Two GA Trustee vacancies open for nominations

A high-quality geography education is essential for future generations, as geography has a critical role in solving many of the global challenges we face.
The Geographical Association is looking for two new Elected Trustees to join its Board of Trustees from 1 September 2026.

Details and nomination form are here.

The Board of Trustees meets three times a year in Sheffield, London and online. It comprises 14 Trustees and has responsibility for providing strategic direction and sound governance for the Association.

Elected Trustees serve an initial four-year term with the possibility of continuing for a second term if supported by the Board. GA Trustee positions are not remunerated but travel and subsistence expenses are reimbursed. Nominees for the role of Elected Trustee must be members of the GA and will be asked to show that they actively uphold and support the aims, values and mission of the Association.

Trustees welcome the nominations of colleagues from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences that can strengthen and complement the existing Board of Trustees. 

For example, this might include those in their early/mid teaching career stage, school leaders, primary colleagues and/or those with experience of leading the geography programme of a MAT.

The deadline for the current round of nominations is Monday 4 May 2026. 

If you have any questions about being a GA trustee, please contact the current Chair of Trustees, Alastair Owens via a.j.owens@qmul.ac.uk.

GA Conference 2026 #4: Confluence conversations

One of the main reasons I go to the GA Conference is that I try to see people who I don't otherwise see from one year to the next (or even longer). 

As I've said before, a gathering of geographers is called a confluence. We are stronger when we flow together.

This year once again, I connected with former GA Presidents, including the wonderful Margaret Roberts and Bob Digby - who remain active despite being in their 80s. 

At the special meal for longstanding members, there were quite a few former Presidents; Eleanor Rawling, Richard Daugherty, Chris Kington, Keith Grimwade, John Hopkin plus Catherine Owen. Good to chat to David Balderstone and Paul Baker in particular, and catch up with Sandra Patterson.

It was also excellent to catch up with a whole host of other people including Justin Woolliscroft (who invited me up to Hull University each year when he was leading the PGCE course there. He also provided me with a handbook for my department to save me writing one from scratch. He was also heavily involved in the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography. (I have a blog about that too....)

He was talking to Sue Warn - an 'A' level examiner legend.

I had a good chat with David Preece, who is the Head of Geography for Teach First. He was a member of the RGS Education Committee which I chair and always provided thorough and thought provoking contributions to our meetings. 

Cath Rule and Rayburn Tours were there, handing out posters and details of their tours.

Paula Richardson spoke to me about the 5th National Festival of Fieldwork which she is spearheading as always. The first one was held during my GA Presidential year and it's a great initiative. Get involved!

Ahead of the session that Matt Podbury and I were presenting I also got a chance to meet Daryl Sinclair, who was part of the team that created the Discover Geography series.

David Wood and Catherine Souch from the RGS were at the GA Awards as were the Time for Geography team - who were picking up more awards for their excellent films. Simon and Rachel were on the RGS stand. Ashley and colleague were here from the Geological Society.

I also caught up with Tom Collins from the Environment Agency with whom I worked on the BETT Award winning Coastcraft resource.

Helen Young was also there to present on the Roblox resources on the BBC.

There were many more conversations during the day and a half that I was there, but I hope this gives you an idea of the great people you can bump into and chat too if you attend the conference... apologies to the great many other fine geographers who aren't mentioned in this post... catch you next year!

GA Conference 2026 #3: Some key sessions

A few of the sessions at the conference were broadcast live on YouTube and will be available for a while...

Catherine Owen's Presidential Lecture

Ilan Kelman's Keynote Lecture

The Rex Walford Memorial Lecture by Vicki Pountney

GA Conference 2026 #2: Day 2: Musical Geographies

Late morning on Day 2 of the conference was the session that Matt Podbury and I had prepared for the conference programme. 

This was connected with his work on GeographyPods.

Prior to that Matt and I sat in the exhibition area and spoke to lots and lots of geographers. 

We had been given a room that was too small. The Sched app was telling us that it would be overflowing and we tried to fit as many people in the room as we could - around 40. 

Here's Matt presenting his part of our session.

The presentation we used is up on Scribd and has been embedded on a post over on the World of Music blog.

It would be great if anyone reading this was able to fill in the Google Form below to help me with some of the posts I've been producing. There are also plenty of other forms on the blog in places. 

Please have a browse through the blog.

GA Conference 2026 #1: Day 1

The 2026 GA Conference was held at Sheffield College - a departure from the usual venue at Sheffield Hallam University. This is a short 10 minute walk from the railway station - going out the back entrance. 

I drove up from Norfolk and immediately started seeing people I knew: former work colleagues, present work colleagues, Steve Brace the GA CEO and exhibitors from various publishers and organisations I've worked with over the years. 

The weather was warming up very quickly!

It was good to see the Collins stand had a prominent display of our Discover Geography books, and also the iGCSE Geography book that I was series editor for which was published last March. There was some publicity and order forms for the books as well, so hopefully they will be heading into classrooms soon. 

The Rayburn Tours gang were there with lots of free posters. 

After some chats it was out for the "long standing members" meal, which I am invited to each year. This time we had a minibus to take us to the restaurant in the Winter Gardens, opposite the Crucible Theatre, which was getting prepared for the World Championship Snooker there, starting next weekend. It was a lovely meal and there were 8 former GA Presidents sat at the table, and some other guests and people. All the Presidents are featured on the GA Presidents blog of course. 

One idea I had is to revisit those I can and ask them for an update perhaps.

I had the chance to catch up with several people I only see at this event.

Back to the conference venue, where I had a chat about the National Festival of Fieldwork in June.

I then went to check-in to my hotel and came back via the Graves Gallery and Winter Gardens and some light shopping.

The GA Awards went well. It was good to see David Gardner received the Honorary Membership.

Time for Geography went away with a whole host of Silver Awards.

A Geography Champion award went to Mark and Jay the hosts of the Map Men YouTube Channel, which has over 1.7 million subscribers and authors of the book 'This Way Up' which I read towards the end of last year, who were sat in front of me.