Patchworks and frameworks: core team meeting

The TASH core team has met to catch up, exchange progress reports, and work out where we're going next; and it's all looking pretty positive. The biggest piece of news is that we've decided to cancel the October 31st meeting, although aim to have all the documents and ideas ready for that date, and release them through our ever-evolving website. The thinking is if we're going to do mostly front-led update stuff, we might as well save everyone's time, and do it virtually, rather than ask people to give up a couple of hours at a busy time of year. So, if it has been in your diary, thank you; and feel free to reclaim it for catching up with blogs / talking to colleagues / going fishing, or whatever.

It was really nice for everyone to get together and find out what's been going on. And it's a lot - Steve has been beavering away at the technical side, and exploring the best ways for our core team (growing like topsy) to communicate with one another; and his LeTS colleague, Louise, has been sorting out the finances, the website, and generally keeping us all pulling in the same direction. Chris has been talking with the Medical faculty, and organising a meeting where we can all sit round the same table to discuss TASH; and Jen and Linda have carried on their ferreting out of resources from Engineers, and putting them into some kind of coherent framework. Kath's been talking to the Science faculty and working on the design and feel of the site - her rather natty metaphor today was about a patchwork resource, stitching together disparate sources into something coherent, structured, and with little somethings for everyone. And Willy and myself haven't, contrary to appearances, just been scratching ourselves and drafting gargantuan emails; we've been organising focus groups, thinking about what we want in the resource, and working out how to do it. We've now divided up the different tasks going forward, and it's hoped by the end of October we'll have an outline map of the resource, some more concrete ideas about design, and maybe even some examples of how it might all work to publicise via the website. More details about events as they unfold will be posted here, and we'll carry on with this more public side of the conversation and debate throughout the project's lifespan.