A first of its kind, older people summit, that brought together representatives and participants from across the 14 National Community Funded Ageing Better programmes, for an opportunity to celebrate, connect, learn and share.
Opening Doors & Venues worked closely with the local Age Better in Sheffield committee to bring together over 160 attendees for a two half-days event that took over the Ballroom floor of the Sheffield City Hall. With a content centred around a test and learn approach to reducing social isolation and loneliness in older people, the event did not disappoint. Expert speakers from funding and local delivery bodies as well as the Campaign to End Loneliness opened proceedings before participants moved into breakout sessions led by each of the 14 Ageing Better programmes. Day two finished on a high with guest speaker and blogger, Grandma Joyce Williams, a force of nature and true inspiration for our participants, young and old.
The event was professionally and efficiently hosted by Louise Ansari, Director of Communications & Influencing at the Centre for Ageing Better. Live voting was used on both days to assess the opinions of the attendees. The straightforward system by TurningPoint, with individual voting handsets, was a perfect match for the event’s demographic and encouraged engagement from over 70% of attendees. A portable translation system was supplied to ensure that a group of Bangladeshi attendees was actively involved in the content and one of the parallel workshops employed the use of technology to facilitate a live link to a radio station programme on the Isle of Wight.
Day one culminated in an informal evening of street food and a quiz at the impressive Grade 1 listed Victorian Town Hall.
With the support of the conference bureau at Marketing Sheffield, OD&V coordinated accommodation bookings in three centrally located hotels and information on travel and transfer in the city. AV support was provided by the venue with the OD&V team of four coordinating full production on the days, as well as managing registration and overseeing parallel sessions logistics.
