I grew up near Bath but have lived elsewhere for a while, only moving back here earlier this year. My background is in visual arts and I studied for my bachelor’s in Cardiff. During my degree I got involved with local galleries and organisations, and I realised that what I enjoyed most was helping to run different projects.
After my degree I moved to Belfast, where I spent two years working at Catalyst Arts, a not for profit arts organisation. My job involved keeping the office organised and making sure we applied for funding on time, as well as helping to programme and run lots of exhibitions and public events within the gallery and throughout the city. I was involved in facilitating things like a residency programme where we sent an artist to sea on board an oceanographic research vessel, and was also part of a board who ran a live art and performance festival in 2015.
I’ve already worked on a couple of events here and I’ve been so impressed with the amazing questions and answers I’ve seen so far! It’s been a lot of fun and I’m learning loads along with the students. Everyone has been lovely, I’m settling in well and am looking forward to the next event!
]]>What does it mean?
It means that we have funding to run Biomedical themed Zones and some general zones through to 2021.
It means we expand the number of zones we’ve been running and let more students and scientists take part.
It means we can further develop the evidence and rationale for encouraging more organisations to financially support the project.
However the tapered nature of the grant – the number of zones it funds reduces sharply – means we need to succeed in getting more funders for the project.
This award is the culmination of 8 years of funding from the Wellcome Trust. In 2008 we asked them for £30,000 to pilot I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here. They said yes. Since then we have enjoyed continued and growing support. Two Society Awards have allowed us to expand and connect over 1,000 scientists with over 60,000 school students. We’ve been able to develop the technology, the format and to evaluate it to help us understand the impact and to help us evidence how it improves students attitudes and scientists activities.
The next five years are about improving the project. We’ll target the schools that don’t normally take part in STEM enrichment, we’ll involve scientists and engineers who don’t normally do outreach. We’ll improve the website to make it easier to roll out new projects and add new features to allow teachers to better understand how their students use the activity. We’ll improve our evaluation to better understand the engagement that we facilitate and to build a stronger evidence base to encourage more organisations of the value of supporting our projects. And we’ll be talking with those organisations to see how we can help them help us.
We’ll be taking on new staff both permanent and temporary. It’s going to be an exciting few years.
]]>
We’re expanding and we need someone to help us keep all our ducks in a line.
The job involves a mixture of bookkeeping, project and office management.
You’d be helping the team run our international portfolio of online science engagement projects from our central Bath offices. We’ve a lot of clients and projects and need to keep tabs on what we’re delivering and how much time and money we’re spending on delivering them.
It’s a part-time role and you can choose your hours (within reason). We think between 6 and 12 hours per week will do. Salary will be £12 per hour.
If you think you’d enjoy helping to inspire the next generation through using your tiptop organisational skills then please send an email and CV to [email protected]. We’re looking to recruit as soon as possible so please don’t delay, but we’ll keep it open until we find the right person.
UPDATE:
We had a really strong set of applications and have now offered a post to one of them who shall introduce themselves soon.
]]>
Later this year Tim Peake is due to travel to the International Space Station. It’s the first time the UK has sent someone into space. It’s pretty damn exciting. It’s a major opportunity for engaging people with STEM and space in general.
At GM Towers we’ve often discussed how to make our I’m a Scientist Zones more topical to help teachers connect the themes to things happening in the real world outside the classroom. So the Principia mission and grant scheme was a opportunity to grab. The scheme is funded by the UK Space Agency and supported by the European Space Agency.
We put forward a proposal called I’m an Astronaut, Get me out of here but we’ve made the focus about the support team, about the people who get the astronaut into space and make their time in orbit useful. There will be four rounds and the winning Astro Support Team member from each round goes into a final round where they join Tim in a Live Chat with the school from their round which gets nominated to chat with our astronaut.
It promises to be a very interesting event that will draw in even more teachers to our projects. But strategically it is important to verify that we can spin out additional events quickly and efficiently. Time will tell.
]]>
You would have thought that they might try to be a bit warmer face-to-face.
It seems not.
Tonight I went to pick up my daughter from Guides. She’d been visiting the Foodbank on Church Street in Trowbridge. I went to park in the car park opposite. It was full. Then I noticed an office car park sitting almost empty. I drove in and waited five minutes. You don’t want to pick up early. Not cool.
I thought there was a chance the one parked car would be leaving and might lock the chain, but decent people would wait the couple of minutes I was going to be. Sure enough I was back within two minutes and the car was still there.
However in the two minutes it took me to cross the road, walk into the foodbank and emerge with my daughter someone had chosen to lock the chain across the carpark entrance. Nice warm hearted Capita.
According to Sam, the security guard who had chosen to lock me and my daughter in, they have problems with people parking overnight. According to Sam they had a clear sign warning that the gate would be closed. According to Sam it the policy to lock cars in.
But Capita, if you care about your parking, wouldn’t it be better if you told your security guards to close the car park before people parked. Wouldn’t it be better if you put up a new sign in a visible position. Wouldn’t it be better if your security guard approached someone parking and asked them to move. If you care about your community, wouldn’t it better if you waited ten minutes or an hour to see if they really were planning to park overnight instead or watching on CCTV for the moment they got out of the car. Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t make a Dad stand outside with their young daughter in the rain.
Capita, you have a reputation as a cold, uncaring company. In Trowbridge you are backing up that reputation with actions. It’ll take more than corporate PR and adverts to get people to like and trust you. it will take actions.
]]>
Ever since we established I’m a Scientist here in the UK we looked to expand overseas. The phenomenal success we’ve had in the UK has however kept our attention here, with a few notable exceptions. Kristin Alford took the initiative in Australia after interrupting her family holiday to enjoy a pint with us and a few scientists in the Jeremy Bentham following one event. We managed to start up the Irish events with our existing team. Malaysia approached us, and with funding from the Wellcome Trust we are in phase II planning for I’m a Scientist Kenya.
Since the start we had conversations with people from the US, but they haven’t led anywhere. Until now.
We are working with Tristan Maclean, formally with BBSRC and NBI, to set up a 501(c) not-for-profit company in the USA. It’s called Keep On Questioning and it has a mission…
…to inspire, engage and educate the public by connecting them with professionals and experts.
The first project is to run a pilot I’m a Scientist Zone in May 2015 to demonstrate the event can work there. If successful Tristan will seek funding in the US to run more zones in the autumn and next spring.
]]>
My slightly exotic surname belies my real origins in the city of Leeds, but I have been living in the South West for the last year and a bit. I have just completed my M.Sc. in Science Communication at UWE and I am now a Project Wrangler working on I’m a Scientist and I’m an Engineer. At the moment, however, I am mainly working hard on getting up to speed with everything that goes into making these events happen! Luckily, I feel I’m settling in fast thanks to the lovely team here. They are helping me through patience, pizza and a photo-realistic Lego avatar.
Before my master’s I studied for a bachelor’s in neuroscience, and between these two life events I was lucky enough to work abroad in Canada and New Zealand. Whilst out there I found that, no matter how beautiful the scenery, I was completely unable to stop talking about science and rambling on about new ideas I had heard on obscure podcasts. On my return I decided that I should at least be getting paid for this service, and set my sights on a career within science communication.
So over the last year I have got myself involved with as much as I can. On top of my course I have volunteered at science festivals, presented a weekly community radio show, performed at Science Showoff, and edited the science section of the university newspaper. I have also started a local science communication group, Rising Ape, with my former course mates, where I produce podcasts and science pub quiz events.
At Gallomanor I hope to learn buckets about what it takes to run a hugely successful science engagement project. I’ve already started moderating and have been mightily impressed with both the students’ thoughtful questions and the scientists’ insightful answers. Most of all, I’m excited for the upcoming British Science Week Zones, so I better get back to work and wrangle those wily projects to the ground.
Until then, watch for my posts under my hip new street name. Modantony, out.
It’s Christmas time and we’re all off for our traditional lunch and games.
The office is going to be closed through to the 5th January 2015.
But if you really need to get hold of someone, please just email. We’ll try to respond.
]]>We’ve found someone. He’s accepted and should be starting with us soon. He’ll introduce himself very soon.
Do you want to help run the best science engagement project in the world?
We’re looking for someone to join the Gallomanor team full-time at our lovely office in the centre of Bath. You’d be working on I’m a Scientist and I’m an Engineer primarily, but also providing general support.
The job involves helping to recruit and support scientists and schools (not difficult as we’re over-subscribed), supporting the moderator team (that is fun), working with funders (who are all lovely) & keeping everyone on track and on time (not as easy as it sounds). There are new projects in the pipeline and more and more I’m a Scientist events popping up around the world that need support.
Our ideal candidate will have the best organisation skills ever; be very web-literate; communicate clearly and be interested in science, engagement and education.
You’ll also have a good sense of humour and be curious enough to have read this post, researched us and will tell us about their favourite orange thing.
We’re offering a starting salary of £17,000 pa and an immediate start.
To apply please email [email protected] saying why you’re the one that we want along with a CV. Send it in as soon as you can. We’ll update this post when we’ve found our ideal person.
Finally if you’d like some tips:
]]>
3 years and 11 months ago I wrote this post advertising for an Project Executive to join the team.
A certain Rosie Schultz answered the advert, and one telephone interview later she joined Gallomanor and the I’m a Scientist team on January 4th 2011.
In those years we’ve seen a transformation in the company. We went from just the two of us in our Bradford on Avon offices to a stellar team of five working out of the centre of Bath.
The event has gone from a 20 zones a year minnow to a 60 zone a year international set of events with a wide range of funders. We gone from fumbling around trying to work out what to do, to a highly efficient outreach operation.
And now, four short years later, Rosie is moving on.
All of us at Gallomanor are sad to see her go, but she is leaving us in great shape.
So this event is her last IAS, but she is hanging on for one more Gallomanor Christmas lunch before starting at Sustrans in January.
We wish her well and, Rosie, you are always welcome here.
*We will be recruiting, but first we need to work out an internal readjustment.
]]>