Tommaths (he/him)I've had a fantastic and thoroughly exhausting three days at the Royal Historic Dockyard in #Chatham for #GEMConference23, a #MuseumEd conference by the Group for #Education in #Museums.
Three solid days of meeting new fellow #heritage educators and reacquainting myself with those familiar faces that I run into once a year. It's great to hear what everyone's been up to; their successes, failures and unexpected twists and turns.
The conference is a spread of crowd-sourced CPD, with keynotes from cultural sector organisations and academics breaking up an enormous array of 10 minute presentations sharing lessons learned in the field. There are workshops, too, in which a smaller groups of people are given opportunities to go deeper in to aspects of museum learning work. Almost unbelievably, there are also visits to local sites of interest who are eager to share their experience, and much deserved social activities for winding down at the end of each day. This year, this included a drinks reception on the HMS Gannet.
If you're a #MuseumEducator in the UK, I thoroughly recommend joining GEM. It's one of the best professional orgs that I've joined, and the annual conference is an undeniable annual highlight.