The first annual CMCB retreat will be held at Stratford YHA, Oct 19-20 2011. The retreat will provide us with an opportunity to assess and celebrate progress and to plot a course for the next 12 months. It is also an opportunity to get to know our new recruits, to broaden and deepen our perspectives, and to become just that little bit better at what we do.

The format of the retreat represents the PI's collective best guess about what will work. Think of the format as an experiment. One of the goals this year will be to design an effective format for next year's retreat.

The talks will be 5 minutes plus 10 minutes discussion. Students, postdocs and PIs will all speak. You are asked to talk on "the most exciting aspect of what I am doing". With just 5 minutes, it is more important than ever to structure your talk properly. Don't give a half hour talk at 6x speed. If you can do everything from one slide, then do so. There will be prize(s) for the best question(s).

 

 

For the after dinner presentations, each team should WORK OUT A SHORT SCIENCE-RELATED AFTER-DINNER PRESENTATION addressing one of the following tasks (or a related task of their own devising):

 

Guidelines: do not spend more than a couple of hours (per person) of your valuable time on this - the idea is to meet for coffee and do a bit of creative thinking together, not to shut down your experiments.

 

- write and present the first few minutes of the first scene of a scientific soap for tv or radio

- what software does the CMCB / the world need and doesn't realise it

- what hardware does the CMCB / the world need and doesn't realise it

- 10 dos and dont's for aspiring scientists: (update Peter Medawar's "advice to a young scientist")

- dragons den: make a pitch for a new science-related business idea

- funding trends: find out statistics for funders and compile advice

- make a kiosk presentation (no sound) about your project / lab / the cmcb

- future science - what will the CMCB / you / your peers be working on in 10 years time?

- the h-index is widely reviled .. invent a new index ..

- scientific excellence - what is it?

- the ideal collaborator / boss / student / profile

- the perfect scientist - a day in the life

- make a day in the life movie about the life of a real researcher in the CMCB

- present on: "science - what is it?"

- storyboard a very short documentary about the CMCB

- iconise some complicated things

- iconise the areas of interest of the CMCB labs)

- develop one or more 'graphical abstract's for the CMCB / lab / your project / a public figure

- make a "how not to give a talk": make a powerpoint presentation that deliberately includes all the worst powerpoint sins

- design a merchandising range for the cmcb

- invent some useful new words

- design an induction programme for new members of the CMCB