the the oral health magic tricks. And he used to work with Darren Brown. I know, we couldn’t have asked for better. He’s awesome. Absolutely. So, and he’s an amazing performer. So anybody who comes to the Train the Trainer events, they are going to be seriously entertained as well as learn all the stuff.

Andy & Chris (13:34.73)
No, no, no, excellent. brilliant.

Andy & Chris (13:48.01)
Hmm It’s amazing right isn’t it so that to be able to deliver it in so many different ways You must have had to sit down and have a big old session about working out what you wanted to Bring you know what you wanted to be able to deliver and how you’re gonna be able to deliver and who was gonna be able to do it did you do the writing or did someone else do the writing or you know that your course whatever six weeks or something Yeah

Nicki (14:11.791)
for the teachers. I’ve done most of the writing with a lot of research behind it, Public Health England research and things, but we’ve actually got faced camera teaching and we’ve got an amazing team that have done that. We’ve got Dr Trishala Lekhani.

Andy & Chris (14:16.169)
Well…

Andy & Chris (14:30.738)
yeah.

Nicki (14:31.119)
She does all about the diet. So we’ve got her dressed as a chef. We’ve got Sarah Joy Lenden, who’s the virtual hygienist. She does all the brushing instruction. We’ve got Chinwe Okunun. I can never say her name properly, but lovely Chinwe. She does the lesson in and around the anatomy of the tooth. So we’ve got her sat there with a mortarboard on like a teacher. So yeah, we’ve got some incredible content and we’ve also produced a

Andy & Chris (14:35.249)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Andy & Chris (14:45.066)
Yeah.

Nicki (15:01.025)
20 minute little video of bringing the book to life about Zach, the little boy in the book, going to visit the magic dentist in his practice. So we’ve got lovely Dr. Martin Attariani as our magic dentist, and lovely white Vinny Thandi as our two fairy. So we’ve even got some incredible people who’ve jumped on board and supporting this and given their time. And obviously you guys and Ollie.

Andy & Chris (15:12.33)
Wow. Yeah. yeah,

Andy & Chris (15:18.944)
Brilliant!

Nicki (15:29.355)
I’ve done some incredible filming. I mean was Ollie that did the filming of our little video and it’s just brilliant and it just brings the book to life and it just shows children exactly the kind of experience that they can have as well. Yeah, make it fun!

Andy & Chris (15:32.639)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (15:42.354)
Mmm, and make it fun And as you’re saying it you get the sense and the appreciation of just how much goes into this Just hearing you talk for last few minutes about all the elements that go into it and I guess in an ideal world this is to get

young children to appreciate the importance of oral health through games and fun and experience. And then I guess the next stage is to try to encourage them so that they actually go to a dental practice. I imagine if they’re not brushing, they’ve probably never been to a practice.

Sadly, dentists aren’t always portrayed in the most positive light in the media. So you’ve got, you know, Finding Nemo. The kids might have watched Finding Nemo and the dentist isn’t kind in that. you know, adults may be familiar with the film Marathon Man. And Lawrence Olivier’s character, Dr. Christian Shell, he’s not exactly the kindest of dentists. So there’s all these, there’s all this evidence out there that dentists aren’t nice people. So is there work also required in encouraging the young people to visit the dentist for the first

Nicki (16:22.937)
Bye. Bye.

Nicki (16:33.774)
Yeah.

Nicki (16:38.487)
I don’t know.

Nicki (16:42.606)
Yeah.

Nicki (16:49.059)
Yes, we’ve actually thought about that as well, Andy. So the next step, once we go in and a practice adopts a school, is that what we’re doing is encouraging that practice to run a magic dentist day in their practice. So it would be like inviting those children into the practice on a school trip.

Andy & Chris (16:49.218)
time and what that might look like.

Andy & Chris (17:04.65)
Right. That’s cool.

Andy & Chris (17:11.52)
Alright.

Nicki (17:11.767)
Obviously parents would be given the option to opt out if they didn’t want their child to go. But again, what we’re looking for is that any child that’s in pain, we’re getting them out of immediate pain. And then we are providing sustainable dentistry for them through their childhood. Now obviously NHS provision is minimal and it’s going down and down and down. So the idea behind the charity is to raise funds to put children on private magic dentist care plans.

Andy & Chris (17:22.751)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (17:40.285)
well. That’d be cool. Well.

Nicki (17:41.953)
and that would be essentially where all our funds would be going to support those children to have that sustainable and ongoing dentistry. So lots of initiatives ahead for next year to support the Adopt-a-School programme. So one of the really exciting things, I can’t wait for this one, with…

Andy & Chris (17:56.341)
Mmm. Yeah.

Nicki (18:01.111)
partnered with a challenge app called Gold Challengers here in the UK and it’s G-O-A-L-D because the guy who set it up used to be a professional footballer.

So, and his app’s got a reach into 149 countries. So we want to take our Magic Dentist challenges viral to educate the masses. So we’re looking to launch the first challenge in January. And it’s something that everybody can get involved in children, dental practices, getting their patients to do it. You could do it in the office guys. So I won’t give the game away what it’s going to be yet. But essentially,

Andy & Chris (18:37.812)
Yeah, yeah.

Nicki (18:44.109)
the challenge app you can donate straight to the challenge app. if let’s say you know somebody donated five pounds we’re hoping that the care plans that we’re going to set up for the children will be five or six pounds so if somebody donated that they know that they are going to keep that child on a care plan for a month. So know exactly where their money is going to be going.

Andy & Chris (19:04.127)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (19:07.475)
I think having that direct link for charity is really important. I think so much seems to get lost in administration, operations, delivery, all the infrastructure stuff. But being able to see your five pounds literally fill through to a plan and knowing that a child somewhere will get to see the dentist for that month is lovely.

Nicki (19:29.071)
Absolutely.

Andy & Chris (19:30.318)
And fairly recent you’ve got yeah, we can’t it a terrible but yeah, it’s any labor politicians listening. Yes And you you fairly recently got charity status didn’t you for the magic dentist? What what was that process like because I imagine that that probably wasn’t particularly easy pulling teeth.

Nicki (19:39.429)
Yes.

Nicki (19:45.549)
Yeah, back in April.

Nicki (19:52.047)
grueling. There’s no other word for it. Grueling. the red tape and the hoops. I think you mentioned money laundering, Chris. Yeah, but certainly make sure you’re not going to be doing that. it is.

Andy & Chris (20:07.369)
Yeah, making sure it’s terrible. It’s such hard work. I mean, I understand why. Yeah, but it you can understand why people who don’t have your drive and ambition and enthusiasm sort of go, sod it. Yeah. Do know what mean? It is unbelievable.

Nicki (20:20.899)
Yeah, yeah.

It is. The hurdles, you’ve got to jump, mean all the red tape. You’ve got to have policies and procedures for everything and everybody will know what I mean by that, know, CQC and all the policies and procedures is a very similar thing. A charity’s got to have all of those things. You’ve got to have your board of trustees. So I’ve now recruited an amazing board of trustees. They’ve all got to be DBS checked, as have my team members that have been involved in building content. I’ve got to think about, yeah, I’ve got to have a safeguarding lead.

Andy & Chris (20:35.797)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (20:45.13)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (20:49.494)
I suppose children,

Nicki (20:55.057)
You’ve just got to have everything lined up, ready to go.

Andy & Chris (20:57.334)
But it’s weird, isn’t it, how these things kind of, they almost turn up at the right time. You were saying at beginning about your own personal health struggles, and it’s not been an easy time.

yet you’ve got all this on the other side. And I always think that something like this, it diverts your attention away and it gives you real purpose. So it sounds like it’s really flipping hard work. But then also there’s kind of some weird irony that has come at a time when you needed something to kind of take you away from your own situation. you’re away from chemo. Well, yeah. And give you some focus. And it’s funny how far the magic dentist has pushed on at the same time in parallel.

Nicki (21:15.841)
Absolutely.

Nicki (21:28.247)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Nicki (21:38.631)
Absolutely and I think because I’ve had to take my eye off the ball with regards to my normal everyday business because I can’t travel, you’re absolutely right. It’s just given me that opportunity just to focus on this which for me I think any health issue particularly when it’s something like cancer, it does make you sit and really refocus about what you want to achieve, where you want to go.

Andy & Chris (21:46.118)
Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy & Chris (22:02.73)
Yeah,

Nicki (22:06.733)
and what the future looks like. And I’m just so passionate. I really, really am. I really want this to make a massive difference. And I’ll always do my day job and go in and do compliance and leadership and all of that with practice. I find that so rewarding as well. to have this on the side that’s so much fun as well and giving everybody such pleasure, the people that are involved, and seeing the difference and them all feeling that.

Andy & Chris (22:10.89)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (22:17.44)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (22:26.868)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (22:30.581)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (22:35.314)
Yeah.

Nicki (22:35.425)
and that achieve that sense of achievement and to know that we’re making difference as an industry. It’s a great feeling.

Andy & Chris (22:39.744)
That’s powerful. It’s interesting isn’t it, there’s similarities. One of my friends was a policeman who retired and then became a driver for Sainsbury’s.

And he said the biggest difference he noticed that there was a point is the biggest notice he differenced was that when he was a policeman, nobody was interested. But when he became a Sainsbury’s lawyer, everybody wanted his help because, you know, carrying food in or whatever. it’s sort of that there’s a in my eyes, there’s sort of this correlation of you as your businesswoman with you going in and talking to people at compliance. And whilst people know they have to do it, they’re not wonderfully excited about doing it.

Nicki (23:21.369)
you

Andy & Chris (23:21.62)
So you sort of, I’d imagine in your journey of that bit, you know you’re delivering something, but the people you’re delivering it to, you’re a bit like a necessary evil. But whereas this is, it’s a little bit similar in the fact of the organization and what you’re trying to do, but actually everybody’s really.

Welcoming to you and it must be amazing for you because you must be like actually I’m doing something that people are really wanting and actually Saying they want it and enjoying wanted it as opposed to bloody hell I have to have it. It must be it must be great from a personal point of view

Nicki (23:46.029)
I’m telling you.

Nicki (24:01.207)
It is, it’s fantastic and honestly, no word of a lie, I’ve had so many pinch me moments when I’ve thought, I will ask, know, people can just say no.

They don’t have to jump on board, but I’ve never had a no. And recently I had an idea what I’d love to do around the education piece in schools. I want it all to really come to life. And I think the bit about diet, there’s no better way of a child learning about diet than going and cooking it themselves, or actually not cooking it themselves. You if you’ve got a no cook quick recipe. So we’re now writing a second book, a magic dentist cookbook, and it’s all going to be magical recipes.

Andy & Chris (24:27.392)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (24:32.817)
Mmm.

Andy & Chris (24:37.524)
Wow. Brilliant.

Nicki (24:39.791)
all with an alchemistic twist to make it exciting. And I’m working with a guy called Alan Coxson, who a lot of the younger viewers won’t know, but he’s a celebrity chef and he’s internationally as well acclaimed as a TED speaker. And he has recruited 12 celebrity chefs across the world all to send in recipes. we’ve got the recipes coming in as we speak. Our Mauritian chef.

Andy & Chris (24:43.263)
Wow.

Andy & Chris (24:54.282)
Why?

Andy & Chris (25:01.321)
Wow.

Ha ha ha!

Nicki (25:08.784)
used to be King Charles’s chef at Highgrove. I mean we’ve got some horse and people I can’t tell you!

Andy & Chris (25:11.988)
Wow. So remember that itty-bitty idea. Exactly. It’s crazy. And your daughter Izzy did the illustrations for the original book. Is she doing them for the cookbook?

Nicki (25:21.059)
She did? She did? She is, and she is so excited to do caricatures of all these famous people. She can’t wait. Yeah, yeah, so it’s all coming to life and we will have some new characters in there. So yeah, watch this space.

Andy & Chris (25:28.866)
brilliant. Brilliant. Amazing.

Andy & Chris (25:37.887)
It’s gone from just being that one thing, you know, you’re going everywhere, aren’t you? As in, the idea is it’s not… No.

Just about brushing your teeth and it’s it’s a lovely catch-up because like I said when we originally spoke he’s like, yeah I’ve got an idea and I’m just working on it. I don’t quite know what it would be it work or not. I’m sure people be interested and I guess we’ve we’ve had a little bit of an insight because like you say, you know, Audubon, the FJ media science helps We kind of kept track of what’s going on But I had no idea as to plans you’ve got for the year coming a quiet so grand which is which is exciting and and it’s and it’s something that needs addressing It’s not just it’s not just nice

Nicki (25:52.875)
Yeah.

Yeah, I

Nicki (26:10.115)
Yeah.

Please.

Andy & Chris (26:14.708)
The the output from this is going to be we’re going to end up with so many more kids in primary school that understand the importance of all health They know how to brush their teeth. You know, they’ll be pestering their parents to try and get a toothbrush or two You know as you were saying yeah, I can’t remember what there’s trickled down and something up isn’t it? So whatever it is up to the to the parents saying hey, I’m cleaning my teeth. Why aren’t you cleaning yours? Yeah

Nicki (26:39.823)
Yeah, absolutely. We’ve got one final thing that we’re working on as well. We’re creating the magic dentist rap, as in the song. We’ve condensed the book into two minutes with all the key oral health messages, public health England messages in there. And a local school, the year sixes, have produced a rap. And I want to make a music video out of it. Because again,

Andy & Chris (27:01.14)
Wow.

Run away! Flip!

Nicki (27:06.179)
I want another means by which, you know, probably older kids, because the animation, the brushing animation is more for the littlies. We want something a bit more funky for the older kids. So we’re going to have the magic dentist wrap so they can, know, sort of struck the stuff, brushing their teeth. But also we want to be able to use that as part of a music project in schools, you know, for the children in schools. And they can learn the song, they can learn all the lyrics.

Andy & Chris (27:10.388)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Andy & Chris (27:28.319)
Right.

Nicki (27:34.029)
and they’ll be learning all the oral health messages as they’re going along at the same time.

Andy & Chris (27:37.664)
Well, there’s a number of rapping dentists. There’s a number of dentists that rap and have sung at the time. yeah, and Lovin’ from Chairs, Sight Ease and stuff, and Suggs, the copywriter. So there’s quite a lot of people that have got kind of musical angles. Yeah, me. Honestly, I will kill your project. Your project will die on its ass, honestly. Do not. Absolutely terrible. No, you’re more of a dancer.

Nicki (27:41.06)
There are.

Nicki (27:47.739)
Yep.

Nicki (27:52.203)
I’m sorry.

Nicki (27:58.459)
I’m pretty in it’s great.

Andy & Chris (28:02.717)
My dancing and my singing are good bedfellows. The gene pool was not kind in dancing and singing for me. No, it wasn’t good. I’m delighted for you, Nicky. That’s brilliant. I think from a project point of view, it’s going well. And you’re in good spirits as well, which I’m pleased to see. And in good health.

Nicki (28:09.373)
I

Nicki (28:14.585)
Thank you. Thank you.

Nicki (28:19.531)
Yeah, I’m just elated to have got through my chemo that finished on Thursday and that I can just move forward with things. My plan is this weekend to be at the dentistry show. So one of our ambassadors has offered to share their stand with us. So it’s now just getting visibility. Now I can get out and about and just get people on board, get them signed up for the Train the Trainer and the Doctor School programme, get them involved in the challenges and having fun while…

Andy & Chris (28:23.904)
Good. Brilliant. Yeah, yeah.

Brilliant. Wow.

Andy & Chris (28:35.348)
Lovely.

Nicki (28:48.609)
making a difference, that’s what it’s going to be all about.

Andy & Chris (28:50.902)
Brilliant, that’s lovely. You’ll recall last time when you joined us a couple of years ago that we have two questions for you and as a returning guest you don’t get away you still have to answer those same two questions we haven’t changed them from the very beginning to where we are now 160 plus episodes in we always ask the same two and the first one is you’re a fly on the wall in a situation where are you and who’s there?

Nicki (28:57.675)
yes.

Nicki (29:14.179)
you know, I’ve been thinking long and hard about this but while I’ve been ill I’ve been having a lot of dreams about flying and apparently that’s meant to relate to ambition or something you want to achieve so that might just be you know magic dentist sort of thing subconsciously but I mean how awesome would it have been to be in the airfield when the Wright brothers made that first flight and to be to see it, recall it, see them repeating that I think they’ve

Andy & Chris (29:29.812)
Yeah?

Andy & Chris (29:36.649)
Hmm.

Nicki (29:43.319)
made about four or five flights in one day in the same day didn’t they taking turns and just just to know that you are the first person ever to have done that.

Andy & Chris (29:46.333)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (29:54.098)
It must have almost been unbelievable for the people watching, know, for the engineers involved to understood the science and the physics behind it. But for other people who are watching, just seeing this creature lift off from the planet and sustain itself in the air, must have been unbelievable.

Nicki (29:57.847)
Yeah.

Nicki (30:06.968)
Yeah.

Nicki (30:10.593)
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, what would the Bright Brothers think now if they could see what’s been achieved since they took that first step? I mean, to see their faces as a fly on the wall now, to know where it’s all progressed to. Awesome.

Andy & Chris (30:17.103)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well when you look at space when you go to SpaceX and you’ve got these self-landing rockets coming back to earth and things It’s amazing isn’t it and it’s not that long in terms of time. It’s 1908. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s 120 odd years. It’s not long

Nicki (30:28.868)
Yay.

Nicki (30:35.555)
you

Nicki (30:39.962)
2008 or 3? I can’t remember now but yeah, No, it isn’t to see why we’ve progressed. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, okay well this is a bit of an obvious one really, it’s sort of top of my wish list. I would love to meet a celebrity chef with young children like Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay.

Andy & Chris (30:41.888)
Can’t remember. Yeah, it’s not that long. It’s not that long, is it? Yeah. And if you could meet somebody, who would you like to sit down and meet?

Andy & Chris (31:05.131)
Yeah.

Nicki (31:05.165)
you know, to get them involved in the next part of the project. That would just be my dream come true. It really, really would. And get their children involved. Or even Greg Wallace. It would be awesome to have a magical master chef, wouldn’t it? So I would love to meet somebody like that. So if anybody out there knows them.

Andy & Chris (31:19.465)
That’d be cool.

Andy & Chris (31:24.679)
Hang on. Let me just look at my phone. I’ll give Gordon a call. Oliver’s done a lot of work with schools, hasn’t he? He In school lunches. He’s got to be a good bet, hasn’t he?

Nicki (31:30.881)
He has, he has absolutely. he’s commitments there already. I mean, some of the, know, going back to the cookbook on our homeless children, what we’re doing, you know, some of them live in B and Bs and they’ve got a toaster and a kettle to hand. So we’re going to be using the kettle as a magic cooking pot as well. So we’re looking at making recipes.

Andy & Chris (31:45.236)
Mmm. Mmm.

Nicki (31:55.053)
doable for every child but also having non-cooked recipes something that it can do very very quickly but highly nutritious as well so

Andy & Chris (32:00.32)
Mm.

Brilliant. It’s a really clever plan, isn’t it? Because like you say, we’re all incredibly fortunate and we’re in position where we don’t necessarily think the fact that some people’s only means of preparing food would be a toaster and a kettle. But to have a cookbook that accommodates those people as well, it really is trying to engage as many It’s good for you, not just pot noodles. Sorry, nothing to do pot noodles. Please don’t.

Nicki (32:22.319)
Yeah, we’re just trying to cover every base really and it just all keeps evolving as I keep talking to people and exploring different avenues. It’s just been so organic the way that it’s all developed really. It’s not, you know, like you say Chris, it hasn’t taken a lot of thinking about because after a conversation you think, that could work, that could work. So you’re almost being fueled by ideas from other people all the time as you’re having those conversations.

Andy & Chris (32:44.574)
Hmm. Yeah.

Mmm. Mmm.

Nicki (32:50.977)
It’s just been really awesome. And we’ve got Nottingham Trent University. They’re going to be their research, one of their research teams is going to look at the efficacy of what we’re doing when we launch the Adopt-a-School program next year as well. any dental practice that jumps on board, they’ve got the opportunity of being part of the research piece to see that we’re making the difference that we intend to as well.

Andy & Chris (33:03.968)
Good.

Andy & Chris (33:12.182)
Brilliant to have that efficacy report that would be great as well because then it becomes statistical It doesn’t surprise you in the least that it’s going so well because you’ve got so much energy Nikki, honestly You’re like you’re like a whirlwind. We just sit here quietly and you just like I’ve got all these ideas and it’s I’m doing this. Yeah But it needs somebody like you to spearhead a project like this because as we’ve said, it’s it’s not hard. So it’s not easy It’s hard. It’s so easy. Yeah, it’s so easy, but it is it’s difficult and you have to keep chugging and

Nicki (33:17.047)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Nicki (33:22.788)
thank you.

Nicki (33:28.761)
you

Nicki (33:38.37)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (33:42.056)
and chugging away and you’re bringing people on it’s good and I’m excited for what’s coming next year as well. Yeah there’s a lot of things. well, gong gong.

Nicki (33:47.577)
Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. it’s, no, I was just going to say, you know, I think when it, when it really floats your boat, when you’re a big kid underneath, you know, it’s not the hard way that it seems, you know, cause it’s, it’s just fun. Yeah. It’s all fun. We’re just over a year in since the major launch really. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (33:57.598)
Yeah Yeah I think it’s amazing how it’s evolved really from the little

Yeah, you know your idea to where it was to where it’s evolving to is like And it’s making a difference, isn’t it? It’s is is making a difference It’s not one those things that’s just nice It will actually you know, if you think if you can get into kids at the age they are they’re very young And then they can carry that through as a behavior for the rest of their life Which then they may then pass on to their children because they didn’t have it before It’s generational change, isn’t it? Which is pretty cool, isn’t it? The impact it has is quite remarkable

Nicki (34:35.181)
Yeah, please, please.

Andy & Chris (34:38.729)
you

Nicki (34:39.149)
Yeah, and it’s just all so exciting. Yeah, I can’t wait to get all the projects launched next year.

Andy & Chris (34:41.523)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (34:45.462)
Brilliant cheers Nikki always a joy. Thank you very much. Thanks. No, thank you for letting us know so much about it Yeah, as always and yeah, and we’ll probably be seeing you an event or somewhere sometime soon anyway

Nicki (34:48.489)
lovely talking to you again guys.

Nicki (34:57.483)
Are you at the Excel in London at the weekend? Not this time.

Andy & Chris (34:59.31)
Not this one, no, no, I’m at another conference. can’t make that one. there’s more than enough stuff. This time of year is quite busy, isn’t it? Dentists and dental organisations seem to like squeezing every event they can in between the end of September and the end of the year. Obviously halfway through the budget year. Exactly. Lovely. Cheers, Nicky. Look after yourself. well. Cheers, Nicky. Thanks very much. No problem at all.

Nicki (35:08.078)
taste.

Nicki (35:16.345)
Yep, absolutely. Okay, well, thanks for having me on again, guys. Take care. Love you. Bye.