 Hi everyone and welcome along to UK conference TV I am column cronin from the adventures and advising podcast and I am delighted This evening. We are recording right at the end of day one to be joined by Dr. David Gray David How are you doing sir? I'm doing very well first column It's a pleasure to be here with you and just to say thank you to start with for the great job What do you all do with conference TV and these interviews? They're really adding something to the conference Well, I'm thank you for that. I'm enjoying it to have the opportunity to talk to Celia Greenway and kind of get some insights into her background was really cool and for me added to that piece around that opening keynote but it has been I think from my perspective a really good first day I imagine you have had a lot of caffeine probably over the last few hours given the work that went into setting it up and then day one but your thoughts on as the CEO of UCAD on day one of the conference Oh absolutely delighted. I mean this is a fantastic event. There's been such a great vibe around the place today There are always busy periods on day one and sorting a few things out at the start but overall it's gone really smoothly and we're delighted this is the biggest conference UCAD has ever held Our last conference was only six months ago. There was a chance that we may not attract many people because it's so soon after the previous one but no this is by far and away the biggest conference We've almost doubled the number of delegates that we have at the event and that's obvious in the sessions that we've got going on. They're so vibrant and so many people in there and I think we've also taken a deliberate decision to kind of scale back the schedule a bit so we don't have as many things going on in parallel so that makes the sessions bigger and more vibrant as well and there's been such a great buzz and atmosphere in those sessions and some really great discussion going on between the delegates so it's been fantastic to see Yeah, I think the decision to scale back was a good one given that we are in this virtual space and I think it's the learnings that the virtual space is very different to the physical space and you cannot merely replicate and I think you kind of done that really nicely and I think the other thing that's added to it and I had the experience myself today is the advising hub, the gather town environment where you're wandering around and then you see somebody and it feels like that conference feel like I was walking around earlier and I saw George, George Steele I was like, George, how's it going? And that really added I think that spontaneous aspect because everything is kind of so deliberate online ordinarily so have you had the opportunity to go and wander around the advising hub yourself? I have, yeah, it's been fantastic. I mean I've been involved in building the advising hub as well and I've been in there and using it for a little while now but yesterday I was talking to George myself earlier on and I was trying to recount an experience I'd had yesterday when the Dutch delegates were in there and they were using it for the conference and I saw somebody in the corridor and you're right, it's that spontaneous thing and I can't even begin to remember what the experience was like I had now but I saw this person and I thought that's exactly the same feeling I get when I'm in a real conference venue you're right the online is very different but just being in that gather town environment and seeing those people and engaging in that way it made me feel like I was really in the conference venue with them and that we were more connected in some way so it's really great and we've had loads of fantastic comments from the delegates about how much they're appreciating it and the ability to connect and engage in that way I think people are also really motivated by the Easter egg treasure hunt people are desperately trying to find the last few Easter eggs that they haven't found people keep asking me where are they and I honestly don't know the answer so I can't tell you they're in there somewhere and you will find them but no it's great it's really really good to see so many people connecting and engaging with that and I think our Dutch colleagues are having the same experience as well so it's a really great environment Yeah I love the fact that it is a shared space which is great to see and look there were loads of great sessions today I suppose by the time this is actually released we're already in the future so I'm interested in hearing from your perspective and there is so much to look forward to but if you were to cherry pick a few things that you think viewers might want to keep an eye out on the next couple of days what are some of the events? Okay well I can tell you about the events but actually I think there's something that viewers should keep an eye out for and that's something different that we have at this conference as well which we haven't had before and it's a deliberate part of UCAT strategy and that is we actually have students as delegates we have around about 8% of our delegates this year are students and it's really great to get the students involved with their advisors in those conversations to help us do what we do better to support advisors because ultimately at the end of the day we serve students so we need that student voice in what we do and I know I've been in sessions today where the students have been involved and they've added a great deal to the discussions so they will be there, they will be in session throughout the rest of the conference look out for them and make them feel welcome because they are very much a part of this event and we very much need to hear their voice and their input but in terms of specific kind of sessions to look out for the highlights for me in the next few days are tomorrow lunchtime we have a joint discussion session with our Dutch colleagues from LVSR so we had a symposium with them back in December where we looked at how the pandemic had affected us as advisors how it sort of impacted upon us and really to try and recapture our passion for advising and then we've got a follow-up from that as a joint discussion session tomorrow where we're looking at how the practices we have as advisors have changed through the pandemic and what the best changes have been so that we can hold on to those so hopefully it's going to be a really lively discussion and one in which we will discover things in common that we've really learnt and benefited our practice that we can intentionally adopt going forward so that will be a great opportunity to get together with international delegates and then we have our awards ceremony tomorrow where we're recognising those who have made great contributions to the field of advising or to the UCAT itself we also recognise all of those who have been given professional recognition through the UCAT professional recognition scheme so a whole range of people there and we also have I think as Oscar mentioned on a previous episode of conference TV the introduction of the Charlie Nutt Award so we'll be awarding the first Charlie Nutt Award so that's going to be a great honour and Charlie will be joining us himself for that so we're really looking forward to seeing Charlie there tomorrow and I guess the other highlight we have for tomorrow is we have a session immediately before the awards ceremony with one of our award winners, Neil Bangs from Middlesex University who's doing a practice showcase session so Neil's going to be telling us about how his sports science team at Middlesex have really adopted this intentional structured programme of personal tutoring and have been enhancing their offering over the last five years where they've got to this point with group advising and an approach they've taken during the pandemic that has really helped their students feel connected to the programme so for me those are the highlights and that's just some of the programme of events that lie ahead so there will be all sorts of things for people to look forward to to engage in and I will while we're chatting put up the you can see the kind of social media so like the conversations I heard today were fantastic and people were so engaged and really interested in that student perspective that you mentioned David so keep the conversations going in terms of UCAT and obviously you can see the joint LinkedIn group there you can see the conference hashtag you can definitely get involved I saw loads of tweets today which was fantastic so it's great to see the level of engagement that we're seeing from people and I guess at this point all that really remains is for me to thank you for taking the time given the hectic schedule that you have and to wish you the very best for the remainder of the conference Thanks Colin and enjoy the rest of the conference too