Meet our December Wonders and Wows winners
We're excited to present December's brilliant Wonder and Wow winners. This month, we encouraged staff to vote for their favourite nominees - resulting in over 500 votes! A huge congratulations to the winners and thank you to all who joined them at the Festive Drinks on 18 December.
At the event, we played a 'look back' video, showcasing all the Wonder & Wow winners from the past 12 months.
Want to say well done? You can congratulate our winning colleagues in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Warwick Wonders
The Warwick Wonders Award celebrates the people we are proud to work with at our University. It recognises colleagues who have gone above and beyond to make a positive difference and enrich our community.
Dr Bill Crofts - School of Engineering
Bill set up the University’s Satellite Engineering team (WUSAT) as a project for fourth-year engineers in 2006. Since then, he’s overseen a whopping 18 WUSAT student teams in several European space launches. Even more impressive, Bill continues to lead on this after retiring in 2011.
Bill’s teams have done it all – raising funding to sustain a CubeSat (mini satellite) development programme, studying bird migration via a launch from the International Space Station, and even recording videos from space.
When Bill found out he won the award, he said:
“I was so delighted to be nominated and to receive this award! The WUSAT satellite engineering programme now operates almost as a mini Space Agency, offering a custom-designed CubeSat for researchers and company technologists to obtain an in-orbit test/demonstration of their emerging technology via a European Space Agency launch. WUSAT represents Warwick at its best – eighteen years’ worth of excellent students achieving remarkable things.”
After hearing about Bill's win, our Vice-Chancellor Stuart Croft said:
"It’s great to recognise Bill’s passion and commitment. He is inspirational, making it possible for students to take part in groundbreaking student-led European space launches, and setting a great example for other universities to follow.”
Warwick Wows
The Warwick Wows celebrate amazing work, projects, and achievements at the University.
Internal Coaching scheme - Leadership and Management Development
Since its inception, the Internal Coaching Scheme – designed to help staff develop their self-awareness, confidence and problem-solving skills – has delivered more than 200 coaching hours to Warwick staff. Lots of staff who’ve received Warwick coaching were so inspired by their experience that they signed up to learn how to become a coach – there are now 34 qualified coaches across Warwick, from many different departments!
The scheme has also paved the way for further coaching programmes, such as STAR, which is currently being piloted with more than 100 managers in our Campus and Commercial Services Group (CCSG).
"It was great to be nominated for, and to win this award. We couldn’t do it without the dedicated support of our internal coaches, all of whom are members of staff who coach in addition to their day jobs. Having an internal coaching scheme is a fundamental part of developing an organisational coaching culture, and this is a key aim of the University’s People Strategy.
From the feedback and testimonials we receive, we can see the incredible impact the coaches have."
Stuart Croft, our Vice-Chancellor, had this to say about their win:
“Everyone behind creating and running the Internal Coaching Scheme should be proud of their involvement. It’s fantastic that we can offer this opportunity to support people to grow, making a huge difference to colleagues across the University.”
Congratulations to all our winners and thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination. We'll open up nominations again during Term 2! In the meantime, be sure to get thinking about who you might put forward to be a Wonder or a Wow...
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