Annual Meetings
Our Annual Meetings are now very much a celebration of science, a celebration of TSN activity and a chance to bring the network together for the only time in the year. While giving members the chance to share their experiences, it gives the leadership of TSN an invaluable opportunity to get feedback from its members about how to progress TSN forward, providing more of what our members want. For new members it’s a chance to hear about how we work and get involved in the future.
They have evolved from the Autumn kick-off conferences, typically taking place in the first half-term of the academic year (October time) and since 2000 have featured an entertaining science talk by renowned scientists and science communicators.
The evenings have also become renowned for the Great Giveaway of science equipment donated by local laboratories, a fine buffet and relaxed atmosphere for teachers and scientists to meet and chat over a glass or two of wine. Typically 100-150 people attend this event which is traditionally held at the John Innes Centre.When is the next Annual Meeting?
The 2009 TSN Annual Meeting will be held at John Innes Centre Marking Darwin 200 we are planning a Mammoth event Speaker: Prof. Tony Stuart "The Lost World of the West Runton Elephant" To help with catering please let us know if you are planning to attend. Doors 5.30pm, all the usual highlights with some exciting extra's |
Up to 6 weeks before the event, all schools and colleges across Norfolk will receive a flyer advertising the event. Members will be notified by post or email. FLYER now available here.
Previous Annual Meetings
Resume's of previous events are listed here showing our wide diversity in keynote speakers ...
2nd Oct. 2000, Our first keynote speaker was Tim Hunkin spoke candidly about safe-cracking and much more, with a talk entitled 'llegal Engineering: A History of Safes and Safecracking.' As described in the flyer, this had nothing to do with TSN but was highly entertaining!
17th Oct 2001, 'Musical squares' was an entertaining exploration of different aspects of sound and hearing presented by Mike and Wendy Gluyas. Musical squares had just returned from an extensive UK and European tour.
10th Oct 2002. After a short business meeting TV personality Johnny Ball, the popular communicator
of science and mathematics, entertained us by talking of his long experience as a science communicator with adults and children.
8th Oct 2003. Our Annual Meeting gave new coordinator, Dr. Phil Smith, a first opportunity to meet teacher and scientist members of TSN. After a brief introduction about TSN (principally for the benefit of new members), Phil spoke briefly about his experiences as a partnered scientist and his passion for the continued growth and development of TSN maintaining its 'bottom-up' approach. Phil then introduced the speaker for the event, Prof Andy Watson from the University of East Anglia, who gave a fascinating insight into 'how likely was life to arise on Earth'. Andy's talk included a discussion about the possibility of Life on Mars, the evolution of life on Earth and 'Gaia ' - the earth a whole system - and the anthropic principle.
5th Oct 2004. Our tenth Annual Meeting (held for the first and only time at UEA) was a sparking celebration of TSN's first ten years and set-off the next 10 years with a bang! This year's speaker was the Reverend Ron Lancaster founder of the internationally acclaimed Kimbolton Fireworks whose talk 'Fireworks: principles and practice' was well received by new and existing members alike. No birthday is complete without a cake and after the cutting ceremony generous slabs of cake were shared among the gathered teachers and scientists.
11th Oct 2005, The night before Rambert Ballet Company arrived in Norwich with their latest triple bill that featured the new production 'Constant Speed' for Einstein Year, teachers and scientists got a behind-the-scenes look at the science and art behind the production.
'Constant Speed' used contemporary dance to illustrate Einstein's three theorems of Brownian Motion, photoelectric effect and special relativity. The evening successfully combined a brief lecture about the science behind the 
production given by Prof. Ray Rivers from Imperial College (scientific adviser to Mark Baldwin, choreographer) and an illustration of the association between physics, energy and movement by Lincoln Allert, an animateur from Rambert.
8th Nov. 2006. This years talk, given by Dr. Jonathan Hare, proved extremely popular with teachers and scientists alike as Jonathan revealed some of the secrets behind the Science of 'Rough Science' (the successful BBC TV series). Want to know more tricks of the trade, check out Jonathan's website, www.creative-science.org.uk
Oct 2007. We marked International Polar Year with an entertaining talk and vivid pictorial account of life in Antarctica given by John Digby, a former British Antarctic Survey scientist and enthusiastic photographer (www.johndigby.co.uk).
Nov. 2008. With International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) just around the corner we were delighted that Dr. Lucie Green, solar astronomer and science communicator, was able to join us and give our keynote address at the 2008 TSN Annual Meeting. An excellent talk was supported by stunning images of the sun and videos of solar activity while Lucie described lucidly what the sun meant to her.
Website designed by TOC Communications