Supporting projects and people
You might have thought that this has been a quiet year for the Hinxton Hall Conference Centre, but we’ve actually been very busy supporting our Wellcome Connecting Science, Wellcome Sanger Institute and Wellcome Genome Campus colleagues!
The past year has been challenging for everyone for many reasons, and although we have been unable to host our usual courses, conferences, and corporate hire events, we have continued to support our colleagues in Wellcome Connecting Science, and more broadly across our Campus.
Connecting Science is committed to influencing and improving learning experiences and career development for school students, and their teachers. As part of our activities in this area, we have an extensive schools visit programme. While this initially switched to a virtual offer, the Conference Centre has been delighted to enable the return of student groups to our Campus this year.
In November, we supported our Connecting Science Engagement and Society colleagues with a visit from one of our partner schools located in March, the Neale-Wade Academy. Fifteen students from this Fenland school were hosted in our Dining Room, which is large enough to comfortably accommodate social distancing between students and researchers from the Sanger Institute.
Being able to access the Conference Centre facilities really supported our education programme as it provided enough space for the students to visit the Campus safely and hear about the research that happens here in person – something we wouldn’t have been able to offer otherwise.
Fran Gale, Learning and Education Manager, Wellcome Connecting Science
The Sanger Institute’s Tree of Life programme hosted a planning day for their schools Fly Trap project in September. Using the spacious Rosalind Franklin Pavilion, they were able to welcome five teachers from different local primary schools, alongside a local science author, and a rotation of 12 members of the Tree of Life research team, while remaining socially distanced. Researchers and teachers worked together to share knowledge, and develop an exciting engagement workshop for the participating schools.
Having a professional space to meet together hugely enhanced the day as it allowed us to trial activities together. It was much easier to switch between different modes of working, and to utilise the full skills in the room, than it would have been virtually.
Jack Monaghan, Public Engagement Co-ordinator, Tree of Life programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute
In addition to schools-based activities for young people, we have also directly supported our colleagues and staff members through the provision of both meeting spaces and hybrid meeting services. The Employee Partnership represents all the staff who work within the Sanger Institute and Connecting Science, providing help and advice on a wide range of matters. The Conference Centre enabled Employee Partners to meet in person for the first time in 12 months, and our hybrid facilities also ensured that Partners who could not be on Campus could still attend the meeting virtually.
The Conference Centre team with their friendly, professional, and can-do nature, gave the Partnership the opportunity to engage in person, fostering collaborative and informative discussion while enabling those at home to also feel engaged and fully involved in the meeting – it was fabulous to be back in the Conference Centre.
David Parry-Smith, Chair, Employee Partnership
We hope that next year will be somewhat different, but we will of course be maintaining our flexible and adaptable approach to hosting meetings and events.
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