Now, in the last post I mentioned our group’s weekly meeting. You missed it! It’s in the second paragraph, after all the stuff about poppy seeds and leopard spots. Anyway, I am happy to report that CRG is still going strong. What is CRG? It is the acronym for Cosmochemistry Research Group. When I started this blog back in 2010 CRG was already in full swing. I am not sure when it originally started, all lost in the mists of time I am afraid. So, once a week, armed with a coffee from the Hub, I head to the Robert Hooke seminar room for a good chat about all things extraterrestrial. This week the Hub, the Open University’s all purpose canteen/cafe, has had a bit of a refurb and they were giving out free mini muffins, which was nice. I intended to take the mini muffin to CRG, but actually ate it on the way. It was delicious. As a matter of fact they haven’t refurbed all of the Hub, just the cafe bit. It’s now renamed “The Exchange”. They have done a lovely job. But we digress.

And what sort of stuff do we cover in CRG? A lot of the time it’s just catch-up. In other words, a bit of a chinwag. A chance to find out what people have been up to, what instruments have been working and which have not. We discuss big science events too, of course, like the Mars announcement featured in the last post. Sometimes people run through their conference presentations, or we may have an outside speaker. Ironically, lockdown made that a lot easier. Everyone is now comfortable with online presentations and so you can potentially go to the four corners of the globe in search of speakers. However, we meet at 10 am (it used to be 9.30 am), so asking people in the US to get out of bed in the very early hours remains problematic. But it does happen.

Certainly all active research groups have their own version of CRG. Perhaps in the great scheme of things, CRG is not particularly special, except to us, its members. Beacause despite the informality, it does an important job. It brings the group members together to talk about what they do. Sometimes day-to-day science tasks can be a little isolating. I am sure it’s the same in lots of jobs. You need to talk to people, explore ideas, get the latest news, stay connected. And that is very important. What not to like!