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Hi everyone. I am Roro Yuliana Purwanti from BMKG Indonesia. I attended CALMet for the 1st time in Pretoria, South Africa. As a newbie in the middle sort of worldwide expert in meteorology education and training, my hand was shaking, and I felt overwhelmed to handle the microphone, click-pointer, my clue cards all at once, at the time I was presenting my slides. My voice was getting weak of nervous. But, they were very supportive, listening to me patiently, all ears, keeping their smile and not rushing me. That support was energy for me in my engagement with the CALMet community, successfully fueling me from that time until now, supporting old Roro to finish her 1st presentation and still there now when I am serving as a co-chair to the community. The complete story will be shared on Friday. See you there, and enjoy the whole 5 days of CALMet!

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This is Vesa from EUMETSAT.

I have no pictures of my first CALMet in Helsinki, Finland, back in 1999. But some warm experiences and discoveries of that event led me to participate in the following CALMet 2001 in Recife, Brazil.

During those years I had taken my first steps in working a bit more internationally, but I was still very much locally oriented, and the meteorological training world and trainers were just becoming more attractive network for me.

It is clear that without an international network of peers in training I would have felt very lonely. It is impossible to list what smaller and bigger tips and support I have received from CALMet and other training networks - the frequent contact with other trainers helped me adjust my training methods to apply good practices.

The complete story will be shared on Friday. See you there, and enjoy the whole 5 days of CALMet!

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CALMet is for me love and long-lasting friendship 

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First heard of CALMet in 1996 when I was doing my graduation project for Wageningen University at BMTC in Melboure Australia. The materials for a WMO C(omputer) A(ided) L(earning) module on Satellite Meteorology for Oceania I had worked on together with Ian Bell, Jeff Wilson and Kate were presented at the  CALMet Conference in Melbourne in 1997. I was not allowed to go there since I was a new bee at KNMI and still in my initial forecasting course track.

Two years later, by accident, I found an invitation for a new CALMet Conference in Helsinki, Finland. At that time, I was working as a forecaster, still not able to go subsidised by my employer, but back then I decided to pay for it myself. It was a wonderful experience and very focused on children education and outreach from what I remember. But it can be that that had interested me most at that point in my carrier.

Then it took me until 2009 before I had an official reason to go to CALMet 2009 in St. Petersburg. There I presented how we trained KNMI forecasters and their colleagues from the Dutch Storm Surge and Warning Center with the help of a simulator for extreme situations. Since then, I have been to all CALMet Conferences that were organised and am one of the Co-chair of the CALMet Working Group since October 2011.

CALMet is for me not only getting inspired, share ideas and starting off new collaborations but also a ground to experiment in a safe environment with friends. All I know about Education and training I have learned in this community. For me CALMet has also been love and long-lasting friendship and knowing to be part of a network you can always count on in case of trouble. That is something I treasure a lot.

Hope that you also enjoy these CALMet events, find them useful, feel the CALMet fibe and that you will help us to keep this community alive!

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I work at the training DWD-training center as a dean for the University of Applied Science. Besides management, I deliver advanced training for forecasters. Additionally, I am the contact for digital teaching and the focal point of DWD for international training. However, I will retire by 01-02-2024 and my successor will take over step by step my responsibilities.

My hobbies are travelling, piano. photography, astronomy and history.

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Hi! I'm Romina Mezher, head of the RTC SMN Argentina. I started in this new role six months ago. I've been a weather radar researcher for 10 years and I wanted new opportunities and challenges and try a new path. So I applied for this position and I never expected to encounter such a welcoming and beautiful community. This marks my first active participation and presentation at CALMet, and I am thoroughly enjoying each workshop and session, appreciating every exchange. It's truly a powerful and fantastic community. :)"

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a memorable experience in 2019 when I finally could attend CALMet together with my best friends from BMKG and visit EUMESAT at the same time :)

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Hello, I’m Tya from BMKG Indonesia. As I recall, it was Roro who introduced me to CALMet community back in 2011. Intrigued by her stories -- because the wonderful energy she brought after attending CALMet 2011 in Pretoria was contagious -- I braced myself to join CALMet online in 2014. Having so nervous prior to the event, I talked to Roro and Vesa. I remember how Vesa encouraged me by referring to CALMet as a hangout event back then, and it calmed me down. Long story short, I relieved with my decision, for since then, I felt that I have found the right community to hang out with. In every CALMet I participated afterwards (in 2017 and 2019), I felt that CALMet was like a big family of good friends, who share similar enthusiasm in learning, that I can go home into and get inspired. I am just happy that I can join again this year and see familiar faces around 😊

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Alejandro de la Maza, personel training and technical meetings

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I am very glad to be back with the community of weather trainers, to share our technical challenges and professional experiencies.

The first time, at CALMet XIV (hosted by SMN.AR) we showed the formal education processes performed by the Chile Navy Weather Service, to their own personel and the different mariner users, searching for any available courses and possible colaboration with related organisms.

On this second time, at CALMet XV (hosted by DWD.DE) we talked about the experience of the regional cooperation webinars for other marine services and the use of real time tools for shipping data exchange.

Hope to meet you soon and see more interesting topics of discussion, like modern competencies framework and forecast science communication skills, with these kind of excellent and motivated speakers engaged from around the world.

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Hi everyone!

I am Sun Jingrong from China Meteorological Administration Training Centre(CMATC) in Beijing, China. I participated CALMet VII for the 1st time in 2007, and CMATC organized it. That meeting was also the first time I participated in an international conference since I joined the work. At that time, I was very nervous. When I shared the presentation, my hands holding the mouse were trembling, and the sound of speaking should also be trembling. It is a wonderful memory to recall now. I have met many new friends and shared some of our training experiences. I have also learned a lot of training experiences and good methods for developing training resources from the sharing of representatives attending the meeting.

Many representatives who participated in CALMet XV also attended the meeting at that time, so I saw a lot of familiar faces at live sessions and felt very kind.

I hope to keep in touch with you in the future and exchange more training experiences and methods.

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Hi everyone, I am Asri Rachmawati, a meteorologist from BMKG, Indonesia. I just forgot how I connected with this CalMet Community at first. But at the end of the day, let me express my gratitude for being a part of CALMet2023.

This community is extremely warm, organized perfectly, flexible, inspiring with impressive material, and full of new information, practical methods, insight, and problem solving.

I doubted myself at first since we are working for local communities at the provincial level, but then Bu Roro and my colleagues encouraged me to keep on trying to finish my material.

My material is about behind the scenes of the implementation of a new paradigm (Impact-based forecast) that aligns with the global initiative of Early warning all over West Java. This agenda was developed by the Forecaster Team at the West Java Climatological Station (BMKG at the provincial level of West Java. Hopefully, I can contribute more actively to the CALMET community, and I am looking forward to further collaboration in the future.

Best,

Asri