Greetings to all who have given support to the newly established Race, Culture and Equality (RACE) Working Group.  Your interest has been much appreciated.

The core committee, itself a work in progress, is gradually acquiring knowledge about managing a working group.  As Chair I cannot over-emphasize the immense contribution made by  Richard Baxter (Secretary) and Angela Last (Treasurer and technology whiz) who have worked  with enthusiasm and great commitment at developing  the proposal for the RACE working group and dealing with the issues that have accompanied and emerged since the RGS/IBG approval of the working group. Without their work the group would not have happened. We are also regularly assisted by James Esson.

This core group has been supported by a larger group of geographers and social scientists who provide welcome advice and ideas and will be members of the planned RACE sub-committees which aim to challenge racial inequality in the Geographical discipline through teaching, research and outreach projects.

The challenging process of setting up the group has been made easier by generous assistance from Catherine Souch and Sarah Evans of the RGS (with IBG).

Since the launch of  the  RACE working  group the focus has moved to establishing a mailing list of members and supporters of the working group and organizing key first year activities and initiatives. These include sponsoring three sessions at the RGS-IBG annual conference 2016:

• Geographies of supplementary education: race, ethnicity and educational inequality
• Geographies of Anti-colonialism
• Interdisciplinary approaches to understanding ethnicity and place.

Other activities in the pipeline include:

• organising a workshop on race and teaching at or near the time of the RGS/IBG annual conference,
• setting up an award for undergraduate dissertations which examine race and related themes,
• establishing a system of mentoring for BME Geographers in the UK,
• developing dissemination and outreach work within higher education and beyond  to schools and colleges.

Please continue to support the group.

Best wishes

Margaret Byron (Chair of the RACE working group)