IGS British Branch – Cardiff 2023
The 2023 IGS British Branch meeting, was held at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences in sunny Cardiff on 4-5 September
Programme of events
The full programme will be available later, but the outline below indicated the start and end of the conference so that you can plan your journey.
Sunday 3rd September
Optional meet-up dinner and drinks for those arriving early – venue and time to be confirmed.
Monday 4th September
Registration and coffee from 0930
Sessions begin at 1030
Lunch
Afternoon sessions
Early Career Glacioologists Group (EGG) event
Conference dinner
Afterparty
Tuesday 5th September
Sessions begin 0900
Lunch
Afternoon sessions
Close 1530
Venue
The meeting will be held in the School of Earth & Environmental Science at Cardiff University. This is in “Main Building” in Park Place – the postcode is CF10 3AT. The building is directly opposite Cathays (pronounced “ka-TAYS”) railway station, which is served by local trains. You can also walk from Cardiff Central railway station in around 25 minutes.
The three rooms that we will use are all on the ground floor and wheelchair accessible:
- Wheelchair access to the lecture theatre is via a platform lift which is designed for wheelchairs but not suitable for mobility scooters.
- The room where we will have lunches and coffee breaks is fully accessible.
- The poster session will be held in the main foyer (“VJ Gallery”) which is accessible via a ramp to the courtyard, or with level access via an internal corridor.
- Men’s and women’s toilets are close to the lecture theatre, with a unisex wheelchair-accessible toilet further along the corridor.
Online participation
The main sessions will be livestreamed on Zoom, with opportunities for online participants to ask questions. You are welcome to present remotely, either live or as a pre-recorded video, though if you pre-record we would like you or a colleague to be available live afterwards to take questions.
Session chairing
We’re aiming for a friendly and constructive atmosphere when it comes to questions, and we’d like to encourage students to participate in this key aspect of the meeting. We will therefore ask session chairs to take the first question after each talk from a student before taking questions from others.
We would also like to encourage students and ECRs to volunteer to be session chairs. If you are willing to act as a session chair, please choose one of the options on the registration form – either “I would like to co-chair with a more experienced person” or “I would be happy to chair alone, or to co-chair with someone new to chairing”. The session chairs’ roles are to:
- keep the speakers to time
- ask a question if nobody else does
- choose questions from the audience and keep control of the discussion
It is a useful skill to have, and this meeting is a good place to learn before doing it at a bigger event! You will not have to worry about setting up the slides and Zoom as one of the organising committee will do this.
Catering
Lunches and snacks during the conference will all be vegetarian and/or vegan – this is our School’s policy for catering at all our meetings. (There is a branch of Greggs across the road for any carnivores who feel they’re missing out.) If you have specific dietary requirements, please do let us know and we will make sure we have something suitable.
The meeting dinner will be hosted at the appropriately named Zero Degrees https://www.zerodegrees.co.uk/restaurants/cardiff/.
We now have a link to the menu choices for the dinner (https://forms.gle/k7fvBuWnzRezX5Qq9)
Accommodation
For those on tight budgets, we have reserved accommodation in the halls of residence in Senghennydd Court (pronounced “Sen-gen-ith”, with a hard “g” as in goose). This is self-catering and has shared bathrooms. To stay here will cost you a total of £76.80 for two nights – one-night stays are not available, unfortunately. Additional nights are at the same rate, £38.40/night. Details of how to book will be available soon. We now have a link for university accommodation, (https://bookaccommodation.cardiff.ac.uk/IGSBB23.bnb).
Senghenydd Court is a short walk from the venue and Cathays station in one direction, and the city centre in the other direction. The postcode is CF24 4DS.
The easiest route to walk to Main Building from Senghennydd Court is to walk along Senghennydd Road to the Students’ Union building. Go into the Students’ Union’s little shopping centre and then go up two floors to level 2 using the stairs or lift. On level 2, turn right out of the stairwell into the foyer, out of the glass doors and across onto the raised deck that’s part of the Centre for Student Life building, then go back downstairs and exit onto Park Place. Main Building is directly opposite.
No breakfast is provided, but there is a kitchen with facilities to make your own. There is a Co-op convenience store in the Students’ Union building, and at least two cafes. Over in Park Place there is a Greggs, a Subway and two branches of Costa.
Please note that the footbridge linking Senghennydd Court to the Queen’s Buildings (Engineering department) and West Grove is currently closed for repairs, so don’t plan to use this as a short cut into the city!
For those looking for a little more comfort, the hotels in and around Queen Street and Greyfriars Road (Hilton, Indigo, Park Plaza, Leonardo, Travelodge) are all very close to the venue. It is also worth looking at the Holiday Inn Cardiff City Centre and the Angel Hotel in Castle St – these are a 15-minute walk away through Bute Park. The various hotels and apartments in Cathedral Road, such as the Beverley, Pontcanna Inn and Lincoln House Hotel are a pleasant 20-minute walk away via Bute Park and the footbridge over the river Taff. If you are planning to drive, you should be aware that most hotels in central Cardiff charge for parking.
Travel
Rail travel: Cardiff Central has direct trains to Manchester (3.5 hrs), London (2hrs) and Birmingham (2hrs) and plenty of connections. You can walk from Cardiff Central to the venue in around 25 minutes, or change for a local train to Cathays station (every 15 minutes, journey time 6 minutes) which is directly opposite the venue. If you prefer to take a taxi from Central station, you need to leave the station via the southern exit of the subway (beyond platform 8), whereas to walk to the venue you should exit at the north side beyond platform 1.
Coach travel: National Express and Megabus both serve Cardiff from cities across the UK. You should try and book a coach that stops at the “Cardiff University” stop, as it is right outside the venue and a short walk from the halls at Senghennydd Court. If there isn’t one available to the University stop at a convenient time, choose “Cardiff” as your destination and it will most likely take you to the main coach station in Sophia Gardens, which is around a 20-25 minute walk from the venue.
Driving: Please try and avoid travelling to the venue by car if possible. Parking in Main Building courtyard is heavily restricted, so we want to keep it for those who need it most – please contact us if you would like us to arrange this for you.
If you need to park close by, there is plenty of long-stay parking in Museum Avenue (directly behind Main Buiilding – there is an entrance on that side to save you walking around) but it’s chargeable, and a whole day will cost you around £18. Payment for parking is by credit card using the ticket machines or via an app called MiPermit.
Cycling: Cardiff has a public bike hire scheme operated by NextBike (currently branded “Ovo Bikes”). Both conventional and e-bikes are available, and there are several docking stations close to the venue. A standard bike costs £1 per 20 minutes, and an ebike is £2 for 20 minutes. Details are here: https://www.nextbike.co.uk/en/cardiff/ovobikes/
If you bring your own bike, there are secure cycle racks at the venue. Cardiff’s city centre now has protected cycle lanes on several of the main roads, notably on the A4161 road where it passes around the north of the city centre. If you would like advice on routes, please let us know.
Air travel: Cardiff Airport has flights to Edinburgh and Belfast. The airport is not particularly close to the city and you will need to take a bus to Rhoose station and then a train to Cardiff Central. The service runs hourly and takes 40 minutes. There is also a direct bus which takes over an hour but avoids the need to change. Bristol Airport is the next nearest airport – National Express operate a coach every two hours that goes directly to the “Cardiff University” stop outside the venue, taking 1.5 hours.
To contact the local organisers, please email Mike Prior-Jones (Prior-JonesM@cardiff.ac.uk) or Sammie Buzzard (BuzzardS@cardiff.ac.uk). We will both be doing fieldwork at different times during August, so there may be times when we take a while to reply.
The agenda for the 2023 Annual General Meeting
The minutes of the 2023 Annual General Meeting following themeeting.
The ICE report will be posted here in due course