Thursday, January 27, 2005

Beginnings/Endings - Meeting Report

Thanks to everyone who attended the Beginnings/Endings meeting yesterday and made it such a success. Special thanks to Andy and Wen-Chuan for their engaging presentations which led to great discussion.

There were several matters arising from the meeting:

1. Joanna Latimer, who attended the first part of the meeting as an invited guest, has offered to try and arrange for selected speakers from the SOCSI spring seminar series to speak with the Post Grad Café on Thursdays before they present to the school. Please see details of the series at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/news/seminars.html and email the team with suggestions/requests for speakers who you would like to invite to speak to the café. These meetings will be in addition to our regular meetings and will be important in raising the profile of the café, so please get in touch.

2. MSc students in SOCSI who express an interest in research and would like to get a taste of what the doctoral experience is like in the school will be invited to attend meetings that interest them.

3. Doctoral students from JOMEC (and possibly elsewhere) will be invited to be involved in the café in addition to those from SOCSI and CPLAN.

4. A provisional calendar of meetings will be drawn up and placed here for further reference.

5. We will have regular meetings, every three months or so, entitled ‘Mixed Methods’, where presentations will be given about the methods/methodology employed in people’s projects. The February meeting will be the first with the Mixed Methods theme. One presentation has already been offered and we would like to have another two, so please contact us as soon as possible if you are interested.

6. Several people discussed how we could use this site for continuing debates from café meetings and how we could have ‘virtual’ café meetings. The site can be used to do this in two ways. Firstly, people can email us any posts they would like placed on the blog. We welcome the use of this facility for introducing new topics, asking questions, making enquiries etc. Secondly, by clicking on ‘comments’ at the bottom of each post, comments can be left on any topic and a chain of dialogue can be formed. The use of these facilities will generate a sense of community by making the site polyvocal and allowing people who have difficulties in attending meetings to be part of the e-café. So get in touch remember to check the site regularly!

If anyone would like to continue discussing issues raised at the Beginnings/Endings meeting then please comment on this post…

Many thanks for your continuing support!

Monday, January 24, 2005

New Venue Confirmed for Cafe Meetings

Hi Everyone

The new venue for cafe meetings has been confirmed. From 26th January onwards we will be meeting in the Glamorgan Building common room from 5pm-7pm.

I have been asked to let everyone know that the main entrance to the Glamorgan Building will be closed from approximately 5.15pm so please try to arrive a little before 5pm to avoid any problems.

See you there
David
Post Grad Cafe Team

Friday, January 21, 2005

Next Meeting - Beginnings/Endings

Hi Everyone

The January meeting of the Post Grad Cafe will be next Wednesday 26th. The theme for the meeting will be Beginnings/Endings and we have 2 speakers confirmed at this point.

Wen-Chuan Lin will be sharing the highs and lows/gains or losses concerning data collection from fieldwork in Taiwan in a presentation titled: "My Way - Gaining Field Rapport"

Andy Aitchison will be exploring the post-war development of Bosnian policing in light of a debate on the role of the state in providing security, and recent shifts to 'multi-nodal' governance of security. His presentation is titled: "Out with the old, in with the old? Reconstruction, policing and the state in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina".

Further details to follow...

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

All the best

The Post Grad Team

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all from the Post Grad Cafe Team!

The passing of 2004 and the coming of the new year brings a mixture of beginnings and endings for many people for a variety of reasons, offering the chance to reflect on the processes of our lives, our identities, our relationships, and our research. Consequently, the theme of our next meeting on 26th January is 'Beginnings/Endings'. If you would like to present at this meeting then please contact us via email. We already have two provisional offers, so if you would like to be the third speaker please get in touch as soon as possible.

The team have many plans for the cafe during 2005 and we always welcome suggestions for activities, meeting themes, etc. Please feel free to comment on any of the posts on the site or contact us via email.