2024 Session One, Week One

Hello, and welcome to the first meeting of the Ad Hoc Research Support Group at North of the East Wind State College Of Magical Instruction! I know all of us here at NEWSCOMI are looking forward—okay, I heard that, I know, "same as the Old Scummy," but this is a faculty-oriented group with absolutely minimal involvement from adminicritters. Your facilitators are Susan, whom you know as the Chair of History of Magic, and me, Dame Eleanor Hull, the longest-tenured member of Literature of Magic, so we've heard all the Scummy jokes. In fact, we probably inaugurated some of them. 

We're hoping to forge stronger bonds between faculty in Applied Magic fields and those of us in more, ah, abstract areas, and also to welcome participation from colleagues teaching the Magricultural Extension classes. Some of you may not recall that NEWSCOMI used to be a Magricultural College focusing on Witch Hedgery and Magicritters, but those areas are historically important to us, our students, and the North of the East Wind region. I know we sometimes feel like red-headed stepchildren compared to the State University of Magic (they always get the SUM total of whatever the state has to offer, right? ha ha), but this group is here to help us help each other! We may not have all the resources of SUM, but we have—ow, what was that? Get off me!

Oh. I guess the Applied Magic syllabus has got around to the dragon-flies again. If you're new here, that class is only offered once every four years (it's a bit like cicadas), and when the flying critters are done right, they're very pretty and unlikely to set anything on fire, but we need to get this one back to the Mag Quad. I will need an adminicritter for this. No, not you, Associate Dean Fluff, I want a dog—in fact, a retriever, not a terrier or anything like that—no, I DON'T trust you with small wounded flying things, you're absolutely right about that. For once. Go hiss at Dean Tabitha, if you must, she likes to snooze on my desk AND she lives with a dog. Who's a good boy, then? You are, you're a good boy, you're going to take this not-quite-working dragon-fly back to the Mag Quad and find the prof who's teaching Engineering Flying Magicritters this term, aren't you? Yes, you are. Thank you.

Anyway, that's enough from me! Let's hear from you! Please introduce yourselves and set some goals both for this session and for the coming week. Goals can be in any aspect of life, although the key focus is often writing tasks that are personally and professionally important but that never quite tip over into important AND urgent. Urgent things sometimes find their way in here too; that is completely okay, and process goals are also most welcome. Most weeks there will be a discussion topic or prompt to write about if you feel so inclined, but skip it if you don't feel like it.

We'll have fifteen goal-setting weeks, a mid-term check-in on session goals, and a final "party" reporting on session goals on 28 April. Anyone is welcome to join! Bring a friend! We aim to be supportive of and generous to all participants, whether they're every-week types or just drop in from time to time. 

If you'd like to take on a persona for this session, please do: Dean of Dragon Studies? Clerk of Rare Books and Grimoires? P.I. for the Philosopher's Stone? Professor of Alchemy? I look forward to hearing from all of our members! Probably introductions and goals are enough for this week, but if you want a discussion topic, tell us about your holidays: did you get into any magical trouble?