This year once again, I connected with former GA Presidents, including the wonderful Margaret Roberts and Bob Digby - who remain active despite being in their 80s.
At the special meal for longstanding members, there were quite a few former Presidents; Eleanor Rawling, Richard Daugherty, Chris Kington, Keith Grimwade, John Hopkin plus Catherine Owen. Good to chat to David Balderstone and Paul Baker in particular, and catch up with Sandra Patterson.
It was also excellent to catch up with a whole host of other people including Justin Woolliscroft (who invited me up to Hull University each year when he was leading the PGCE course there. He also provided me with a handbook for my department to save me writing one from scratch. He was also heavily involved in the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography. (I have a blog about that too....)
He was talking to Sue Warn - an 'A' level examiner legend.
I had a good chat with David Preece, who is the Head of Geography for Teach First. He was a member of the RGS Education Committee which I chair and always provided thorough and thought provoking contributions to our meetings.
Cath Rule and Rayburn Tours were there, handing out posters and details of their tours.
Paula Richardson spoke to me about the 5th National Festival of Fieldwork which she is spearheading as always. The first one was held during my GA Presidential year and it's a great initiative. Get involved!
Ahead of the session that Matt Podbury and I were presenting I also got a chance to meet Daryl Sinclair, who was part of the team that created the Discover Geography series.
David Wood and Catherine Souch from the RGS were at the GA Awards as were the Time for Geography team - who were picking up more awards for their excellent films. Simon and Rachel were on the RGS stand. Ashley and colleague were here from the Geological Society.
I also caught up with Tom Collins from the Environment Agency with whom I worked on the BETT Award winning Coastcraft resource.
Helen Young was also there to present on the Roblox resources on the BBC.
There were many more conversations during the day and a half that I was there, but I hope this gives you an idea of the great people you can bump into and chat too if you attend the conference... apologies to the great many other fine geographers who aren't mentioned in this post... catch you next year!
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