Do you listen to Christmas carols in March?
Do you like celebrating the work we do with your colleagues?
Do you want to work with other colleagues to make this year’s Christmas lunch happen?
If you’ve answered yes to these, consider volunteering for the Christmas lunch organising committee. Please get in touch with me (Theresa) or Gabrielle if you are interested and we will have a meeting in the next few weeks.
Here is what has already been agreed in discussion with Anne.
- The lunch will be held on Friday 26th November from 12.30pm.
Holding the lunch on a Friday is the least disruptive for our summer Library users as we can close the three Libraries and then all staff can go home after the lunch. Any other week day would mean colleagues would need to return to work and reopen the Library for the evening shift while others get to go home.
Holding the lunch at the end of November allows our AYO staff to attend and is generally before most people start taking Christmas/holiday leave.
- The lunch will be held in Haere-Roa.
Haere-Roa is the only venue on campus big enough to hold all of us for lunch. We need to seat between 80 and 100 people (depending on the staff numbers in November). Past Christmas lunch committees have considered other venues on campus and nearby but Haere-Roa best meets our needs to:
- Sit and feed up to 100 people (including a number of allergy and dietary requirements)
- Has a bar and the ability for people to purchase their own alcohol if they wish
- Works with us to fit within the budget set by SMT. We are very lucky to be provided an employer-sponsored lunch in work time.
- Allows for staff to easily walk there without transport being a barrier.
In 2020 the lunch committee specifically considered the Staff Club. But we struggled to engage with their venue co-ordinator about menus, budget, capacity and whether they could accommodate us as such a large group.
- There will be no awards at the lunch this year.
Anne would like the lunch to be a celebration of the work we all do and hopes we can find other ways to celebrate and promote individual successes throughout the Library during the year. If anyone has ideas for ways in which we can do this please let your manager know.