Wow, it’s the end of what has been a very strange year and we can’t believe 2021 is almost here already! Each year, we usually write a blog about the highlights from the last 12 months and we thought this year should be no exception. Whilst it’s been a bit different than the last couple of years, there has still been lots to enjoy and celebrate so here goes!
The overwhelming highlight from 2020 has been just how much our team has pulled together to support one another in challenging circumstances. We left the Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) on the 17th March after our final face-to-face team meeting of 2020 (socially distanced of course!) and started working from home the following day. We are so fortunate to be part of the University of Strathclyde with amazing IT and Learning Services teams who supported the entire workforce to get up and running at home very quickly. Each of our team members has had different challenges to contend with over the past nine months but we’ve been so lucky to have been guided through this tough time by our wonderful Head of Conferencing and Events, Gordon.
Casting our minds back to the early part of the year, life was very much ‘the norm’ and from January until mid-March, we supported the delivery of over 180 events including the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce President’s 1783 Network, the S3 Scottish Summit 2020, Sniffer Flood Risk Management Conference 2020 and IBioIC’s 6th Annual Conference. It certainly feels like a while ago now!
Just a couple of weeks before the course of 2020 changed, Gordon made the trip to the ‘Big Smoke’ alongside friends from Glasgow Convention Bureau, Scottish Event Campus and VisitScotland’s Business Events team to this year’s Meetings and Incentive Travel Awards. We were absolutely thrilled to win the silver award in the Best Academic Venue category, meaning we’ve been recognised in this category for the past three years. This award is particularly special to us, not just because it’s effectively the business events Oscars, but also because the winners are based on votes from clients, rather than on submissions judged by a panel.
After this, our day-to-day lives changed in a way we had certainly not anticipated at the start of 2020! Our catch-ups changed to Zoom calls, our facilities were ‘moth-balled’ and we didn’t know when we would return. However, the team rose to the challenge and continued to support our clients and colleagues as best as we could remotely. Months were spent rescheduling events as well as putting numerous measures in place to ensure the venue is safe for our staff, clients and delegates when we are able to reopen again. We equipped TIC’s four auditoria and ten conference rooms with webcams, resident PCs and hard-wired internet access, meaning straightforward video conferencing, streaming and webinars are all options if required. The team has also been getting up to speed with OnAIR, a virtual platform offered via EventsAIR, to fully deliver conferences online for our internal colleagues at the University. Our first online event took place in October – the launch of the Scotland 5G Centre, a collaboration with the Scottish Government, the University of Glasgow and the Scottish Futures Trust which is based at Strathclyde, closely followed by the IAA Impact Festival in November.
Our regular Zoom calls have helped us all stay positive and we’ve learnt a lot of interesting facts about our fellow team members too! We participated in our very own ‘Desert Island Discs’, where we each shared the three songs we would listen to on a desert island, what food and book we would take with us and a luxury item of course! We’ve created a very eclectic playlist from all of our songs and it’s something we can all enjoy even when we’re not together. We’ve also shared our ideal party including guests, food and entertainment (we do work in the events industry after all!) and more recently, our ‘happy places’ which have been very important to us all this year. Just before lockdown began, we welcomed our new Conference and Events Porter, Declan Mooney, so these fun pastimes have been a lovely way of getting to know our newest team member albeit virtually.
Back in May, the team participated in a Step Count Challenge and we decided we’d not only relive past glories, but ramp up the ambition and take it right through October and November! Just the motivation we needed to encourage us to get out and about, even if it meant donning waterproof trousers, hats, scarves, gloves – the staple items required to survive a Glaswegian Autumn and Winter! This has helped us all hugely, both physically and mentally, and it’s fair to say that each and every team member has contributed to us racking up over 7 million steps!
I think everyone would agree that 2020 is a year that we’ll never forget! Although there have been ups and downs along the way, our team has been lucky enough to have each other to turn to. Whilst we’ll undoubtedly not work together as one team forever, we have such a strong bond now that 2020 will remain etched in our memory always and we know that we’ve made friends for life.
Hopefully 2021 will see us all being able to come back together again for hugs and face-to-face catch-ups, maybe not straightaway but, at some point in the year. Although it’s been hard, this year has taught us all so much, particularly the importance of not taking the little things for granted. Work colleagues have become more than that; they’ve become such pillars of support that have helped us through the fog in 2020. The old saying goes that change is as good as a holiday and although we would probably have liked to have more control over this particular change, in the long-term, we think it’ll make us all stronger. We wish all of our clients, colleagues and friends, a very peaceful and healthy festive season and we’re very much hoping to be able to see you all in 2021, when the time is right. Take good care and best wishes from all of us at Conferencing and Events – we miss you.