Meridian Conference & Awards 2022

Meridian Conference & Awards

Saturday 5th March marked the day of our annual Meridian Conference & Awards at the beautiful Carden Park Hotel, sponsored by The Access Group, Brabners, Corinthian, Exchequer Solutions, FluidOne, Gallagher, Altodigital, Aziz Coach Service, Veritas, and W Denis. Each year Meridian brings together the team from across the country to celebrate their hard work and incredible achievements throughout the year including a number of new awards this year following a record year of achievements in 2021.

Following an introduction from Meridian CEO, Derek Skelton we had an update on the past 12 months and what an amazing year it was for Meridian, including 33 promotions across the business and an incredible number of job roles being filled. We were delighted to see many awards being presented during our day event including our graduation and financial awards and long service awards;

1. Student of the Year – Charlotte McMeechan
2. Community Champion – Samantha Beale
3. Largest Perm Fee – Fred Ewing
4. Quality Award for Compliance – Trafford Park
5. Outstanding Team Contribution – NRC
6. Unsung Hero of the Year – Cathy Kendrick
7. Most Improved Branch of the Year – Glasgow
8. Long Service Award - 5 years
   Janet Calthorpe
   Olivia Bodley
   Louise Ketteringham
   Deimante Lekute
   Gemma Lakin
   Paula Dragonska
   Adam Temme
   Nicola Thomas
   Steph Sopjes
   Derek Skelton
   Adrian Saffery
   Gary Callow
   Stephen Pearson

And many more awards, presented by Head of Learning and Development, Jamie Abbott and honorary ‘Professor’ for the day, Derek Skelton.

We were delighted to be joined by guest speaker, Roz Savage, the first woman to row solo across the worlds ‘Big 3’ Oceans – The Atlantic, Pacific & Indian Oceans, rowing over 15,000 miles, around 5 million oar strokes and spending over 500 days at sea in a rowboat, with injuries along the way, and most disastrously – a broken stereo! Roz is now the holder of 4 Guinness World Records and an MBE for services to fundraising and the environment. Roz addressed the Meridian team on the importance of resilience and perseverance through difficulties, this was proven by 4 members of our team joining Roz on stage ‘rowing’ a mile whilst being splashed by ‘waves’ along the way. One way of getting through the struggles was to ‘begin with the end in mind – your funeral’ and not leave behind any regrets. Roz profoundly stated ‘I want to look back and know I did my best and tried my hardest. I realised I wanted to leave a legacy’ a statement to live by!

Following a catch-up at the bar with colleagues and friends from branches across the country, our evening event commenced, with everyone dressed to the nines and celebrating our colleagues once more presented by our esteemed host, Rob Latimer. We presented many of our incredible team members with awards during the evening;

1. Best Newcomer – Carmel Bardsley
2. Best Client Facing Customer Experience – Rebecca Ames
3. Best Candidate Facing Customer Experience – Karen Brown
4. Best Internal Customer Experience – Alan Ormesher
5. Support Services Department of the Year – Credit Control
6. Manager of the Year – Clariss Skelton
7. Key Account Manager of the Year – Rob Richards
8. Onsite Biller of the Year – Danielle Avery
9. Temp Biller of the Year – Colette Smith
10. Perm Biller of the Year – Fred Ewing
11. Branch of the Year – Wakefield Next
12. A-Z Branch of the Year – Exeter
13. Onsite of the Year – HelloFresh
14. Meridian Ambassador Awards – Lana Bennett & Danny Harding
15. Chief Executives Award – Steph Sopjes
16. Long Service Award - 10 Years
    Piotr Narozny
    Natalie Lomax
    Francesca Woodsford
17. Long Service Award - 20 years
    Tom Andrews
    Cathy Kendrick
    Anton Gleave
    Cath Haslam
    Steve Pitt

We also had a special award to present at the end of what was an amazing evening of celebration addition to the Meridian Hall of Fame this year. The Hall of Fame welcomes people who contribute to the foundations of Meridian and uphold our company values, and this year's recipient was our Financial Director, Jeanette Barrowcliffe.

The day concluded with dinner and dancing following an exceptional day and a raffle to raise money in aid of Leonard Cheshire. Congratulations to all of our winners and thank you to our sponsors, the AV team, the organization team, and the Carden Park staff for helping us to celebrate in style!