The CCAT Irish partners were due to travel to Wales for our 6-monthly team meeting, unfortunately due to COVID-19 this was not possible, so we had the meeting online. We have regular online meetings as our partners are spread out across Wales and Ireland but normally these meetings are limited to an hour, so this was a new departure to hold 2 days of meetings online. Our partners in Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum, The Port of Milford Haven and Cardiff University put a lot of planning into the event which was a great success. It also provided a good opportunity for our new team members Chiara Cocco and Saul Crowley to meet everyone virtually.
Day 1 started with a fun warm-up game where we each had to quickly draw a picture of the person to your left on your screen. Whatever way Zoom was set up nearly everyone ended up drawing the same person (Pauline) which give everyone a good giggle.
The day was made up with presentations from our 6 working group and we were joined by CCAT Advisory group for this session. Our advisory group members are Vicky Brown, CEO of Cool Planet, Dr. Tadhg MacIntyre, Lecturer in the Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department, University of Limerick, Dr. Stuart Capstick, Research Fellow, Cardiff University, Peter Davies, former Commissioner for Wales and Vice Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission. They provided us with valuable feedback on our work to date. The rest of the day was made up of workshops and group work in breakout rooms.
Lauren Blacklaw-Jones from the Port of Milford Haven took us through a virtual tour of Pembroke Dock and gave an update of plans to create a virtual reality tour of the area which is rich in history and heritage. The tour would give the public an insight in the past, present and future of the area from when it was a Royal shipyard in the 1800’s to the largest operational base for flying boats in the world in the 1940s’ and future plans as a centre for marine renewal energy.
On day 2 we had presentations from guest speakers from the Pembroke Dock Marine project which will establish Pembroke Dock as a world-class centre for marine engineering and test centre for marine renewals. We heard from the Energy Kingdom project with plans for developing hydrogen energy in Milford Haven area and finally from Marine Energy Wales which brings together technology developers, the supply chain, academia and the public sector to establish Wales as a global leader in sustainable marine energy generation, making a significant contribution to a low carbon economy.
Alex Cameron-Smith from Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum got the team to test an interactive, climate change card game which they have developed using the online platform Mural. We had tested this game at our last meeting in Cork and it was great to see how it have evolved since then.
Throughout the 2 days we held a number of other workshops looking at our work plans for the next 6 months, our dissemination plans and future opportunities beyond the life of CCAT. Despite not being able to meet in person it was great to connect with everyone online and learn about how the project is adapting to COVID-19 by moving our initiatives online.
