Farewell Tracey, hello Isabel
Following the sad departure of Chapter Lead Tracey Howe in September ScienceGrrl Glasgow has been in search of a new leader.
The November meet up saw lively discussions about the future direction of SG Glasgow and a new team of volunteers elected. I was elected as Chapter lead and I immediately sought to initiate a delegation of roles, which I feel is required to move the chapter forward efficiently. Joanne Power will therefore continue to organise meet ups, take notes at meetings and look after the Facebook page as General Secretary. Rhona McGonigal will put her artistic skills to good use as Creative Director, coordinating the artistic design of activities at our events. Jean-Christophe Le Bayon will look after the website and Twitter accounts as Web Manager and wee Stanley will be SG Glasgow mascot!
New Directions
Past activities by SG Glasgow have included a lot of public engagement with children through events at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and at the Science Centre. While we wish to continue to engage with children to encourage them to normalise women as scientists and to increase interest in science, we would like to expand our engagement to hard to reach communities.
These communities may include people in:
- Residential homes/sheltered housing
- Prisons
- Detention centres
- Youth centres
- Religious groups
- Refugees
- Mental health patients
- Food banks
- Rural communities
- Women’s aid
- Parent and baby groups
We felt that people in these groups were not normally targeted by public engagement campaigns and science SG’s motto is “because science is for everyone!”, they should certainly not be marginalised.
I will be seeking a residential home to start our new campaign – details will be announced at the December meet up.
Not just public engagement
SG is not just about public engagement. To promote women and girls in science we also need to be collecting data and writing reports to affect change at higher levels -be it in schools or at a governmental level. To this end, we will be seeking someone to fill a data analyst role, collecting data during our outreach activities with the aim of publishing reports on perceptions of female scientists in the groups we engage with.