GA Presidency Month 10: June 2022

June is the final major month of the school year - for me at least - there are others who have to go on for quite a long way into July, or who have perhaps largely finished by then depending on which country they teach in, and the relative importance of the exam season to their timetable.

The first part of the month was during my half term, which included the Jubilee weekend, but it was certainly back with a bang to the final half term of the year.

National Fieldwork Week ran from 6th-10th of June. We hope it may be back next year.

Find out more about National Fieldwork Week here. 

The week had the theme of CHANGE. 

The latest GeogPod was released on the 4th of June, and features Paula Richardson and I talking about the GA's National Research Report and how that fed into the development of the National Fieldwork Week.

Episode 53 of #GeogPod is now available!

In this episode, @GAGeogger speaks with @GeoBlogs and Paula Richardson on fieldwork

Listen now at https://t.co/hLSfHDfVhp

Series 9 of GeogPod is kindly sponsored by @CambridgeInt#geography #nationalfieldworkweek #podcast #education pic.twitter.com/sk62VGtEQS

— Geographical Association (@The_GA) June 4, 2022

Thanks to John Lyon for hosting - see if you can spot the question I wasn't expecting... :) 

Day by Day

6th of June

The RGS-IBG AGM, followed by the Awards Ceremony was on my original agenda, but the tube strike led me to have to cancel these plans unfortunately.

And then the weather on Monday morning was torrential rain followed by a lull when I managed to get outside with one group.

Colleagues in other years also got involved.

7th of June

The sun shone and I went outside with all of my groups.

8th of June

The weather changed back to rain, which started to clear by mid morning. This time I was able to get out with a group and explore changes in Ely.

9th of June

Three groups went out today.

I went on a Cambridge GA Branch Walk through the CB1 redevelopment in the evening.

This was organised by the Cambridge GA Branch and led by former GA President Chris Kington - it was very entertaining and informative. Also attended by another former GA President: Keith Grimwade.

Former GA President Chris Kington led a superb @CambGA tour last week giving geography teachers the inside scoop on redevelopment in the CB1 area. Want to be more involved with your local GA? Get in touch. We'd love to hear from you 😊 #geography #geographyteacher pic.twitter.com/hOJvOgdNRE

— Cambridge Geographical Association (@CambGA) June 13, 2022

10th of June

Southwold

Chris Webster has run the Southwold-based Geography Fieldwork Academy for a number of years, although he returned to the classroom during the lockdown and mothballed the operation. It is now back up and running and offering NEA and other sessions for students.

They have also created the GeogIt app.

I visited them for the day.

This included a quick tour of Southwold with Chris where I ended up seeing a few new developments in the town and talking to the Mayor as well as seeing the classroom spaces which Chris makes use of when he has groups of varying sizes.

At the end of the day, we had a picture taken with the group he was helping that day. It turned out to be the college where my own children went! (although they didn't do Geography...)

In between this I also found time to have a lovely lunch and a pint of Adnams (of course) in the Sole Bay Inn.

There were many other Presidential bits and pieces that happened in the middle part of the month. I'm missing out all the usual tweets 

On the 17th of June it was the start of the planning for Conference 2023 with the first Conference Planning Board meeting for 2023. This lasted for two hours, and as President I chaired this particular meeting. The next meeting will be chaired by Alastair Owens as he will have started his Presidential term by then. Next year's conference will take place in Sheffield between the 13th and 15th of April. The theme is 'Collaborative Geographies'.

GA Governing Body meeting was next up.

This took place at Queen Mary University, London

I travelled down to London on the train on the hottest day of the year so far and ended up (after a detour to Hammersmith) at my hotel in Brick Lane. The evening before was a meeting followed by a curry and drinks at Aladin restuarant on Brick Lane itself.

Can I recommend the Premier Inn Hub hotels if you are staying in the area for an evening.

This was followed by a Governing Body meeting with a very full agenda on a very hot day. There are three GB meetings a year. It was the final meeting for several trustees, including Susan Pike, whose term as Past President is also coming to an end at the same time as my Presidency will. I have three more GB meetings to attend in that capacity before ending my term. There are also co-opted and named trustees and I could also put myself forward for election. We heard the results of the recent Trustee election, which will be revealed later in the year.

I also spent an afternoon talking to the PGCE colleagues at Homerton College.

This was a useful taster of my Prince's Teaching Institute session, which also includes my colleague Claire Kyndt. Booking details were here.

Events continued to appear in my calendar:

- GI Pedagogy meeting where we discussed the progress made so far and planned for the next phase of the project - this also culminated in planning for an event next month in Madrid which took a great deal of my time

- Additional meeting at Homerton College for mentors as well as students to look at fieldwork - this was sadly disrupted by the train strike, so I had to do it virtually for an hour which was a little more stilted as a consequence than a face to face event but I'm told by a few people there that it was well received and very useful for their future roles

- Consultancy over a new resource on the theme of disasters, with an educator currently based in Australia - this follows an earlier resource based on Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

- Discussions over a new Primary resource coming in 2024 which I will work on over the summer, along with a new GIS resource

- Edits for an article that is going to appear in the next issue of the British Cartographical Society's magazine Maplines

- Small input to GeogLive!9 on the topic of fieldwork - mostly to thank everyone who had put together some inputs and who had contributed to the Fieldwork Week itself. It's been great to see the support of the EYPPC in particular for this event.

- Reading minutes of the various phase committees and other groups who meet several times a year to discuss how they can support the Association and fellow members - it's important as President to try to keep across all this activity, and there is a lot of it. 

Other things I got up to:

GeogMeet has been organised by James Riley from the Perse School in Cambridge for the last four years or so. It has been disrupted due to the pandemic. The recordings are available on the GeogMeet YouTube channel.

I was going to say hello in person, but instead I had to record a hello message to the student presenters. 

- Travelled down to London to see Pat Metheny at the Eventim Apollo - the first time I've seen him since a trip to Hull City Hall before lockdown during the city's time as City of Culture - it was a remarkable concert - I also took the opportunity to wander a bit of West London that I hadn't been to before (or at least for a while) It was a superb concert as well.

We also had a whole late flurry of activity:

- discussions on the ongoing work on the GA website

- ideas for further support for members as the year progresses

- planning for further strategy meetings

The final bit of good news for the month arrived on the last day of the month. We had been waiting for the final report from EPOS: the Belgian agency for ERASMUS projects, on our D3 Project.

The objectives of the D3 project were to:
1. Promote the use digital technologies and open data tools in learning and teaching.
2. Increase the capacity of learning and teaching to integrate democratic engagement considerations into educational plans and strategies.
3. Establish suitable styles of learning to access and integrate open data into schools and
4. Improve educational stakeholders’ response to the need for data and information literacy in schools and teacher training.

We had a very positive final report on the project, and I was particularly pleased to have written a series of lesson blueprints which were featured here, and animated by Greg Donert.

Ending with the usual Twitter stats for the month - a lot of National Fieldwork Week tweeting has upped the number again, and also the impressions - I had almost 100 000 impressions of my tweets during that week alone.

Looking at my stats in the last ten months, it's clear that being President of the GA increases your followers. Since I opened up my tweets from their previous private status at the start of my Presidential year, I've added over 2000 new followers. 

I'll be closing my tweets again on August the 31st and weeding out any accounts that aren't authentic.

Just two months to go now. Next month looks just as busy as this one to be fair.

GeogPod: National Fieldwork Week

The latest GeogPod has been released and it features Paula Richardson and I talking about the GA's National Research Report and how that fed into the development of the National Fieldwork Week.

 This starts on Monday the 6th of June.

Episode 53 of #GeogPod is now available!

In this episode, @GAGeogger speaks with @GeoBlogs and Paula Richardson on fieldwork

Listen now at https://t.co/hLSfHDfVhp

Series 9 of GeogPod is kindly sponsored by @CambridgeInt#geography #nationalfieldworkweek #podcast #education pic.twitter.com/sk62VGtEQS

— Geographical Association (@The_GA) June 4, 2022

Thanks to John Lyon for hosting - see if you can spot the question I wasn't expecting... :) 

GA Presidency Month 9: May 2022

May can be a bit of an anti-climax after the GA Conference which is held in April, but it also marks the start of the final third of the Presidential term, when thoughts turn towards legacy and also transition for the incoming President as well.

I started the final third of my GA Presidency this month. The work continues though for all GA Presidents (and also the Vice and Past President)

I started the month by checking 2nd proofs of an article I had been asked to contribute to one of the GA's Journals: Teaching Geography, which began in 1975 with Patrick Bailey as the Editor. This will be published in the Summer 2022 edition.

The GA's Governance Working Group meets ahead of the GA Governing Body, to set the Agenda and also consider some strategic decisions and thinking. We decided on a date for meetings later in the month and year.

The official images from the GA Conference are generally shared by the end of April, and work goes on to write an illustrated summary of the event for the GA Magazine. These were added to a Flickr album here. See if you can spot yourself if you were there. If you missed the event completely you can purchase a set of recordings from the GA Shop.

The Geographers Gaze project moved on with web pages being built and captions added from the work I completed with Peter Fox.

I had a CPD meeting with Guy Nunnerley - the Head of Geography at Wisbech Grammar School -  regarding my own PDR (Professional Development Review) - an annual or biannual obligation for many teachers - focussing on KS2-3 transition. Thanks to Guy, who I used to work with when he started out in his career - for giving up the time to meet with me and share what he and his department are doing, and their plans for next year. It's important as teachers that we get to see what other schools are doing and I've been very fortunate to visit hundreds of schools over the years in various roles.

Open Day was held on the 7th of May at school - we welcomed visitors and parents who were thinking of joining the school. I then headed home to join the Charney Online Conference.

This was an excellent one-day event with good conversations. I used the presentation here:

Thanks for the kind words. I also learned a lot from the other presenters and have access to their presentations as well.

The following week was a D3 Multiplier Event.

The GI Pedagogy project had been presented at the EuroGeo Conference in Mytiline in Greece the weekend before but I was unable to be there. We heard that the British Council had approved an extension due to COVID preventing a lot of our work, which was good news, so thanks to them. Another ERASMUS project involving my school: Rise the Life was also able to carry out its long delayed residential mobility to Turkey as well.

The ESRI UK User Conference returned to a face-to-face format, and I had permission to make my way down there. Sophie Wilson and Brendan Conway from the GI Pedagogy team were there. I also had the chance to meet up with the ESRI Education folks, Steve Brace from the RGS, Shanique Harris (who is leading a new RGS project called Geography for All) and Francisca Rockey from the Black Geographers group.

I had articles published in three of the GA's journals - I missed out on 'Geography' this time round. Catch them here if you are a subscriber.

Add them to your membership perhaps.

There was also a meeting of the GI Pedagogy project the following week.

Other things that I did this month:

- Completed some consultancy for a VR firm who are building scenes for students to explore with additional educational content. 

- A day working at the Forum library in Norwich 

- Attending part of a meeting of the GA's Post 16 and HE Committee - one of several who support the work of the GA and give up time to meet at weekends and also complete work according to a Work Plan which is then reported to Education Group.

- Discussions with Alastair Owens: the GA Vice President, about the format of the GA's Awards and preparations of papers for Governing Body

- Working on some resources for TeachIt Geography

- Working on a forthcoming book project which I can't mention

- Consultancy with a design agency

- Worked on some materials for the BBC to accompany a film made by De'Graft Mensah, which is part of a series on Empire and Ghana (where his family is from).

COBRIG is the Council of British Geography and has been in existence for many years.

The Council seeks to include representatives of all major geographical organisations in the UK. It invites representatives from the following organisations:

British Science Association (Geography group recorder) (BSA)
Conference of Heads of Geography in British Universities
Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Northern Ireland (CCEA)
ESTYN
Geographical Association (GA)
Office of Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, England (OFSTED)
Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) (RGS with IBG)
Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS)
Scottish Association of Geography Teachers (SAGT)
Welsh Joint Education Committee/Cyd-bwyllgor Addysg Cymru (WJEC / CBAC)

Alan Kinder was unable to attend and asked me to stand in for him. We had several papers which were included in the agenda and I gave an update on activity largely based on the National Research Report.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license

The final week brought some more projects:

 - an article for a cartography magazine, which looks good

- some consultancy with a design agency and others

- preparing for the next Governing Body meeting in June by writing some papers

- many personal emails and DMs on social media to share resources and ideas

- discussions around GIS use in the profession

GeogPod is the GA's Podcast, which is hosted by John Lyon. There have been over 50 episodes of the podcast so far, and remarkably I hadn't been asked to do one until now.

Paula Richardson and I were interviewed about the National Fieldwork Week. This runs from the 6th to the 10th of June.

This should be out next week.

The month ended with the start of half term holiday. Just another half term to go before a much needed summer break, when I hope to progress some projects but also decompress as we approach the end of my Presidential term, and support those stepping up to the next stage: Alastair Owens and Denise Freeman.

I was also interviewed on the morning show on BBC Radio Guernsey.

The theme was the National Fieldwork Week.

You can listen again until the end of June. I'm on from 11.16-11.30

The usual Twitter stats at the end of the month. Quite a lot down on the previous month which had all the tweets relating to the GA Conference which were all amplified.

That's three quarters of my Presidential year done.

Thought for the Day

From Sir Cyril Norwood - GA President, 1946

COBRIG Meeting

As part of my Presidential journey I was asked to attend a meeting of COBRIG: the Council of British Geography.

This includes members from the following organisations - some educational and others from awarding bodies, inspectorates and government bodies. 

British Science Association (Geography group recorder) (BSA)
Conference of Heads of Geography in British Universities
Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Northern Ireland (CCEA)
ESTYN
Geographical Association (GA)
Office of Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, England (OFSTED)
Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) (RGS with IBG)
Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS)
Scottish Association of Geography Teachers (SAGT)
Welsh Joint Education Committee/Cyd-bwyllgor Addysg Cymru (WJEC / CBAC)

COBRIG has been in existence since 1988.

It was created:

"to advance the interests of geography, and is made up of all the main organisations of geographers and geographical educationists in Britain."

Prominent among its initiatives in the educational context has been the recent COBRIG-inspired Geography into the Twenty-First Century (Rawling and Daugherty, (1996)), which has at its heart the central issue to which this article has been addressed: putting the  geography back into geographical education. This offers the basis of a fruitful agenda as represented, among other things, in Haggett’s delineation of ‘the central and cherished aspects of geographical education: a love of landscape and of field exploration, a fascination with place, a wish to solve the spatial conundrums posed by spatial configurations’ (Haggett, 1996, p. 17); in Johnston’s advocacy of a refreshed, dynamic, and distinctive place geography (pp. 73-4); and in Jackson’s concern for developing sensitivity to place connections at a variety of scales (p. 91); or, as Allen and Massey have put it: 

‘We live local versions of the world and in so doing we have to locate ourselves within a wider global context. We only understand the changes taking place in our own backyard when we begin to understand how changes taking place elsewhere affect our world’ (1995, p. 1)

Source: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/pluginfile.php/631169/mod_resource/content/1/geog_sk6_06t_5.pdf 

Neil Simmonds and Eleanor Rawling were originally involved from the GA's perspective, along with Richard Daugherty.

COBRIG previously ran seminars for geographers as well through the 1990s in particular.

This meeting was held at the Royal Geographical Society - the first time I'd been there for about three years and it was good to be back in such a historic location.

It was lovely to meet some old friends - particularly Erica Caldwell who was representing SAGT / RSGS, and also to make new acquaintances.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license.

GA Trustee Election

There are two candidates for the vacancy for the GA Trustee Election.

Deadline for voting by GA Members is the 26th of May.

Here are the candidate statements. Best of luck to both candidates.

The ballot is now closed.

Official GA Conference 2022 Photographs and Recordings now available

If you were present at the GA Conference 2022, you will have seen Shaun Flannery, the official photographer for the event, who was very busy moving from one event to the other and capturing the variety of sessions that were on offer.

A selection of his photos are now available on Flickr.

Here's a couple featuring me - if you were there, see if you can find yourself:

Me opening the GA Teachmeet in the evening of the first full day - copyright: Shaun Flannery / Geographical Association 2022

At the Public Lecture and GA Awards we announced the next Vice President (and future President) of the GA: Denise Freeman - copyright: Shaun Flannery / Geographical Association 2022

Now if you missed out on coming along to the conference and booking but are now regretting it, we also have an offering for you.

Around half of the overall conference sessions were streamed live or recorded on the day.

They can now be purchased separately. 

GA Presidency Month 8: April 2022

This is the big month for any GA President since 1976 (prior to that the GA Conference was held over the New Year and the first week of January to kick off the President's year and allow them to set out their stall.)

The first part of the month was obviously dictated by the preparations for the GA conference, and ensuring that as many people as possible were able to attend in a format which suited them. This resulted in a number of late changes to the programme - inevitable when there are so many hundreds of people involved and their circumstances change.

We were also keeping a wary eye on COVID cases rising and the need to avoid unecessary contact with others - although guidance had also changed. Some people reconsidered their plans to attend the conference.

As always, the approach to the Easter holidays meant a great deal of extra work for the team at Solly Street and building excitement with late bookings pinging in minute by minute towards the deadline for registration, which was then extended for a few more days as there was a rush of last minute bookings.

April started with me already on holiday, and there was plenty of pre-conference organisation and admin to do. It was time to complete my GA Presidential address, which I thought I had done, but kept tinkering with until a week or so before the time.

I updated my Chirpty circle diagram ready to put into my Presidential lecture, which shows the people I interact with on Twitter.

There are many elements to draw together for a conference and they all came together well. I am so grateful to everyone who took part, and particularly to Isabel Richardson, Becky Kitchen and everyone at the GA, many of whom came along in person.

I prepared my presentation for the GEOLive event, which was based around my book 'Why Study Geography'.

My Presidential lecture was also finalised, and then tweaked endlessly, and there were still things that I remembered I was going to say.

On the 10th of April, I headed over to Guildford - first long drive for a while and first time on the M25 since before the pandemic. 

I got involved in a few things:

 - Arriving on Sunday and spending four hours helping to set up the GA reception desk and stand, stuff delegate bags, prepare lanyards etc. Also finally got my GA Presidents badge.

- Meeting the team who were going to be live streaming sessions, including Maddie Duggan who I had met before

- A lovely Italian meal in Guildford the evening before everything started, up on the High Street.

April 11th-13th was the actual GA Conference. It was really wonderful.

- Talking to exhibitors and welcoming delegates - I spoke to as many people as I could

- Welcoming and chairing the Public Lecture by Professor James Cheshire

- Attending the wine reception and also the conference dinner on the first evening

- Sorting accommodation 

- Chairing a number of sessions, including Professor Ian Cook's excellent Follow the Things session, 

- Trying to speak to as many of the attendees, exhibitors and delegates as I could

- Doing my Presidential Address to a large crowd - a little down on previous years, but there were people joining online and I was very pleased with how it went - thanks to Alastair Owens for the introduction

- Chairing a discussion with the author Cal Flyn - her book 'Islands of Abandonment' was one of my favourite reads of recent years and has been nominated for (and won) a whole range of awards. It was lovely to see Cal, although there were a few technical issues on the day which meant she couldn't see us.

- Attending a number of sessions including those presented by Sharon Witt and Helen Clarke, Alan Kinder and Eleanor Rawling

- Lunch sat in the sun with my department from King's Ely Geog, who had come out in force to supprt me. Particular thanks to Claire Kyndt for stepping up and presenting a workshop on her fieldwork ideas based on the 'Dear Data' book

- Up to the Teachmeet at the end of the day, at Seasons Restaurant near the Cathedral. Some wonderful presentations, particularly the one from Iram Sammar. You can watch a recording of the Teachmeet here. 

- Food at the networking and board games evening - a chat to Peter Vujakovic of the British Cartographic Society

- Down to the Beermeet - a bit of a walk - some great conversations and thanks to those who bought me a drink

- Chairing a session on Follow the Things by Professor Ian Cook

- Watching several excellent sessions, and also presenting my own session at the GEOLive event.

- Helping to take down some of the conference elements that I had helped to set up on the Sunday

- Chairing the final session of the day: the Rex Walford Lecture

A few images from the day - there are many more to come, but I haven't been given the links to view them just yet.

Delegates will be able to access copies of the recordings now.

Thanks to all the GA Solly Street HQ staff:

Copies of presentations will also be appearing on the GA Conference webpage.

Some other things I got up to this month:

- continuing to work on ERASMUS projects, including contributing to the GI Pedagogy project

- liaising with the various schools that I work with in a number of ways

- creating some materials for the MAT that I am supporting for the next term and a bit

- setting up multiplier events for ERASMUS

- pencilling in meetings at the Council of British Geographers (COBRIG) at the RGS-IBG

- working on my paper for the 100th IGU in Paris - my session has been scheduled for the Wednesday of the IGU.

- heading down for a day wandering London, visit to RGS-IBG and then an amazing conference 

- setting up a D3 multiplier event on Eventbrite

My Ordnance Survey webinar needed preparing for the end of April, and this was on the theme of fieldwork. Thanks to those who came along. The recording will be available for that soon as well.

Slides here:

Digimap for Schools - Fieldwork Webinar.pdf from GeoBlogs

Also preparing a suite of resources for a Prince's Teaching Institute event in June.

April 29th saw the GA going green...

Make sure that you start planning for the National Fieldwork Week.

I rounded off the month by sharing the news that we have a new elected Trustee vacancy and also have a new co-opted trustee who will 

I also visited Cambridge and got a copy of a number of new books, and saw some excellent art from Ai Wei Wei, and David Hockney.

As usual, here are the month's Twitter statistics - a bumper month with a quarter of a million impressions.

I'm also closing in on 7000 followers having added over 1200 in the 8 months since I made my Tweets open for my Presidential year, and 200 in the last month alone.

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 Conference 2022 - full Delegate Handbook now available

The final GA Conference Handbook for Delegates is now available.

Printed copies will be available for those who join us face to face in Guildford.

I can't wait to collect one. Thanks to everyone who was involved in 

Visit the conference page and download the handbook by clicking the PROGRAMME link.

You can also book your tickets if you haven't already done so. You can see the REMOTE sessions in the handbook too.

A new pathway for the GA Conference

Attendees at the GA Conference have a number of pathways which they can follow if they are interested in particular aspects of the subject e.g. GIS. 

These are often flagged up with colours in the conference programme.

Delighted that this year’s #decolonisegeography pathway for @The_GA conference is now out. Kindly put together by @geogramblings and Chris Winter, it offers a route through conference for those interested in decolonial and anti-racist education #GAConf22 https://t.co/7QSHUeyRjT

— Decolonising Geography (@DecoloniseGeog) March 17, 2022

Chris Winter and Kit Rackley have worked to identify sessions which relate to the theme of decolonial and anti-racist education. I am grateful to them for their time.

There are some very useful sessions which have been identified.

These have been published on the Decolonising Geography website.

A PDF can be downloaded here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g2VctmPkLdwRKgzb2dLga5NKRrgplprf/view?usp=sharing

GA Conference 2022 - Sessions 126-139 now previewed over on LivingGeography

I'm taken the time to share a little preview of all of the sessions at the 2022 GA Conference in the coming weeks, and will also update them after the event with links through to the conference resources that are shared. This concludes the process.

It will be lovely to have my hand on a physical copy of the final programme and go through it with a highlighter as a ritual of attending conference since 2004.

You can book to see your choice of sessions here. 

Here are the people involved in the final batch of sessions in the programme, which have now been added to the blog:

• Nicola Walshe
• Ben Hennig
• Coco Huggins
• Caiti Walter
• Edward McGowan
• Philip Maudsley
• Becky Kitchen
• Alice Mollison
• Elena Lengthorn
• Luc Zwartjes
• Karl Donert
• Daniel Raven Ellison
• Fiona Sheriff
• GA Publications Board
• Alice Hoy

GA Conference 2022 - Session 101-125 now previewed on LivingGeography

I'm going to share a little preview of all of the sessions at the 2022 GA Conference in the coming weeks, and will also update them after the event with links through to the conference resources that are shared. I'm now on sessions numbered 101-125 in order of their appearance in the conference programme. 

It will be lovely to have my hand on a physical copy of this.

You can book to see them here. 

Here are the people involved in the next set of 25 sessions in the programme, which have now been added to the blog:

• Julia Tanner and members of the GA's EYPPC
• Sarah Khan
• Alistair Hamill
• Simon Catling
• Rebecca Butler
• Catriona Poh
• Rachael Robinson
• Andy Owen
• Denise Freeman
• Susan Pike
• Hannah Steel
• Andrew Jack and others
• Ilan Kelman
• Dan Boatright
• Dawn Thomas
• Martin Gibson
• Shelley Monk
• Joe Usher
• Jo Payne
• Charlotte Foster
• Richard Thompson
• Sandra Patterson
• Charlene McKeown
• David Alcock
• Briley Habib
• Daryl Sinclair
• Matt Podbury
• Catherine Brooks
• Ellie Barker

GA Conference 2022 - Sessions 76-100 now previewed on LivingGeography blog

I'm going to share a little preview of all of the sessions at the 2022 GA Conference in the coming weeks, and will also update them after the event with links through to the conference resources that are shared. I'm now on sessions numbered 76-100 in order of their appearance in the conference programme. Will be lovely to have my hand on a physical copy of this.

You can book to see them here. 

Here are the people involved in the third set of 25 sessions in the programme, which have now been added to the blog:

• Gary Dawson and members of SPC
• Parag Khanna
• Andrew Lee
• Rafael Miguel de Gonzalez, Karl Donert, Luc Donert, Alan Parkinson
• Laura Bytheway
• Megan Richardson
• Dipo Faloyin
• Sophie Wilson
• Michael Simmons
• Julia Tanner
• Jane Whittle
• Georgina Endfield
• Jacqueline Waddock
• Lynda Evans
• Hannah Steel
• Emma Abbate
• David Morgan
• Kirstin Coughtrie
• Peter Vujakovic
• Karen Corfield
• Jon Cannell
• Alice Mollison
• Gill Miller
• Naomi Andersson
• Iain Palôt
• Simon Oakes
• Shaakirah Kasuji
• Dan Whittall
• Lizzie Rushton
• Cyrus Nayeri
• Anna Pennington

Conference booking is now open for the in-person and online conference, as well as for the various social events that are taking place.

Booking is now open for the full range of events at the conference as well.

I hope to see as many of you there as possible to celebrate being able to gather again in person.