By John Piprani

As the Archaeology technician at the University of Manchester, I manage two laboratories in the Mansfield Cooper Building, and both overlook an area behind the campus known as Greenheys. This area has an interesting recent history, being a parkland in the mid-1800s it was popular with wealthy families who built large houses. Most of these wealthy families had relocated by the late 1890s as encroaching worker terraced housing started to change the character of the area. Fast forward to the ‘slum clearances’ of the 1970s and the families living in this same terraced housing were relocated to other parts of Manchester, and their homes demolished. My laboratories now overlook the Manchester Science Park and in particular the recently constructed Bright Building. Hidden from my gaze, but nestled within the centre of the Science Park is The Old Abbey Taphouse.

The Old Abbey Taphouse was built in the 1890s and is one of the few buildings from this period left in the area. In its current iteration it is a Community Hub in a pub and one of the landlords, Rachele Evaroa, asked me if it would be possible to find out how the pub got its name. It is hard to separate out the history of the pub from the more comprehensive history of the area, and in my research, I found out that the writer, Thomas de Quincey, had grown up locally. The source of this information was a biography of de Quincey by the now retired University of Manchester Professor of Romantic Literature, Grevel Lindop. Grevel didn’t know exactly where de Quincey’s home was, only that it was called Green Hay, built in 1791 and demolished by 1860. Again, as Archaeology Technician I have access to Digimap, a mapping resource that allows digital access to maps from the 1850s onwards, so of course I had a look on the 1850s map of the area.

Date: 7 Jul 2021

Author: Cassandra Hodgkinson

Once again, we held a Technicial Stills competition, but with a slight difference.

This year we were looking for photographs to represent the work that techncial staff across The Unviersity of Manchester had been involved with over the past year – whether working from home, back on campus, in the field or something in-between.

There were over 50 photographs submitted, and we hope you enjoy the collage of them that we include with this article. They were all sent for judging by Russell Hart.

Russell works for The Unviersity of Manchester as a designer in the Division of Communications, Marketing and Student Recruitment. However, he is also a freelance photographer, who specialises in football, people and events. If you would like to see more of his work, you can visit his website https://www.russell-hart.co.uk/. It is his passion and interest in photography that qualified him as the right person to assess the photographs that were submitted.

In 3^rd place:

Megan Barker – Research Technician, Department of Earth and Environmental Science (FSE) with the photo “Amanita muscaria – an ectomycorrhizal beauty”.

In 2^nd place:

Holly Langridge – Research Technician, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, (FSE) with the photo “Suspended roots wide”.

In 1^st place:

Sanjai Patel – Fly Facility Manager (FBMH) with the photo “Sorting fruit flies for gender and phenotype”.

The comment submitted from Russells:

The winning photo is a strong documentative composition and to me represents how staff have continued to perform their field of work despite the unique circumstances of the last year or so, and images such as this will act as an important record for people to look back on in years to come!

Everyone on the TEaM Steering Group is very appreciative for the engagement with this competition, and will look forward to using the entries to produce the TEaM desk calendar for the 2021/22 academic year.

This year’s Technical Excellence and Manchester (TEaM) event will be held on 7^th July 2021 (9:15am-12:30pm) online via Zoom Webinar. As always, the event will be a celebration of Technicians at Manchester.

• The Technical Excellence awards will be presented, alongside the winner of this year’s technical stills competition being announced.
• This year’s keynote speech will be delivered by Professor Perdita Barran: “Mass Spectrometry in the time of COVID – Collaboration and Joy”. Professor Barran holds the Chair of Mass Spectrometry in the Department of Chemistry, is Associate Dean for Research Facilities and Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, The University of Manchester, UK.
• Professor Michael Shaver will also be giving a talk titled “Sustainability and Plastics – Recycling, Collecting, Degrading”. Professor holds the Chair of Polymer Science in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Manchester, where he leads initiatives in sustainable polymers, plastics and materials for the school and for the Henry Royce Institute, the UK’s national advanced materials science centre, for which he is the Sustainable Materials Champion.

A full programme will be posted before the event.

Please use the link below to register with your university email address:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_elNMzU72RTmR3XLIxLrc5A

If you would like to order the free Technical Excellence at Manchester calendar, please fill in the form in the link below:
https://forms.office.com/r/dkiDSSJybq

If you know any staff in technical roles who have not received this invite, please forward the email to them.

In May we opened nominations for the Technical Excellence awards and were very pleased to announce the top 5, with the comments from our independent judging panel (Manchester Metropolitan University’s technical staff):

5th Place: William Pritchard

“William’s application showed a real can do and team player attitude. Contributing to his team’s success with taking on challenges and creating a real togetherness within his team.

‘William delivers exceptional efficiency when carrying out his duties and performs all his work at an excellent standard.’ His work has directly contributed to several leading journals and he is seen as very valuable member of the team.

‘William is both an excellent technician and great team player, whose presence on the project is essential.’ This stood out to the panel – I enjoy reading about colleagues stepping up to help, without a second-thought. From this nomination, it seems William is an asset to his team and University.”

4th Place: Mark Sellers and Dominic McCullagh

“Mark and Dominic really show drive and motivation and the application reflected a feeling of working above and beyond which was inspiring. It is encouraging to hear how both colleagues saw an issue and used initiative to solve the problem between the two of them.

Mark and Dominic have provided “expert round-the clock maintenance” throughout the year of lockdown. They also proposed and implemented a very successful project that saved the university as significant amount of money.”

3rd Place: Chloe Loveless

“It was clear to see how Chloe has stepped up and continues to give 100% in her job despite the uncertainty of a new role. The panel were impressed by ‘Chloe proactively developing new Standard Operating Procedures for the safe use of kit, developing reopening documentation, and writing new risk assessments’ – in the middle of a pandemic, new role and return to work.

Chloe’s application shares initiative and a passion to ensure students and staff receive outstanding delivery in all areas.

‘Chloe has been an exceptional contributor to not one but two technical communities throughout the year’. Her work supporting the Department of Materials and Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub clearly highlights her commitment in pursuit of an excellence and ability to foster collaboration and partnership both internally and externally.”

2nd Place (love2shop voucher): Mike Hughes

“Michael demonstrates a true passion about his work, as well as promoting technicians, being involved with many steering groups and committees, producing and promoting technicians worldwide through publications and the use of videos on YouTube.

Michael plays a proactive role in running the teaching lab. ‘He continually looks to develop his team and provides exercises for them to develop their analytical skills and provide suggestions and inputs into improvements for the teaching’.

His experience and commitment to the student experience is impressive. The panel particularly liked the references to Michael’s commitment to equality and diversity and participation in conferences and events with other Universities and organisations. The panel were mindful that networking and sharing best-practice is vital in the technical sector, and it’s encouraging to hear how Michael goes above and beyond in his role.”

1st Place (trophy and love2shop voucher): Andrew Gilchrist

“The panel were impressed by the nomination for Andrew and equally as impressed by the real sense of value he brings to not only his team, but to the University and to external companies. From the nomination, it is clear that he is a valued colleague and brings a host of expertise and good-character to his role.

Andrew stood out as an overall great achiever in all aspects of the application, his contribution to his work has been inspiring, going the extra mile and to quote ‘lifetime achievement award’.

Andrew consistently demonstrates excellence across many areas and is clearly a very valuable member of staff at the university. ‘He always delivers above and beyond performance and even in these uncertain hybrid times.’

The panel decided to make Andrew first place due to his impact on the University strategic ambitions with the REDCap survey tool rolled out university wide.”

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Congratulations to all our top 5, and everyone else who was nominated – we will be writing to you to let you know. If you can, please come to our Annual Event on Wednesday, July 7th – details here.

There have been many changes in the way technical staff have had to work and adapt to the fluctuating conditions under Covid. 2020 was quite a year! Watch the Geography laboratories review.

The Technical Stills competition is back, but with a slight difference.
This year we are looking for photographs to represent your work over the past year, whether you have been working from home, back on campus, or something in-between.

You need not be a member of TEaM to enter the competition – although we do encourage all technical staff to join our network so as not to miss out on events and initiatives arranged by technical staff for technical staff.
Please limit your entry to three photos per entrant. If your photograph contains any people, you will need to fill in the University’s image release form and return it with your photos to the TEaM inbox (we will pass it to the University) – found here.

Please send all entries to the TEaM inbox: technical.excellence@manchester.ac.uk to be in with a chance of winning a £50 voucher prize!

The Technical Excellence at Manchester (TEaM) staff network group invite nominations for the Technical Excellence Awards 2021. The awards are aimed at recognising the contribution of technical staff to the working life of the University.

All staff members (including technical/non-technical PS staff and academic staff) are encouraged to nominate any technical member of staff that they believe deserves recognition for their work.

This year’s TEaM Award winners will meet one or more of the following criteria. The number of criteria is not itself a factor in the judging so it’s better to submit one or two well-evidenced criteria than several less well-evidenced:

The award will be judged by a panel of technical staff external to the University and the contribution to be recognised should have been made between March 2020 and March 2021. Nominations should be submitted via our online form by Friday 18th June. The awards will be announced at the next TEaM Annual Event, which will be held on Wednesday, 7th July. Please save the date in your diaries, further information about the event will be circulated in coming weeks.

Please feel free to share this with your colleagues to help us recognise and promote the vital contribution made by technical staff.

John Piprani is the Archaeology Technician within Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology and Egyptology. A large part of his role involves the organising of equipment, transport and students for the summer fieldwork projects. However, having oversight of two large labs means he also has the space to share his own enthusiasm with interested archaeology undergraduates, by teaching them how to make prehistoric stone tools. After you’ve watched the video (part 1 of 2), head over to his blog for more information. Thanks to Mike Hughes for producing this and previous TechTalk videos.