Welcome to another Worldly Wednesday.
This will be the final one for 2025, as it's the final week of term.
I also had a Zoom call linked to my World of Music blog. This starts on the 1st of January 2026.
Please fill in my Google Form if you haven't already to share your musical memories.
Also some writing as usual on a Wednesday.
In the evening it was over to Norwich for a social event organised by the RGS Eastern Region Committee.
We had invited the RGS President Professor Dame Jane Francis to come along and talk about her work in Polar regions as Director of the British Antarctic Survey.
We were the first Regional committee to have Jane come and speak to us.
This was also our Christmas social event, with mulled wine on arrival, which was well received and very tasty - my first of the year.
We were very well hosted by Norwich School and the event was held in their refectory. We ended up with over 180 people attending which is a great number.
Jane Francis talked about her experiences in Antarctica as well as the recent work that the British Antarctic Survey have been doing in this area.
There were some lovely visuals and new BAS videos shown during her talk, with its mission statement for BAS of "Polar Science for a Sustainable Planet".
She discussed the work of the Sir David Attenborough research ship - which can now access the sea around the continent for much longer than in the past, the scientific research being undertaken to extend the climate data from ice cores back earlier than one million years ago and find the oldest ice, the work on the Thwaites Glacier and the Icefin robot submersible, the importance of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in driving other oceanic circulation, the role of the Antarctic Treaty and the rapid changes taking place due to warm atmospheric rivers from Australia across East Antarctica and the changes in the weather on the peninsula, which is affecting the huts being looked after and conserved by the Antarctic Heritage Trust.
Jane then answered a good range of questions before it was time for food and refreshments.
I helped out with serving the wine, and the food - including hot sausage rolls, cheese straws, mince pies and brownies went down very well. Thanks to the Norwich School team for those.
As an aside it's good to see the mention back in 2016 when the Ice Flows Game I wrote the Education Pack for was launched.
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