Cambridge AWiSE

Meeting Report: Kate Atkin ‘New Year, New You’ January 25, 2012

camawise2004 — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:57:00 +0000

Kate Atkin spoke on how to achieve confidence in the workplace. Thoughts transform your outlook and actions so not being in control of your thoughts can lower your confidence. Negative thoughts in the workplace often include how you try to perceive the recognition of your ability by your colleagues and this can affect your outlook holding you back. You can take control of those negative thoughts by recognising the blocking thought and making a small change to think of something positive to remove the block.

The impressions you create for yourself by your own thoughts and words when moving out of a comfort zone make a difference to your outlook. You can move these ‘rocks in the road’ one at a time with small changes each step of the way. There are 3 cues to be aware of in your interactions for the impressions you give out in order to achieve your goals: verbal, vocal, visual. Keeping your goals in mind as you balance thoughts versus actions are essential to balance effort with results.
Since January 25 was Burns Night, Kate finished with an appropriate Burns quote: ‘ Oh would some power the gift to give is to see ourselves as others see us’.
Jenny B.

Development of vaccines and immunotherapies against human papillomaviruses, the cause of cervical cancer

camawise2004 — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:59:21 +0000

Please join us on 15th March 2012 for an evening lecture with Professor Margaret Stanley.

The development of vaccines and immunotherapies against human papillomaviruses, the cause of cervical cancer.
Woodlegh Seminar Room, Strathaird, Lucy Cavendish College, 15th March, 6-7pm.
Followed by Formal Hall (cost £21). Please contact Jenny Koenig (jk111 at cam.ac.uk) if you would like to attend. Book early as places are limited.

Professor Stanley is Professor of Epithelial Biology in the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on mechanisms of host defence and the development of vaccines and immunotherapies against human papillomaviruses, the cause of cervix cancer. She will also discuss the current vaccination programme for girls.

For more information please see here

Venue: Woodlegh Seminar Room, Strathaird, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.

Organised in conjunction with Cambridge Science Festival, this talk is free to attend but places will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis so please arrive in good time to avoid disappointment.

Peer Mentoring Workshop and CamAWiSE AGM

camawise2004 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:11:13 +0000

After the success of last year’s format, we will again feature a workshop on peer mentoring at the Cambridge AWiSE AGM on Tuesday 21st February.

Peer mentoring is the idea of providing mentoring in a group of peers. In such a group everyone mentors each other. It works on the assumption that we all gain different experiences and in a group of committed and intelligent women there will be useful experiences relating to your current situation.

Support can take the shape of exchanging practical tips, defining and clarifying the topic, getting other people’s perspectives and hearing people’s experiences of similar situations. This will give you a range of ideas of how to achieve a positive outcome.

The evening will be a starting point of the peer-mentoring journey. This year we will facilitate staying in touch by providing closed sub-groups within the CamAWiSE LinkedIn group.

A participant last year said, “I came expecting to give my experience as a mentor and got some useful advice as a mentee”.

Event details:
Peer Mentoring Workshop, with Tennie Videler
followed by AGM.
Tuesday 21st February, 8pm-10pm
Reception Rooms, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.
£5 entry fee (includes tea, coffee, cake and networking). All welcome.
Please register online here

A big thank you!

camawise2004 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:48:29 +0000

Thank you everyone who attended “New Year New You: Building Confidence in the Workplace” yesterday evening and helped make it a fun and interactive workshop. Kate’s tomato-sauce topped workshop definitely gave us plenty to think about and work on! We’ll post on the blog some highlights of the evening soon (and an explanation of why tomato sauce and moving rocks are two of the key elements in building confidence).

We welcome the contributions of our members and friends on the CamAWiSE blog. Please email me at (info@camawise.org.uk).
Catherine

Excitement, excitement – Keep the date free!

camawise2004 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:27:37 +0000

CamAWiSE are holding the second Career-Development Day on Friday 22nd June 2012:
WISE-UP : Strategies for Success in STEM or 101 ways to make the most of yourself!
Continuing the successful framework on which the 1st Day was organised in 2010, we are basing the day around the themes of ‘making the most of your personality’ and ‘getting your ideas across and acted upon – making your voice heard’.

We start the day rolling with a key-note speech by Diana Garnham, CEO of the Science Council. She will be encouraging you to identify with one of her 10 types of scientist; this theme carries on through the panel of inspiring speakers including amongst others Jenny Scott and Linda Cammish. The workshop sessions will start with Sarah Blackford, who will present an enlightening interactive workshop based upon the Myers-Briggs personality types. After lunch, Suzanne Doyle-Morris will explain how to negotiate successfully and with style; Anne Miller will be examining how to get ideas adopted and our afternoon will be rounded off with workshops on Personal Branding, with Belinda Coaten and Leadership, with Fiona Denney.
As usual the day will include delicious refreshments, and will be held in the comfortable surroundings of Lucy Cavendish.

Profile: Penny Coggill – Protein Domain Family Database annotator, Sanger Institute

camawise2004 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:25:29 +0000

Cambridge AWiSE Steering Group member – PENNY COGGILL

I currently work at the Sanger Institute, on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus at Hinxton, as an annotator for a database of protein domain-families.

I have been there since I decided to return to work after nearly 30 years of living abroad, bringing up three children and a lot of voluntary work.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and if I had known in 1999 what I know now about all the opportunities for re-training in Cambridge that AWiSE has encouraged and championed …well, I might not be at the Sanger and I do love my job and its a great place to work.

After an initial degree in Natural Science, a Masters in Animal Nutrition and 2 years as research assistant in dairy-cow nutrition I went to work for Beecham Pharmaceuticals in their Medical Information group in London. Two years later the company opened a European HQ in Brussels and I went out with a small nucleus of people to service the Medical Directors with all relevant backup information on the company’s products and new drugs for trialling. Life in Europe is exciting and full of opportunities, so we made the most of our chances of travel and good eating.

Amongst later voluntary work back in England I was involved in bringing science to the female general public, and in so doing came across Joan Mason shortly after she had set up AWiSE from here in Cambridge. I believe passionately in the importance of supporting women in their scientific life, helping them to overcome the hidden and the not-so-hidden prejudices that make it that much more difficult to gain status and position and pursue dreams. Networking is key to finding out how to improve one’s chances, and I’m immensely proud of what Cambridge AWiSE has achieved thus far and will do my utmost to improve its worth in the future. It is people who count and AWiSE has many fine members with much to share.

Penny.

Profile: Dr Tennie Videler – Programme Manager at Vitae

camawise2004 — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:27:06 +0000

Cambridge AWiSE co-Chair - DR TENNIE VIDELER

I currently work as a programme manager for a national careers organisation specialising in careers and development of researchers (called Vitae: www.vitae.ac.uk). How did I get here from a science background and is it still of use?

I did an undergraduate degree in Chemistry in the Netherlands. I got the opportunity to spend nine months in the UK as an exchange student, which resulted in starting a PhD research project on the interface between chemistry and biology. I spent 16 years doing research on structural biology, using different techniques on different systems. I have always enjoyed public engagement, communicating science (not necessarily mine) to both children and adults. I was the science school governor for a primary school for six years, a role I would encourage others to take on!

Towards the end of my postdoctoral career I decided that although I loved research I wanted to use my ‘people’ skills and do something that would make a difference to people’s lives. My role involves advising my colleagues supporting research in universities on the needs of researchers. To keep in contact with researchers I run blogs for researchers and on public engagement and facilitate a lot of workshops (about career related topics): I love to help people explore.

A very personal report on Professor Dame Sandra Dawson’s talk in November

camawise2004 — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:45:40 +0000

Professor Dame Sandra Dawson is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, professor of Management Studies at Judge Business School (which she pretty much founded and led for 10 years), and was the first female Master of Sidney Sussex College. She has previously worked in the civil service and as a researcher, lecturer and professor at Imperial College. She is now non-executive director of the UK Financial Services Authority as well as Oxfam.
I like to try and distill a talk I’ve listened to/ report I’ve read into a few ‘learning points’ (for historical reasons this has crystalised into 9, but I find it is just useful to have a number to whittle down to/ group into). So here are my favourite 9 points….

1.      Do things that really interests you and you are really good at. Adore what you do while you’re doing it and adore not doing it when you’ve stopped
2.      You don’t need a strict a plan to stick to but take opportunities that come along
3.      A lot of decision making and getting things to happen come through committees and boards- learn how these work by joining smaller ones, such as local charities or sports clubs (or research staff associations and committees in your institution)
4.      Don’t get too ‘tram-tracked’- explore the relationships and interfaces between subjects (although Sandra acknowledges academics these days need to ‘tunnel’ their interests while they get established because of the overriding importance attached to REF, publications etc, which she thought was a shame as she had enjoyed an ‘eclectic’ start to her research career)
5.      Difficult things, like saying ‘no’, become easier after you’ve done them a few times
6.      Gravitas is something that can be learned and comes with experience
7.      Get mentors, however informally. As senior people can be scared off by the time commitment involved in mentoring someone, ask someone you admire for a defined number of meetings, say two or three and make the most of these, rather than an open ended supportive relationship
8.      Always assume a solution can be found and work to find it
9.      Sandra is passionate about embracing diversity (in all its guises, she doesn’t single out gender) as it brings different views round a table and gets people to ask questions that really matter.

Tennie Videler

“New Year New You, Building Confidence in the Workplace” with Kate Atkin (25th Jan)

camawise2004 — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:41:55 +0000

We start 2012 with an energising masterclass in building confidence and productivity in the workplace, with Kate Atkin, author of The Confident Manager. Kate was a popular speaker at our last Career Development Day and we are pleased to welcome her back.

“New Year New You, Building Confidence in the Workplace” with Kate Atkin
25^thJanuary, 8pm – 10pm, Woodleigh Room, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. £5 (members), £10 (non-members) includes tea, coffee, cake and networking. Register here…

Like many people you may set some New Year resolutions and like many, they may fall by the wayside. This evening’s event is not about goal setting, but it will focus on the underlying beliefs which may help or hinder us in achieving our goals.

How does what you think affect your work?
Can you increase productivity through your thoughts?
Why spend time focussing on what you think and your posture?

This master class, by Kate Atkin, author of The Confident Manager, covers top tips for boosting yourself and building your confidence through precision thinking. The strategies are grounded in brain/body research and will give you an injection of energy for you personally and in your workplace.

Kate will also bring along a few signed copies of her book should you wish to purchase one on the night for £10 (rrp £12.99)
www.aspire-2.com; twitter @kateatkin

Please download a pdf poster here for your noticeboard.

Profile: Kate Atkin, ACIB AAMET

camawise2004 — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:24:05 +0000

An inspirational speaker and expert facilitator and author with extensive experience; supportive and motivating with energy, drive, and passion.

Based in Cambridge Kate works with a wide variety of organisations, teams and individuals. Since starting Aspire 2 in 2000, over 95% of work has come through networking and personal recommendations. In her speaking, training and coaching Kate inspires change, instils self-belief and encourages confidence. She uses her own experiences as a manager and from life, bringing the theories alive. Kate is a published author on the subjects of confidence and networking and her latest book The Confident Manager is receiving wide acclaim for its practical lessons and readable style.

In May 2007 Kate won the District Speech Evaluation Contest run by Toastmasters International – coming top in the UK & Ireland – and was a finalist in 2008 in the Impromptu Speaking competition. She has been recognised as the Most Outstanding Trainer and Most Outstanding Mentor in JCI UK, nominated for Cambridgeshire Businesswoman of the Year and is a World Debating Champion. Member of the Professional Speaking Association, Toastmasters International and Senator of Junior Chamber International UK

Contact Kate on 07779 646 976 or kate@aspire-2.com www.aspire-2.com