Meet the February Wonders & Wows Winners

We are delighted to announce the latest staff winners of our Warwick Wonders and Wows awards. Nominated by you, these awards celebrate our outstanding people and the work we do together. 

Stuart Croft, Vice-Chancellor, was out on campus to surprise colleagues again, and the internal comms team were on hand to capture these special moments. You can watch our staff winners' reactions in this video.

After presenting the awards, Stuart said:  

"I am delighted to be surprising our award winners on campus today. It is fantastic to spend some time with them to hear more about their important work.

"Today's winners are excellent examples of our staff embracing our values of inclusion and innovation."

Transcript

Wonder:

Monday morning, Westwood, IFP, we're just about to go and say to Lucy Ryland 'You are one of our stars, you have won one of our Wows and Wonders'

The look of horror on your face, it's honestly not a bad thing, it's not a bad thing at all. Hopefully, people have seen over the last few months we've been doing these awards, Wows and Wonders for people who've done fantastic things in the University. You have been nominated, you have been given such praise for taking time when we had a Ukrainian student - the penny's starting to drop - was there at the time of the war starting. It's unbelievably, I want to use word, stressful, it's not a big enough word, to be in that kind of context, and there you were supporting, engaging, daily contact, even on days off, just having that kind of contact and support and that above and beyond that, as an individual, making a difference is absolutely wonderful. Well done you.

Wow:

So, it's time for another one of our Wows and Wonders, we're just about head over to the Student Union to see the Furniture Reuse team who've been nominated for an award for the amazing work they do. Led by Jamie with Vicky and Lloyd a team of people whose work has recycled something like 1,300 pieces of furniture and that has saved something like 4,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent absolutely magnificent work and really looking forward to going and surprising them.

Hello, now this is good news, don't look at that. Everyone's gonna come in, everyone needs to come in. We're all here. We have this wonderful new thing - Wows and Wonders and we ask the community to put forward people and teams who've done amazing things.

Guess what! Yeah, it's you guys yeah! I'm not here just practicing. You know, one of the things that we're, I think I hope anyway, we're all trying to do as a community is just lead a slightly greener life and find ways of doing things and I know people are switching lights off and I know people are switching screens off and small stuff's important but the big stuff is important as well. So, the Furniture Reuse -what a project, eh? What an amazing piece of work.

So, many pieces of furniture that otherwise would be, I don't know, burnt, dumped, thrown away - reused, recycled all that carbon improvement, some financial gains as well. All absolutely fantastic! So, the team were put forward, I'm looking at you because your name was right up front there, a team was put forward for the award and of course you must absolutely win it! So, we're delighted to say you are winners and you're all stars! Well done everyone and thank you.

You can congratulate the 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.   

Lucy Ryland

Foundation Studies

Assistant Professor, Lucy Ryland, has been commended by colleagues for regularly going above and beyond to support staff and students in their department.

Sharing her knowledge, providing constructive feedback, and having a keen eye for detail are just some of the qualities they highlighted, alongside the exceptional support she provided for a Ukrainian student.

Lucy stayed in contact with the student, who was in Ukraine during the invasion, and supported their return to campus.

Colleagues shared that Lucy shows genuine care and compassion for others and is a real asset to the whole team, who regularly rely on her input.

Lucy's nominator told us:

"In 14 years of teaching I have never worked with a colleague as reliable as Lucy. Lucy offered exemplary levels of support for a Ukrainian student who was at home, visiting his family, at the outbreak of the war earlier this year.

Despite being on annual leave for some of the days, Lucy offered daily communication with the student and continued to support extensively when he returned to campus."

After receiving the award, Lucy commented:

"It's overwhelming to receive an award, especially when I don't feel I have done anything particularly extraordinary. It was certainly surreal and nerve-wracking having Teams calls with a personal tutee and hearing sirens and explosions in the background. I would behave the same with any of my students or colleagues in such a horrendous situation though, I was just being human."

Warwick Wows

The Warwick Wows celebrate amazing work, projects, and achievements at the University.

Warwick Furniture Reuse

Estates

Furniture Reuse is a project that is creating a more efficient approach for managing redundant furniture across our campus to maximise usage, facilitate donations to charities and reduce the amount of furniture going to landfill. Jamie King, Graduate Trainee, led the project with the support of the Interior Design, Furniture and Equipment team.

Since June 2022, over 1,500 items of furniture have been reused internally at the University, saving £220,000 and diverting more than 4,000kg of CO2e from disposal and recycling.

Watch the team talking about the project

The project embraces Warwick's commitment to sustainability, while making it simpler for teams to make sure the furniture they do not need can be kept in use for longer elsewhere.

Jamie said:

"This was a massively rewarding project. Efforts to find new homes for second-hand furniture on and off campus are delivering significant benefits not just for departments across the University but also partners in the local community, enabling us to reduce our collective impact on the planet.

"The success of this project is a testament to the hard work and commitment of the Furniture Team, Facilities Team, other Estates colleagues and many others across the organisation – so thank you to you all! To win the Warwick Wow award is very special. I know that everyone involved is immensely grateful and proud of everything that has been, and will be, achieved!"

Rachel Sandby-Thomas, Registrar, sponsor for the Graduate Scheme, commented:

“This scheme ticks lots of boxes for me: the concept of rehoming furniture which might not be needed in one place but is perfectly good; a shake of the fist at waste culture; the speed of putting the concept into action, trial and then implement; and the fact that it used the potential of one of our grad scheme - supporting his talent, enthusiasm and energy, whilst letting Jamie fly. A worthy winner!”

Congratulations to all our winners and thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination. We received many high-quality nominations, and the Vice-Chancellor will select more Wonders and Wows winners in the coming weeks.

We have now reopened the nominations - nominate your colleagues and projects here.Link opens in a new window   

You can see all the Wonders & Wows nominees so far here.Link opens in a new window

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