CIEC team meeting

Clockwise around table starting bottom right: Nicky, Jenny (with her back to camera), Pam, Maria, June, Joy and Louise

The CIEC team is widely dispersed around the country and much of our contact is by email or telephone.  However, four or five times a year we get together for a team meeting; how lovely it is to meet up in person!

This week all of us were able to get to our office in the University of York except for Su as it was a teaching day for her.   For many of us it was the first chance that we had had to meet our newest recruit in person.  June has been our administrator for a month, but already we feel that she is an indispensable member of CIEC!

June, with Pam and Maria to the left and Jane to the right of the picture.

We also had a progress report from Pam and Maria, our post-doctoral researchers.  It is important to us that what we do is as effective as possible so the work that Pam and Maria is vital.  It ensures that what we do is based upon careful evidence rather than anecdotes.   This time they explained to us how they are ensuring that evidence is collected from as wide a range of those who work in industry as possible.

Maria (left) and Pam

Later in the day we spent some time thinking about the core purpose of CIEC.  This is important as we are involved in such a wide range of different activities such as producing resources for teachers, providing CPD, facilitating links between children and industry and supporting STEM ambassadors to work in schools.  These various activities are carried out by different members of the team so it is vital that we make sure that we are all pulling in the same direction.

Jenny (with back to camera) outlines her thoughs about our team strategy to the rest of the team.

It would be interesting to know how clear our purpose is to our partners and users.  We will send a copy of our acclaimed primary resource ‘Working Scientifically’ to anyone who lets us know what they think it is by adding a sentence to the comments before the end of October.