MEDICAL SCHOOL POST DOCTORAL SOCIETY (MSPDS) MEETING
Minutes: Meeting 47
Date held: Wednesday7thJuly2010
Chair:Dr Emily Goodall
Present:
Stuart Hunt (Acting President) -Dentistry
Emily Goodall (Treasurer/Acting Vice President)-Neuroscience
Scott Allen (Secretary)- Neuroscience
Cher Cartwright– Human Metabolism
Heather Mortiboys -Neuroscience
Julie Preston- Infection and Immunity
Kay Guccione – Post Doc Developmental Officer
Jenna Stevens Smith-Human Metabolism
Kathryn Vaughan-Infection and Immunity
Emma Bird-Dentistry
S Mohanty-Human Metabolism
1. Apologies for absence
Orla Gallagher
Claire Druce
Jennifer Parker
Dan Hampshire- Cardiovascular
Dominic Sloane-Oncology
Matthew Trikic-Oncology
2.Minutes of previous meeting
The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed and signed.
3. Actions agreed from previous meeting
a) Social Event
Action Agreed: - Emily to send out advertising email- forward to next meeting
b) Leaflet Distribution
Action Agreed: Emily to update the existing leaflet prior to the next meeting. - Completed
d) Publicising of the Brainwaves Society on the MSPDS website
Action agreed: Cher and Jenna to get together to discuss this.-Completed
e. Research Day Update
Action agreed: Julie Preston to ask around I & I.-Completed
Action Agreed. Kay to provide example of induction packCompleted
f. MSPDS Name Change
Action Agreed- Jenna to mention this at the communication Meeting she is attending. Move to next meeting
Action agreed –AN AGM date to be set with Kay checking whether we can book the appropriate room. Completed Afternoon of the 2nd of September
g. AOB
Action Agreed-Kay to speak to new starters in the dept and point people towards the SRDS seminar at 12 pm on the 22nd June.- Completed
Stuart informed the committee in terms of progress, nothing new has happened. Kay has spoken to Alaria, there is academic and post doc champions from each department and feedback forms that new starters can fill in. However, Kay informed the committee that she is still needs a post doc oncology representative and non one she has contacted has replied to any emails. Julie informed the committee that she has emailed her dept and found that a personal email works better than a formally MSPDS headed email. Kay has departmental lists from Kevin Oxley that are incomplete and not comprehensive. Julie asked the committee whether Clinical Research Fellows come under the umbrella of the MSPDS, it was agreed that they can be if interested.
4. MSPDS Communication
The committee need to come up with better ways to improve advertising and communication of the MSPDS to the society.
Ideas discussed were,
Julie- Need to update advertising posters quicker and not leave old posters up.
Stuart-Stick with a personalised compartmentalised approach to advertising MSPDS events. i.e. have a central committee email which goes out to members and then members from each department circulate the email at their departmental level. Julie is currently doing this in I & I with successful results.
Jenna- suggested that pictures of departmental representatives/Champions so the Post doc community know who their local MSPDS rep is.
Kay- to follow up inductions after Kay has given the new starter all their info, a departmental rep from the MSPDS could speak to the new starter directly inform them of the society and help them with any concerns/issues they may have. Very much like the Buddy system that used to run across the departments.
Action Agreed-Kay will email the relevant person from the committee when new starters arrive so the rep can speak to them person to person.
Website- Kay informed the committee that the website needs to be updated fasterand we need a timeline of achievements on there. New Starters will look to the website first for information on the Society, therefore the website needs to have more info on it and be up to date. Emily informed the committee that Cher will need help running the website. Kay volunteered to update the website when she can. Cher informed the committee that she needs to know about up and coming events faster. The committee decided that as soon as an event is agreed on, it should be advertised on the website as a first priority.
Kay informed the Committee regarding USPACE and that it would be a good idea for the MSPDS to utilise it, as the MSPDS lacks a forum for discussion. Cher informed the committee that there are training courses available for users and administrators and there has been an offer to train the MSPDS directly. The committee decided that a number of people would volunteer for the training course and then look to set up the MSPDS on UPSACE.
Heather, Julie, Emily and Kate all volunteered to attend the course
Kay also informed the committee about the use of Facebook, not as a tool for organisation but as somewhere to have a mission statement, achievements, contacts lists etc. Kay also suggested that email signatures regarding up and coming events should be at the bottom of every email.
Emma raised the point that prior to setting up the websites we have to push through the name change. Medicine, Dentistry, and Health Post Doc Society was discussed as a name change.
Action Agreed- Emily to send an email out to the society regarding the change and to assess any thoughts members may have.
5. Oncology Representative-Addressed earlier in the meeting.
6. AGM Update/Executive Committee Nominations
Emily has put together a poster describing the executive roles the committee decided that Coffee Morning Co-ordinator should be added as an executive role.
Action Agreed- Emily to update the leaflets and add the date of 2nd September and to email out to the post-doc lists regarding the event date and nominations
Action Agreed- Scott to email out to the committee to gather skills base and CV enhancers
The committee decided that the Ballot Box should first be put in the coffee room on C-Floor.
Kay raised the subject that there are 200 post docs in the faculty and re-iterated that we need to promote the society better. Jenna raised the point that holding an executive role generates skills that would be useful for building alternative careers and that there should be links to the alternate careers day. Heather raised the point that there may be post docs in the faculty who don’t want to stay in science long term and therefore do not get involved in the society. It was discussed that PhD students and non post docs may feel that they cannot benefit from being part of the MSPDS. When advertising ourselves we need to let people know that the society is there not just for the benefits of post docs. Building stronger links with the PhD society is also a must.
Jenna raised the point that the PhD society have changed the way the mentoring scheme works focussing on development of PhD students inline with the change from RTP to DDP modules which promotes the development of a skills portfolio. The next meeting is on the 15th of July, the MSPDS should have a representative who goes to the meeting, it was discussed whether this is a role of the president of the MSPDS
7. SRDS Session Feedback
The committee discussed the disappointing turnout at the SRDS session organised. Feedback from a new post doc from I&I was that although she found the session useful to a degree she did not get as much out of it as she expected, due to the fact there were no examples or case studies presented. This was discussed at a previous MSPDS meeting but never came to fruition in the meeting.
Action Agreed- Emily to email Penny regarding the ECA to ask her to send the form onto Kay
8. Social Event
a. Cheese and Wine Night
This is a cross faculty event running on the 5th of August in Firth court 4.30pm-7.30pm. The posters and tickets should be ready next week. It is designed as a social and networking event with a wine tasting competition. There seemed to be alot of interest at the coffee morning in May, however knowing numbers is essential as it is important not to have a repeat of the Post Doc Ball where too few tickets were sold.
b. Any other ideas- as time was at a premium the committee decided that if anybody had any other ideas they should email around the committee.
9. Alternative Meeting Times
Julie raised the point that a number of people from her dept cannot make Wednesday lunchtime meetings and raised the question whether we can have different meeting times. Kay suggested that we could have a referendum at the AGM or set up a doodle page with alternative meeting times.
10. AOB
A social event was discussed by the committee to promote team working within the committee and celebrate our hard work over the last year. It was discussed that members could get together for food and drinks one evening during the week.
Action Agreed- Scott to email out to the committee and set up doodle page to find a suitable date
Jenna informed the committee of the Big Bang Fare at Kelham Island that is going ahead to promote links with museums and the brainwaves society. There is a meeting on the 8th of July at 3.30pm. Jenna also informed the committee of the Art and Neuroscience event that is running in Sheffield from the 9th of July for three weeks.
Action Agreed- Scott to email the Neuroscience dept to advertise the event
Kay informed the committee of the science behind singing lecture she attended
Action Agreed- Kay to find out more information and inform the committee
Kay informed the committee that there is an MBB/APS coffee morning happening on the 8th of July at 3.30pm in MBB F2
8. Date of Next Meeting.
The next meeting is August4th, 2010 in room FU32.
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