Staff changes at Solly Street

The Spring editions of the GA's journals are now out, and the GA Magazine has a staffing update - and a new look.

I wish Isabel Richardson all the best for her new role and adventure. 

She was very important to my own GA Presidential journey as the CPD and Events co-ordinator she got me involved in lots of GA activity as well as organising my conference at the University of Surrey in Guildford in 2022 - a hybrid event which added extra complexity to the proceedings.

She was also busy resorting the GA Archive and also helping with finalising the Geographer's Gaze project which I was part of.

Good luck to Liam who takes over the role. I look forward to catching up at the GA Conference in Sheffield in a couple of months' time.

Geographers' Gaze Project

I worked on this project with Peter Fox, another former President for over a year and a half on and off, with several meetings at Solly Street and some other work remotely.

Isabel Richardson had done a great deal of preparatory work at Solly Street on the lantern slide collection, which used to number in the tens of thousands. Isabel had been cataloguing the collection.

The plan was to make use of a fund generously donated by former Honorary Treasurer Brian Ellis, to bring these images back out into the open, and provide some ideas for their use in the classroom as well as some context.

I worked with Peter Fox and we co-wrote the accompanying text for each image on the GA website.

The website area is now live, and there is also an article that I have written for the latest GA Magazine.

My original version of the text was a little longer than the final version, which we agreed needed to be a bit tighter to increase the instant accessibility of the resource.

For those who may want a little extra detail on the images, you can download the longer version from Slideshare here - it's over 30 pages long:

A Geographer's Gaze

A couple of months ago, I went up to Solly Street to have another meeting for our Geographers' Gaze project.

We have identified some images from the archive and have created some lesson materials for their use in a number of contexts. They will be appearing on the GA website in 2022, along with other guidance for using images generally and a little context about the significance of lantern slides in the GA's history (and geography).

Thanks to the other members of the team, and to Brian Ellis for funding the project.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license