/ NEWS Bringing Aycliffe Business Park Together | 13
Xcel Centre staff take part in a team-building exercise in their own back yard
WHERE BUSINESS XCELS IN AYCLIFFE
Newton Aycliffe’ s state-of-the-art conference venue continues to build a name for itself as one of the best facilities of its kind in the region- not just locally.
The Xcel Centre, built three-and-a-half years ago, has hosted a string of high-profile events, most notably all of Hitachi Rail Europe’ s main functions, as well as the hugely-popular annual Oktoberfest event, a manufacturing and engineering exhibition.
The purpose built facility was also the venue for a Sedgefield Constituency anniversary do organised by MP Phil Wilson last November and it annually hosts Durham County Council’ s Future Business Magnates events and Star Radio’ s awards evenings, to name a few.
With around 30 major events held throughout the year, the centre’ s impressive auditorium has already exceeded expectations, but it’ s the smaller conference rooms which allow for huge versatility, as proved recently when members of staff were put through a training day by specialist team-building company High Impact Development.
Centre manager Kerina Clark watched on as staff were asked to drive a 28-year-old Land Rover around the car park... blindfolded!
Luckily, there were no injuries … and no damage caused.
“ It was certainly interesting!” explains Kerina.“ It was about trust and communication.
“ We spent the morning looking at emotional intelligence. It’ s not necessarily what you do, but how you do your job. While there was a fun element to it all, there was also some selfassessment involved and we were challenged to
look at how we work individually and as a team”
“ When you then do team tasks, you start to see what you’ ve been studying in the morning playing out in the afternoon, especially when we did the blindfolded driving!”
“ We have a close-knit team, but even those who were maybe a little sceptical beforehand thoroughly enjoyed it and said they got a lot out of it.
“ We also looked at what’ s become known as the aggregation of marginal gains, a term coined by Team GB’ s cycling coach Dave Brailsford who was credited for the stunning performance in the Olympics last summer. It’ s about focussing on all the little things that collectively make a bigger difference to any one thing.
“ With most teams, and a lot of businesses, it’ s not about making a massive change, it’ s about making some minor adjustments which, added up, make the difference.”
The team-bonding exercise demonstrated the Xcel Centre’ s ability to adapt to specific requirements, so it’ s satisfying for Kerina to see outline ambitions being fulfilled.
She says:“ One of the key aims when we built Xcel was to ensure maximum flexibility. It was imperative that we could be versatile and adapt to just about everything a potential client might need.
“ The Xcel Centre was purpose-built for events and that’ s meant we’ ve been able to tailor-make what we do in line with what our clients want, and deliver what’ s needed, as opposed to what we think is needed.
“ Sometimes people look at our venue and think we only do big events but we have a whole range of spaces available and the wide range of events we’ re hosting for companies now, large and small, prove that the possibilities really are endless.”
The Xcel Centre opened with 20 employees and has almost doubled its operational staff since then.
“ The vision was to build a centre which would be a resource to the local community, and that underlying ethos remains. Not just the business community and what we do in terms of events, but also the fact that all operating profits of the Xcel Centre are re-invested back into the local community including supporting crisis help for families and a food bank.
“ They’ re sending out between 12 and 20 food hampers every week, while also working in partnership with other agencies to help people in need. The help can range from home help teams, domestic maintenance and renovation to emergency clothing and furniture supplies.
“ So there’ s a lot more to us than just business. There’ s a lot of fantastic work going on behind the scenes, with the money that’ s being made on site, and long may that continue.”