Geography and all that Jazz

I'm preparing my contributions to the Geographical Association Conference today. The conference will be held at the University of Derby , which is my favourite of the three venues. It runs from the 4th to the 6th of April. The first day of the conference doesn't involve any of the usual workshops. I will be heading over to the Association at Work session to grab a bite to eat, and chat to Ian Cook (who features in this month's 'Geographical' magazine coincidentally) to talk about a Follow the Things project I'm doing between now and the end of June. Later that afternoon, it's the public lecture from Ellen MacArthur , followed by the GA Awards. I know that something I worked on has won an award, and there may be a few more in the offing too... Then it's the wine reception, followed by a few drinks with esteemed geographer colleagues... Friday is the main day of the conference, with sessions from early in the morning to late in the evening. My ...

For the last few months we've been working with the amazing folks at the John Muir Trust to put together a booklet of missions which marries the Mission:Explore style of missions to the aims of the trust, which are to encourage young people to experience the landscape, and care for wild places. John Muir was the father figure of nature conservation, and quotes from him have been included to connect the missions with some of the ideas that he had over a century ago. The resource is part of the celebrations for the Year of Natural Scotland, 2013 You can get to see the missions on this GRAPHICLY page.  It will be available in other locations shortly, and I'll add the links to those as they emerge. Here's a slide that I've used in many of my presentations... Get out and about this Easter... and don't forget to take the opportunity to Mission:Explore...