Working at a University people often ask if you get the summer off once students have left for the summer. The answer I always give is that summer is when we are at our busiest!
Alongside our usual programme of events and conferences running from June to September, our team also feed into areas such as campus development, accommodation, and planning for the student experience the next academic year.
Although Covid has reduced our event calendar this summer we are still excited to welcome the Universities UK Annual Conference in September and will be accommodating a number of smaller bookings throughout August in socially distanced, safe spaces.
"...the ground floor space will be completely revamped with digitally enhanced seating, communal space, collaborative hubs, and a new catering offer"
As part of campus development, we are leading on the creation of a learning and social hub in the heart of our Business & Law School as we develop the City Campus East restaurant into an exciting, vibrant space where students and staff can eat, drink, learn and collaborate. Between July and August, the ground floor space will be completely revamped with digitally enhanced seating, communal space, collaborative hubs, and a new catering offer built around an extensive menu with a click-and-collect ordering option. The space will also offer a state-of-the-art breakout area for events and conference with Universities UK being the first to benefit in September.
Alongside this we continue to work with our Students’ Union and recently met the 2021/22 SABB Team to discuss how we can feed into their manifestos for the coming year. Areas such as the catering offer on choice and convenience as well as more social and collaborative space fed nicely into the developments mentioned above. They also raised good points on sustainability and accessibility on campus and we were able to point to our recent accreditation with the Green Tourism Award and our AIM Accreditation ensuring excellence in business meetings and events on areas of service, safety, health, and responsibility.
Over the next few months we’ll be blogging more about the above developments as our new spaces reach completion and we move into the next academic year.
Barry Nicholson, Commercial Conference & Events Manager