Integrated Team Sporting Wealth of Talent - by David Lloyd, Operations Manager for Sport

Having joined the Sport and Physical Activity team at the University earlier this year, I have been continually impressed by the quality and variety of events we have been able to host here.

My previous role enabled me to work with a number of event management companies, hosting a wide range of events, and while we had comparable indoor facilities, the greater extent of the programme offered at the University has been fantastic to see, and great to be involved with this summer. 

This was summed up perfectly last week, as we hosted part of the British Ecological Society Conference throughout the first part of the week, before having less than a day to turn the facility around for a weekend training camp for the Great Britain Boccia team (Gold Medallists from the Beijing Paralympics).  

It has been great to see the flexibility and professionalism of the various teams involved putting these events together, highlighted by our Assistant Director and a manager brought in from another site crawling around the sports hall late on Friday evening ensuring the Boccia Courts were all marked out ready for our Paralympians!  

The restructuring of our services into an integrated Commercial Services team brings sport, catering, conferencing and event management together and has really provided significant opportunities to widen and strengthen an already excellent partnership.  The fantastic new development of The Edge can now add value to customers who come into the university to use our other facilities, offering the chance of an invigorating workout, or a relaxing sauna, steam and swim at the end of the day.  This is already proving extremely popular with conference delegates.

For all our staff the restructuring of the Commercial Services team presents excellent personal development opportunities to get involved in new and varied parts of our business.  Looks like exciting times ahead!

A Burning Question - by Richard Handscombe

The editor of Exhibition News recently posed the question:  “are live web-feeds from building sites really necessary?”.

As a question, I’d guess it won’t feature on Newsnight any time soon - although I can almost hear the cynical tones of Mr Paxman himself looking into the camera and asking the question.

We recently featured on our website, a series of stills showing our new conference asset, Storm Jameson Court, rising from the ground as if by magic.  It was fascinating.  There for all to see was the artistic scaffolding, the mysteriously shrouded delivery trucks, big digging thingies, and occasional glimpses of Bob in his yellow hard hat as he went around building.  

This was stirring, gripping stuff that I’m 100% positive had the whole nation glued to their PC monitors, eager to see what would happen next.  A bit like Eastenders, only much, much more interesting.  Gradually this epic building, an emerging star in the conference universe, emerged from its chrysalis.

And now, that fascinating time is all over, and the building has been revealed in all it’s glory.  Soap fans will have to go back to watching their favourite TV shows, struggling to catch up on the storylines, and sadly missing the Storm Jameson Court Saga.

And just in case national opinion says that building site pics are not in fact necessary, we’ve removed them from the website.

Conference bookings are now being taken for our magnificent new building. Take a look on www.meetinleeds.co.uk/stormjamesoncourt