On Saturday 24th October, around 80 Hub Leaders, of all ages from all over the UK will be sacrificing their weekend lie-ins and rising early with one thing in common – they will all be heading to the annual FoodCycle Conference 2015!
What is the FoodCycle Conference?
The FoodCycle Conference is an annual two-day event jam-packed full of free training, fantastic debate, inspiring speakers, and plenty of opportunities to meet like-minded people from across the country – and have a lot of fun too.
A celebration of all things FoodCycle, the Conference is the biggest event of the year for the FoodCycle Hubs programme. This year we are moving to a whole new venue – Lift in Islington, a fantastic community centre housed in a chic Victorian conversion.
This weekend is a chance for all our wonderful Hub Leaders to meet, share best practice, receive training in areas as diverse as volunteer management, first aid, leadership development, PR and communications and cooking and nutrition!
So what’s so special about this year’s conference?
This October’s Conference is FoodCycle’s 7th and looks set to be our biggest ever, with over 80 of our fantastic Hub Leaders attending – we’ve come a long way since FoodCycle’s first Conference in 2009, with 10 people packed into a room!
As well as offering 11 different training and discussion sessions throughout the weekend, we are very much looking forward to being joined by a whole host of experts to debate one of FoodCycle’s core aims: to minimize the pernicious effects of social isolation. Speakers will include Marcus Rand from the Campaign to End Loneliness, Ellie Watmough, from Magic Me, an organisation that runs innovative arts events to bring people from diverse backgrounds together, and George McNamara, the Head of Policy at the Alzheimer’s Society.
For the fifth year running, our lunch on the Saturday will be very kindly donated by the wonderful people at Pret A Manger, FoodCycle’s own Hub Leaders will be competing in the Great FoodCycle Bake Off, and an amazing spread will be put on for Sunday lunch by Chipotle Burritos! If that’s not enough, we even have refreshments kindly donated by Barefoot Wine and the East London Brewery!
We are very grateful to all of these individuals and organisations who are donating their time or resources to make this year’s FoodCycle Conference as special as we know it will be, as well as many more that must remain secret for now – we wouldn’t want to ruin all the surprises for the volunteers now would we?
Sounds great! How I do sign up?
The Conference is exclusive for FoodCycle Hub Leaders – it is an essential chance for us to enthuse and empower our newest Hub Leaders, to share the experiences of those who’ve been involved a little longer, and to reward them all for the amazing impact they are having every week in their communities!
If you’re interested in becoming a Hub Leader, why not get in touch with your local Hub and see if they have any space in the team?
Get social
You can keep up with all the happenings in the build-up to the Conference, and on the weekend itself by following the hashtag #FoodCycle2015.
