Monday 27th July 2015 - Advice on how not to organise a conference

I am in the process of changing rooms, and that involves sorting through a mountain of 'stuff' that I have accumulated over the years. I've identified 4.5 metres of books that I no longer need, and already dozens of sacks of papers have gone for recycling - or to the confidential waste shredder.

But in the course of this long sorting process I keep coming across some gems from the past.  One document that got me chuckling again was a short piece published in the Finnish journal Terra (Vol 96, No 3, pp. 227-8) late in 1984.  It was headed 'Golden Hints to Make Your Congress a Great Success.'  When I first saw it all those years ago I immediately knew what meeting it was that had set off these sarcastic thoughts, despite the fact that the author, Matti Seppälä, did not identify the place - I had been there and experienced exactly the same things.  It was the four-yearly meeting of the International Geographical Union - a very big event.  I have checked with Matti and he doesn't mind me quoting from some of his 'instructions' in this blog. I've added one or two of my own comments on some items.

- "The registration of participants should take place only at one small table in a narrow corridor, and the identification cards for everybody should be in just one small box.  Do not use alphabetical order or divide people into groups as this might increase the speed of registration." [I will add that I registered on a very hot Sunday afternoon when the queue was not too great - at other times it must have been impossible]  "To register 2000 participants by this method should take no more than 1000 minutes, which is equal to 17 hours.  Do not make any estimates like this in advance of the congress."

- "Standing in a queue for a few hours only does good to people, mentally as well as physically.  They get to know each other.  It is also good for them to get some fresh air and sunshine in the queue before sitting in dark lecture halls later in the congress."

- "The list of participants should only be available to the organizers.  Who else could be interested in the other participants?  They can be met occasionally by chance in the corridors [or in the queues].  The important thing is, of course, that the organization committee knows the participants."

- "Do not, before the congress starts, tell the authors of abstracts whether they are allowed to present their papers or not.  Nor is it necessary to print a list of papers and give it to participants.  They should come and take a look at lists pinned on the doors of lecture halls just before the morning and afternoon sessions."

- "Do not make any advance selection of which papers should be presented orally.  It is possible to have 52 papers in four hours in one session.  It does not matter if there is just four minutes for each presentation and no time for discussion." [Confronted with the realization that he had come all this way to have 240 seconds in the limelight, my then Head of Department asked me to take him off on a visit to some urban renewal districts instead - that must have increased the time available to the other presenters in his session by around 5 seconds each.]

- "When you invite people to a welcome party do not mention in the programme or on the map the exact address of the celebration, otherwise almost all those invited will find the place and this might cause chaos."

And the element I remember as the most memorable (I have slightly reworded Matti's original here to fit my own recollections):
- When the banquet is to take place, keep people waiting outside for an hour beyond the scheduled start time but do not indicate which doors to the building they will need to use.  Serve the food on a long table in a narrow room, putting "the empty plates at both ends of the table.  This makes the atmosphere very intimate when nobody can move" either way at the middle of the table once they have collected their food, and those who are still waiting outside get a further lesson in patience which does them good.

[Actually, rather than a feeling of intimacy at the middle of the table I detected a sense of panic, and at least one person mentioned the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' as a historical precedent for our predicament.]

This centre-piece of the congress was part of a three stage travelling circus.  I had already take part in a very well-organized specialist meeting in Rouen, a short train journey away from the major capital city that was the seat of the actual congress.  And I went on afterwards to an oustanding field excursion in Munich and Vienna.  The organizers in those other venues clearly needed the advice Matti Seppälä later offered them.

Tuesday 21st July 2015 - The opportunities and fun of being on a university executive

It may seem that my last blog, on 30 June, was a little negative about life on a University Executive Board.   It was not intended to be, but to show that - as in many other walks of life - existence near the top of an organisation can be a little fragile from time to time.

But life as a PVC, and more latterly as Deputy Vice-Chancellor, has had huge elements of interest - not least in the people it has given me a chance to meet, and the places I have been privileged to go to.  I blogged on 31 March this year about the countries I have visited during my period on the university executive.  Within the UK I have also been in places I probably would never otherwise have seen.  I am not boasting here - most of these places I will never go to again, and I never really became part of them - but they provided interesting experiences, often of buildings or locations that are not open to the general public.

In London I have actually got to know the premises of the Royal Society and the British Academy a little - sitting on opposite sides of Waterloo Place in the St James area.  Within the same district, I have been inside a number of the London clubs - the Institute of Directors, the Athenaeum, the Reform, the RAC - places that, as a teenager growing up in West London, I never imagined I would ever see inside.  I have several times been to meetings, meals and other functions in the Houses of Parliament - on one notable occasion actually bumping into one of my daughters (a civil servant) in the Central Lobby.  A particularly memorable hour was spent sitting on the terrace of the House of Lords in a group of four, talking with a peer about European policy matters.  I have also been to dinners in Middle Temple Hall, and been inside several of the headquarters of the great professional associations (such as the Royal College of Surgeons, or the Institute of Civil Engineers).

Outside London many of the most interesting places I have visited have been universities.  Of course, as I have pointed out in earlier blogs, I had already been to many of these before, but as a member of the 'senior team' I have been to private function rooms and Vice-Chancellors' suites that would otherwise have been off limits.  Which is the most memorable of those locations?  Probably the Vice-Chancellor's room at the University of Greenwich, in the former Royal Naval College.

But it has not just been about places - life as a PVC and then DVC gave me the chance to meet many interesting people.  As a group, some of the most impressive have been ambassadors - both those of the UK and those posted to the UK by foreign governments.  High Court judges have also been memorable companions over dinner.  My own interest in classical music has meant that I have felt very privileged to meet and spend time with Sir Mark Elder (principal conductor of the Halle Orchestra), Elizabeth Watts (opera singer), Trevor Pinnock (early music specialist) and, in Thessaloniki, Goran Bregovic.  (If any readers of this have never heard of him or his Weddings and Funerals Orchestra I advise a visit to YouTube.)  Most notable of all was sharing a lift with Alfred Brendel, the pianist, and getting him to autograph one of his cd's that was already in my possession.

Others I have been lucky enough to meet include Eddy Izzard, the comedian; Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the explorer; Lord Robert Winston, the scientist; General Sir Mike Jackson, who led the UK forces in the first Iraq War; Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach (but then I had also taught him when he was a student in Sheffield); Sean Bean, the actor; and Brian Lara, the cricketer.  I have met a number of Nobel prizewinners - the most special of whom to me was the Caribbean writer Derek Walcott with whom I talked over lunch about Heptonstall and the late Ted Hughes (and Walcott, like Brendel, was kind enough to autograph one of his own works at my request).   There have also been Hilary Mantel, and Philip Hensher amongst other writers.

Senior politicians I have got to know to some extent have included David Blunkett, David Willetts and Nick Clegg. But I have also met the current Leader of the House of Commons, Chris Grayling, and I awarded an honorary degree to Richard Caborn who was Minister for Sport at the time when London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. There have also been members of the Royal Family.

So life as a PVC and DVC created superb opportunities for interesting experiences.  But I also wonder whether some of the most influential people I have met have not yet showed their potential.  Perhaps some of those 88 or so student union officers I worked with over the years, or some of the other students whose hands I shook while conferring their degrees on them, will hit the top.  And then I'll pretend that I saw their potential all along!