The story so far…
It all began at the Mezozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems conference here in Manchester, back in 2006. Myself, Karl, and James had been to Cambridge Prog Pal the week before. Karl had a moment of inspired madness, and said to our supervisor Phil Manning (after a brief discussion with me and James), “We were wondering about holding Prog Pal in Manchester in 2008.” This was followed only by “Yes. Do it!”
And so it began…
What followed for the next few months was a lot of nothing really. We bounced ideas around about where it could be but not a lot really happened regarding prog pal. However, it was at this time that our colleague Chris Ott, another palaeontology PhD at manchester started the small seed of an idea within us of starting a palaeontology society for Manchester students.
The real conference organising began shortly after Prog Pal 2007, held in Bristol. Myself and Karl attended, and made special note of what they did and how they did it. Funding in particular was a topic of conversation between us and the organisers in Bristol. Pal Ass offers some money towards the conference, but to do something really worthwhile, other funding needs to be found. Bristol had contacted several publishers, and received books, and had received some money from their alumni.
So, on returning to Manchester, Karl put together a ‘buissness plan’ – a document detailing what we were hoping to do with Prog Pal. This involved a wine reception at The Manchester Museum, oral and poster presentations also held there, coffee and biscuits provided, an annual dinner (at this point we weren’t sure where), a field trip, and our pièce de résistance – an oral session in the Visualisation Suite in Computer Science.
The Viz Suite is something we are really hoping will work, and make our Prog Pal stand out. At Manchester we pride ourselves on the fact that much of our research involves cutting edge technology. Both myself and Karl use high powered computing simulations to understand dinosaurs. But it’s not just a self promoting gimmick, as we know other researchers also dealing with advanced computer visualisation in palaeontology. Our hope is that the Viz Suite will allow workers using these technologies to convey their work in an precedented freedom, rather than present two dimesional images of their 3D work.
So, with a buisness plan drawn up, and a reasonable budget outlined, Karl began the process of sending it to relevant companies; publishers of palaeontology books, companies dealing in geo supplies (notebooks, compass-clinometers etc), and companies involved in making equipment such as the laser scanners we use. In return for a donation, we would put their logo on everything we did regarding the conference. A larger donation would get the company not only advertising during the conference, but throughout the year on all talks given as part of our society.
We also sent our buisness plan to Manchester Alumni. They were interested in supporting the conference and promoting Manchester as a top place for research into palaeontology, but it was what we were accomplishing with our society’s outreach program that really scored points with them…
Peter and James
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