Notes from the College Operations Manager

Christmas jumper day for the Hatfield staff team 2020

The past 12 months have been a period of continual change for the Hatfield Operations Team, as it has been for the entire population due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At times, this has presented a number of extremely difficult challenges, which our Team has managed to overcome with flying colours.

Hatfield was chosen as one of two Colleges to provide accommodation for critical care workers in March 2020, which involved packing, moving and storing all of the students’ belongings from their rooms into the Burt Room, then servicing all of those student rooms within a tight turnaround time. Our Team managed to complete this in brilliant fashion, whilst still dealing with the uncertainties and unknowns that we faced as the Covid pandemic began to hit. I would also like to thank the Catering Team who assisted in packing students’ belongings while preparing for the arrival of the critical care workers; their help was enormously appreciated, and showed what a great team we have in Hatfield. Welcoming back our students to a Covidsecure environment in October was a great moment for the College and our Team. This involved organising our accommodation into Households (of maximum 20 students) in which the sharing of facilities and being socially distanced was not required. This also meant changes in a number of processes and procedures to enable us to continue to provide a service in a Covidsecure way. As we have come to expect from our Hatfield community, all staff and students have been extremely helpful and understanding, and we thank you for your cooperation during this period of change. There have also been a number of works completed in the College, which continue to improve our site. The Covid-19 five-test model allowed our College to be Covidsecure; the model involved the installation of hand sanitisers throughout the site, screens and one-way systems to allow our community to remain safe. The Estates and Facilities’ summer works programme allowed improvements to many of our student rooms across the entire site. All these works have had a huge impact on

improving our site and I thank everyone involved. In the coming 12 months we are looking at further projects to continue to improve the College.

Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, we were unable to hold our usual annual events such as Hatfield Day and Hatfield Sessions in 2020. Our Operations Team did assist with many events such as Lion in Winter Ball, which was able to take place prior to the pandemic, and Freshers’ Week, which went ahead in a modified way with Covid controls in place. I would like to thank all those across the College who attended these events and, in particular, thank you to the students who put these events together. Special thanks and well done to the Freps Team. Despite all the changes in Covid guidance and challenges in the lead-up to Freshers’ Sunday, they still managed to put on some outstanding activities.

The Operations Team has accomplished a number of great things over the past 12 months. I am extremely proud of what the Team has contributed to the Hatfield experience and to the community in what has been a year like no other.

David Embleton

Hatfield Housekeeping team 2020 Lateral Flow Testing marquee on Dunham Court