For many years now in early September, we have held our annual CRES Residential. Because of the pandemic, this was not practicable, and we opted for a virtual option. Once again we were very grateful to CRES tutor, Ian Brooks for running our virtual meeting so effectively. We also thank Lynda McKeown for handling all of the bookings, and in the end about 35 people came. We decided to scale back the meeting to the essential things to keep the course running. In this case it was allowing our three completing students to present their dissertations and to hold our meeting with the external examiner, Prof. John Bryant (pictured).
We had three excellent student presentations, on very varied topics: Antarctic history; the importance of the environment in the Baptist Church; and ethical farming. This was followed by the examiners’ meeting. As a result, three students graduated with a certificate (all with distinction). That has never happened before in the history of the course! Many congratulations to all three. Our running total is now 39 Certificates (13 with Distinction) and 5 Diplomas (one distinction). The first CRES graduates were in 2005, and we have had 16 cohorts so far. So we are averaging 2.8 graduates a year! CRES is happy to have helped 44 people along the way to helping us make a more sustainable world.
At the end of the morning, Prof. John Bryant gave some very positive general comments about the CRES course. We are very grateful to John for being our external examiner for the last three years and are sure this will not be the last we see of him!
Many thanks to the students, their tutors, our steering group, and all at JRI, A Rocha UK, and Ripon College Cuddesdon that make this all happen. On to the next year!
