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Sink or Swim? Is this the last chance saloon???

12th May 2013 15:03 by Anonymous (not verified)

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Hello to all of you, colleagues in the HEaTED South West Region. Let's toss a few ideas around! there is a lot of good practice happening in our special area. Plymouth had a brilliant Staff Development conference as well as helping HEaTED on a new project (PALS). There is activity in the Bristol area and Bristol University hosted a managers seminar to explore some Technicians Performance Standards and I am always impressed with the enthusiasm and dedication of Technical Professionals and am privileged enough to meet many of you.

What is vexing me slightly is why we don't get wider support for our regional network? We have great talent, interesting venues, wonderful locations and great people. So why did we have to cancel our last Regional network meeting? I know that we are a massive county, long distances to travel, costly travel too, busy etc. but we have a lot to contribute both regionally, locally and nationally. Let's try and get to the bottom of it. Please send your suggestions on what we might do? For example, we could hold a regional mini- conference once a year and market that; we could suplement it with an on-line event or do one or the other. An on line event would eliminate the need for the travel for many or we could combine both to get maximum penetration.

I could produce a simple survey if it  was wanted to investigate further. Whatever the reason it would be such a shame to say goodbye to those meetings so pull together for the common good, there is much to shout about and look forward to.

HEaTED will be re-scheduling the cancelled meeting and holding it at Bristol University around about the middle of July. Do get in touch, contribute, comment, join in and keep our region special. 

See you soon somewhere in the South West but reply to this in the meantime!!!

 

Matt

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Ali Kuhl

Hi Matt,

I think there are a lot of contributing factors here. I could not attend the event as I had just returned from an extended period of leave and could not take another day away from work so soon. The event was scheduled fairly soon after the Easter holidays, when many staff take leave, so perhaps they also had the same problem.

Our area is as you say massive - so travel and transport may have been an issue for some. It would be good if we could see a list of poeple who have registered for events in order to plan car shares etc - is there a mechanism for this?

I attended the re-launch event last year - and was surprised at the low number of attendees, in particular staff in lower non managerial grades were very few in number. In my experience here in Bristol we are not encouraged to attend these events by our technical managers or accademic supervisors. Generally we get e-mails from HEaTED, but that's all. As you can imagine we all get so many e-mails these days that some are deleted without being read properly. 

I may be totally wrong here, but I do feel that some staff think these events are only for managers and senior tech staff, moreover they feel as though attending would be frowned upon because they are having time away from their normal work and going on a "jolly". Perhaps these issues could be overcome by more encouragement "on the ground" so to speak from managers and supervisors.

I notice that there are no other replies to your post - so maybe apathy rules OK!

 

Alison.

Matt Levi (not verified)

Hi Lynne and Alison

Many thanks and welcome and I take on board all of your points. We do have an interesting day and am finalising the agenda as we speak. The start/finish times are 11 to 3.30 and the venue is the Hawthorns conference centre at Bristol University.

I would welcome a further discussion by phone, Skype or e-mail to make sure that we begin to address some of these issues and continue to keep good people involved and contributing and look forward to working with you both on the day. In setting out the agenda we have tried to make clear who the target audience is and I hope to have this with me soon. 

In the meantime thank you for your constructive comments (and welcome others) which I hope to action and please do get in touch.

Matt

Pete Dunton (not verified)

Hi Matt,

I think one of the problems is that there is no sense of community amongst technical staff *within* universities & collages, let alone across the region. I suspect that for reasons of tribalism, indifference, lack of information, lack of time, mistreatment by higher management, isolation, cuts etc, technical staff huddle together in facilities or departments and the fortifications go up, islands to be defended against anything that might weaken their position and risk jobs. 

I also think that we need to be clearly shown what we can get out of being in a larger community and we are a very cynical bunch, who know there is no money for us at all. This is very hard nut to crack, because what we get out is what everyone else puts in.

Anyway, I fear that before regional meetings will fly, larger faculty-wide, institution-wide communities will need to be developed.

Pete

Dr Katherine Forsey (not verified)

The agenda for the next South West Regional Network Event is now available on the HEaTED website and in the Online Group Topic for this event. I very much hope you can all join us so we can continue discussing the important issues you have raised in this thread.

Katherine.

Matt Levi (not verified)

Pete makes a good point (thanks Pete). I understand and agree but feel that learning from each other regionally gives us a chance to get a bit of light releif and an opportunity to take best practice home and shared in our own working environments. We need an assualt on all fronts in my humbe opinion.

Pete Dunton (not verified)

Hi Matt,

I did sound terribly negetive for which I apologise. I did not mean to suggest that there is no point going forwards. It will be hard to break though to the larger technical community, but you are right in that all methods and routes should be used to achieve that end.