A 1991 Award

Steve Brace recently shared an image of the GA Award that he received at the Conference in 1991, signed by the President of that year: Eleanor Rawling, and a former colleague Frances Soar.

Now back at work having been off for quite a while, & looking forward to catching up with #geography colleagues at #GAconf21.

Emptied a draw recently & found this relic from the 1991 conference.! #chembakolli @ActionAidUK pic.twitter.com/UQoeyQ7GyS

— Steve Brace (@SteveBraceGeog) April 11, 2023

Geographical Association Awards - now open for nominations

You have until the beginning of March to nominate someone for a Geographical Association award.

We have spent some time changing the awards a little as we want to bring in more nominations from the wider geographical community, and also from within the GA's large group of volunteers and members who get involved in the wider work of the GA through committees, special interest groups, branches, projects and other work.

Nominations for the GA Awards are now open!

Each year, at our Annual Conference, we present a number of awards to recognise and celebrate the contribution of individuals towards #geography #education.

Make your nomination by 1 March at https://t.co/c7ZAqfxeLB #GAConf23 pic.twitter.com/5mYGrgbbUA

— Geographical Association (@The_GA) January 16, 2023

Each year, at the GA’s Annual Conference, the Association presents a number of awards to recognise and celebrate the contribution of individuals towards geography education. 

GA awards include:

GA Honorary Membership (normally one award per year) – this is the highest award made by the GA, in return for sustained and outstanding service to the Association. It confers lifelong and complimentary membership of the GA on its recipients. Read a list of GA Honorary Members

GA Annual Awards for Excellence (normally up to two awards per year) – for a GA member or non-member who has made a significant contribution to furthering geographical knowledge and understanding through education and/or to the work of the GA over the previous year. Read a list of past recipients here.

GA Geography Champion (normally up to two awards per year) – for a GA member or non-member who has made a significant contribution to supporting the work of the geography educator community or raising the profile of geography within the wider public arena.

This is a new award and we want to draw in nominations from people outside of the GA for this particular award. If you've been helped by someone please nominate them.

GA Distinguished Service Award – for a GA member who has made a notable contribution to the work of the GA and its charitable mission over a sustained period of time. This contribution might arise from participation on GA committees or special interest, or volunteer groups, service given to local branches, or other significant activity that has furthered the work of the Association.

Nominations for awards can only be made by current members and should be submitted using the online GA Awards nomination form. 

This is a change to make nominating someone easier - no more paper forms.

Please read the details of GA Awards criteria before making a nomination.

Nominations can be made at any time of the year - another change.

Those received by 1 March will be considered for awards to be presented at an awards ceremony held at the GA Annual Conference and Exhibition that year; nominations received after that date will be considered for the following year.

The deadline is slightly different to previously, providing a little more time ahead of the Governing Body meeting where the nominations are ratified and agreed ahead of April.

Please get nominating. 

The awards will be presented by Alastair Owens and Denise Freeman this year.

Honorary Membership

The GA Awards are presented each year after the Presidential Address at the GA Conference.

The highest award is Honorary Membership.

This year it was presented to Iain Palôt.

Iain has been Chair of the Post-16 and HE Committee for some years and also served on Governing Body.

The Committee produces a regular newsletter, which can be picked up at the conference. This year's edition can be downloaded here.

In it, Iain reflects on his career and involvement with the committee and the GA:

This piece is one for looking back, remembering those members of the committee who contributed so much and whose efforts should not be forgotten. Over the years we have been so well supported by people like George Metcalf, the NATFHE rep and the committee Treasurer in the days when we had a delegated budget. 

One meeting a year was always at the Victory Club at Marble Arch as he was able to stay at a reduced rate having made the journey down from Dunfermline. 

Other members of our illustrious team have included Brian Harris from Thames Valley, Alan Marriott, Andrew Powell from Kingston, Tim Foster from FSC Blencathra, Antony Allchin, Mick Dawson, Dave Turton, Julia Jones, Helen Hore, Simon Oakes, Bob Digby, and others too numerous to mention.

Secretaries, Treasurers, Saturday fieldwork organisers, Travel and Tourism specialists, Geography Matters Editors [Dave T had a couple of blokes out at “the airfield” who printed it very cheaply, and we gave away huge numbers of copies at conference]. Those were the days! 

I have been chairman for long enough and could not have done the job without the support of my wife and the committee members, particularly Antony and then Helen, to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude. To Gill for taking on the editing of GM in the face of a number of difficulties and her own personal workload. And to all the committee members that I have not mentioned – thank you for your support and contributions to the work we have undertaken. 

I am now what Catherine Owen reminded me of as we gossiped at the back of a conference session, an OLD, some would say very old, WHITE MAN - and the time is right for change. 

The committee will be co-chaired by Laura-Jayne Ward and Ellie Barker and I wish them all the success for the future. I am confident that they will do a great job in the tradition of the P16/HE PC. They are looking for someone to fill the gap left by my leaving, to add new skills and greater diversity to the committee. I am only sorry that I will not have the opportunity to work with Servel Miller from Chester whom I am certain will add greatly to the deliberations of the committee. 

Thank you all for your friendship, help and support over the past 40+ years of my GA membership. I shall miss being involved and hope to see some of you at conference this and in future years. Post-16/HE Phase Committee.

Congratulations Iain, and thanks.

GA Presidency Month 7: March 2022

This was another rather busy month all round, and was the start of the second half of my Presidential year.

March sees the build up to the conference and a push to get delegates organised for their bookings - it's pleasing to see the bookings rising through the month, but also a time to keep fingers crossed that this year's budgets and personal circumstances don't mean people fail to book a ticket. The remote option is a useful addition now, although it adds significantly to the logistics of planning the event.

There is a meeting of the GA's Governing Body in the first weekend of the month. This was originally planned to have been face to face meeting finally, but ended up being online again, as it was scheduled just before the removal of some of the legal requirements on meetings and isolating were removed by the Government. This was a very busy meeting which had a great many items on the agenda.

This is a time when the next Vice President (and ultimately President) is ratified, along with other decisions.

There are also decisions made in this week about the GA Publishers Awards and also the GA Awards. Voting closes for the GA Award for Excellence as well. 

The results of all these will be announced at the GA Prize Giving and Public Lecture which kicks off the conference.

The following week I was gearing up for a trip - the first overseas trip for over two years. This took place in Gent in Belgium. It was a meeting of the partners of the GI Pedagogy project, and we were delighted to be there. More on that later in the post.

National Fieldwork Week is taking place in June, and there were plenty of meetings and other work around this event. I organised a couple of events for the week.

Thanks to Paula Richardson for her hard work driving this forward, and also to the new website manager Emmalene for her hard work in getting the materials up on the website.

Some other things that occurred this month:

- a great many conversations and other decisions about the planning for the GA Conference, including exchanges around the final stages of the conference. This is getting closer now. There were decisions on chairing sessions to make, and numerous meetings and Zoom calls with Isabel and Becky who are spearheading the conference planning. A huge amount of work.

The publication of our Code of Practice was a key moment. 

This offers guidance for all the delegates at our conference, and other events, and explained how we are supporting visitors in many wayss.

- further work to get ready for the National Fieldwork Week in June.

- liaising with and talking to chairs of the GA's SIGs - as President, I have requested that I receive copies of the minutes of all their meetings in case there are things I can do to support them, and to learn about the range of activity going on - these meetings occur almost every other weekend, and there is plenty to learn from colleagues who are experts in their chosen area - there were specific meetings with particular groups, along with Alastair Owens (who will take over as President in September 2022)

- reviewing for Routledge

- preparing for the IGU in Paris in July and liaising over fees and hotel planning as well as preparing a trip to the Place de Saint Sulpice for a Georges Perec pilgrimage...

- uploading resources and ideas for colleagues in the Liverpool alliance of schools I am supporting

- starting to prepare materials for another group of schools I am working with, and ideas for training in the new academic year

- working on the two ERASMUS projects I am completing for my school - one of these is now in the final stages and there has been a great deal of work to do there.

I led a session for the West London Alliance on curriculum making - the 2nd of two sessions.

We also had the amazing news of the discovery of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship 'Endurance' - an expedition I had been following since the beginning and a period of history I have a great many 

At the end of the 2nd week of March, I headed for Gent.

Thanks to the partners of the GI Pedagogy project for their company during a sunny long weekend where we were able to complete a lot of work, and also have a couple of nice meals in the city. It was lovely to be able to use my passport and get out of the country for the next 2 years.

There is also a new pathway for the GA Conference, which had been developed by Christine Winter (one of the new GA Research Engagement leads) and Kit Rackley. Many thanks to both of them, and anyone else involved, for their efforts.

This was published on the Decolonising Geography website.

We worked on the Geographers' Gaze materials - they will appear in a month or two hopefully.

In the third week, I contributed to a session for the GeogLive! event.

To round off the month, I went for a weekend in Center Parcs to decompress for a while and enjoy time in the woods - the weather was glorious.

The final week included more meetings, and a final event.

I hosted a GeogChat meeting on the theme of Everyday Geographies. Thanks to those who took part in the discussions. Search the #GeogChat tag to see some of the contributions.

The month ended with snow... quite a change after the sunshine of just a few days ago.

This was a particularly tough end to the Lent term. We are constantly thinking that things must be getting back to normal, but they really aren't. There has been a lot of staff and pupil absence due to COVID and at times I have been fairly sure I have had it for a 2nd time, but have always tested negative.

I am very much keeping my fingers crossed for the next couple of weeks. I look forward to seeing you in Guildford in 2 weeks time.

Images of Gent: Alan Parkinson, and shared under CC license

Here's the month's Twitter statistics as usual.

GA Awards - deadline approaching for this year

The deadline for many of the GA's Awards is the end of December, and some are at the end of January.

If you are a GA member you can nominate someone for an Award, particularly if they are involved in one of the GA's areas of activity such as the Volunteer Groups, Journal articles, GA Branch activity or some other role.

Details of the awards, nomination forms and other information on the awards is here.

Each year, at the GA’s Annual Conference, the Association presents a number of awards to recognise and celebrate the contribution of individuals towards geography education. GA awards include:

1. Honorary Membership
Honorary Membership (normally one award per year) – this is the highest award made by the GA, in return for sustained and outstanding service to the Association. It confers lifelong and complimentary membership of the GA on its recipients. Read a list of GA Honorary Members here. Download the Honorary Membership of the GA nomination form here.

2. GA Annual Awards for Excellence
GA Annual Awards for Excellence (up to two awards) – for an individual who has made a significant contribution to furthering geographical knowledge and understanding through education and/or to the work of the GA over the previous year. Read a list of past recipients here . Download the GA Annual Award for Excellence nomination form here.

3. Distinguished Service Award
GA Distinguished Service Award (download nomination form) - for an individual who has made a notable contribution to the work of the GA and its charitable mission, particularly through specialist volunteer groups in the geographical community over a sustained period of time.

4. GA Outstanding Service Certificates and Diploma
GA Outstanding Service Certificates (download nomination form) - for outstanding service by a GA branch member to their local branch.
GA Outstanding Service Diploma (download nomination form) - for outstanding service to the GA through participation on GA committees or special interest groups.

5. GA Certificate
GA Certificate (download nomination form) – for the completion of three years service on a GA committee or special interest group.

6. GA Rex Walford Award
GA Rex Walford Award - for inspirational and innovative practice for those undertaking primary or secondary geography initial teacher education.

Further information about each of the awards including eligibility, nominations and judging is available to download below, together with the appropriate nomination forms.

Additional awards presented annually by the GA include:
Excellence in Leading Geography - journal articles judged to have made the greatest contribution to the development of good practice in geography teaching, as voted for by GA members. Recent recipients are published in GA Magazine. The awards will be presented at the GA Annual Conference.
GA Publishers' Awards - previous awardees are listed on our GA Publishers' Awards pages.
Geography Quality Marks – to reward and promote high quality geography in primary and secondary schools.

Please consider nominating someone for an award. If you don't nominate them they have very little chance of winning.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license

Post-16 Committee

Thanks to Iain Palôt for posting an image from a Post-16 and HE Committee meeting some decades ago.

He tells me that the people in the picture are Mick Dawson, Antony Allchin, the late lamented Alan Marriott and Andrew Powell.

Here's Iain and Paul Baker picking up their GA Outstanding Service Diplomas in 2016.

Chris Durbin and SLN - 1997

A letter from Chris Durbin was published in the January 1997 issue of 'GA News' (No. 46)

Chris worked for some time with the BBC on a series of programmes in the futuristic sounding 2000 series e.g. Japan 2000 (an excellent series) and Brazil 2000, both of which were on heavy rotation in my classroom around that time. Cue the big telly being wheeled in from the office and the curtains being closed...

Chris was also one of the co-founders of the SLN Geography Forum which was behind a great deal of the innovative practice that started to be shared into the early 2000s. I've mentioned SLN Forum in a previous post. This was the Staffordshire Learning Network. It was co-founded with Kate Russell, and Andy Holt.

I know that there will be many teachers whose practice was influenced by this bulletin board, and will remember the supportive atmosphere it engendered.

I had a chance to meet Chris at the GA Conference in Canterbury, 2004, where he was presenting, and also met up at a later GA conference as well which Chris attended.

From the SLN Wiki:

The SLN Geography Forum began on 7th Sept. 1999 when Chris Durbin posted the first message. A week later he replied to his own message. On 16th Sept. Kate Russell posted her first message - no-one replied! That same day, the first of the local Staffordshire teachers, Richard West, posted a message. Chris Durbin provided the only reply. On the 21st Sept. Kate had a second try - no-one replied!

Chris now lives in the Netherlands, and would normally be travelling in his role inspecting schools around the world.

An article on SLN in TES provides this quote on its evolving nature:

"is a bit like a shanty town - it grows and changes with the people who do things".

References

SLN Wiki Page: http://geolinks.pbworks.com/w/page/11412793/FrontPage

The Forum link now tries to sell you Hemp Oil

https://www.tes.com/news/staffordshires-learning-net-unites-geographers-world-wide-web

Memories of SLN are welcome - I am sure there are many teachers of a certain age who remember being part of this community.

1988: GA Awards began

1988 saw the first GA Awards. This was a new initiative for the GA, but continues to this day, and I have been fortunate to have quite a few of these over the years, including a number of Silver Awards.

Here were 1988's winners, which included a former President.