Our research team had a holiday celebration last night.  Our team for the study of literacy/English teacher educators works so well. Building a research team is much more than organizing meetings; a research team has to be more like a community of practice where the personal and the professional overlap. Our team meetings include:  updates on personal issues (e.g., health of an ill parent), an agenda of work to be done in the given time, space to talk about professional issues (e.g., should I submit a proposal for a specific conference), and snack. Each meeting is punctuated with laughter (as we battle with NVivo) but we always accomplish “something.” I doubt that anyone ever leaves a meeting thinking that we did not get anything done or that their time was wasted. It takes time for a team to develop a rhythm and to develop a set of group norms. No one told me about how to develop a research team when I was a new professor.  Discussing how to build a research team should be part induction programs for new faculty. Clare