Kilnsey Away Day
Our research group holds weekly meetings for members to present their work and receive feedback. These sessions help improve presentation skills and share research progress, but they sometimes lack depth in discussions. To foster focused conversations on collaboration, methodologies, and data management, as well as team building, fifteen of us enjoyed a 3-day group retreat in the exceptionally sunny away Yorkshire Dales.
We picked out a beautiful nine-bedroom lodge house for the trip, surrounded by winding country lanes, craggy hills, and a field of frolicking lambs right next door! Despite some last-minute panic with securing hire cars and business insurance, everyone navigated their way to the lodge on Wednesday evening without issue. After pizzas and a few hastily acquired beverages, we began settling in. A series of card games seemed to ignite a competitive spirit in some. Even when he wasn’t playing, Wuhu eagerly supplied sage advice (“play this card, not that one”) and bolstering support (“you will lose anyway—don’t worry”). After several “final games”, we called it a day, tired but in high spirits.
Bleating lambs provided an early alarm to those on the wrong side of the building, along with Martyn who arrived at the lodge in time for breakfast. The first day began with discussions and presentations from Richard, Maria, Ailish, and Matthew, who got things going by summarising some of their research. Discussion then turned to a large-scale project proposal on wildfires, which sparked the interest of many and fuelled plenty of discussion. This was followed with an overview of machine learning from Sandip and Wenjie, again with generous time for discussion and clarification. Opportunities for extended discussion and big ideas were the primary reason for planning this away day, and we certainly explored these topics.
Being surrounded by such a beautiful landscape, and with the rare emergence of the British sunshine, we couldn't spend all day inside. Ailish led an ‘easy’ 2-hour hike around the hills, which required a little scrambling in places. This was a lovely opportunity to talk more informally about our research and lives outside of work, all whilst enjoying some stunning Yorkshire views. After the walk we made our way to a nearby pub for a brilliant dinner which was filled with a nice mix of research and life chatter. On returning to the lodge, the competitiveness from the previous evening was reignited with rematches of card games before peopled retired for the night.
Friday morning’s agenda began with a discussion about the TOMCAT code released on GitHub, where team members shared their opinions on various handbooks available there. This was followed by a brainstorming session on how to best utilize the Teams group channels. Next, Ben conducted a training session on using Visual Studio Code. He explained the advantages of different environments and how to accesses code on remote servers. At the end of the session, he and Matthew offered some advice on using Python and how to transition away from IDL.
We finished the trip with one last lunch together before we all made our way back to Leeds. This was a great trip for the group to get to know each other better professionally and personally. We all took a lot away from the experience, at the very least we all have a better understanding of what everyone in the group is doing and how to make our work more efficient.