Celebrating 10 years of SITA Trust funding
The Trust celebrated its 10th anniversary on the 10th October 2007 at Birmingham’s ThinkTank. 140 guests joined Trust staff and board directors as well as senior representatives from SITA UK in the celebrations.
As one of the five science centres that SITA Trust funded through its Wasted Science programme, ThinkTank provided a superb central and relevant location for the celebrations to take place. ThinkTank is also home to one of the UK’s few fully digital planetariums, which provided the inspiration for one of the event’s star attractions. The Trust employed the National Space Centre, one of the only companies in the world that has the technical know how and ability, to produce a very special celebratory film to be shown on the planetarium.
The short film took the guests on a tour of 19 projects that the Trust has funded over the years to give just a flavour of what has been achieved. Celebrated conservation broadcaster and writer, Chris Baines, provided an inspirational voice-over to the incredible full-dome images.
As well as the film, guests were treated to a gallery leading them through the ten years that SITA Trust has been funding projects. John Leaver, Chairman of SITA Trust, Iain Gibson of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and three applicants of projects that have been funded by the Trust provided stimulating presentations before a delicious organic lunch was served. Chris Baines rounded off lunch with a fascinating presentation, which was followed by a commitment of support by Per-Anders Hjort, Chief Executive of SITA UK.
A toast to the continuing success of SITA Trust by former non-executive board member, David Fitzsimons, completed the formalities of the day.
“I was delighted when John asked me to be involved in the Trust’s 10th anniversary celebrations. Not only did it allow SITA UK to publicly reiterate its support of the superb work being carried out by the Trust but it also seemed a perfect opportunity for us to offer a more personal and direct contribution to the communities in which we work. I was particularly pleased therefore, to be able to provide special awards to the favourite charities of two of our guests,” said Per-Anders Hjort.
The very generous gifts of £10,000 presented by Per-Anders on behalf of SITA UK came as a complete surprise to all of the guests. Unbeknown to the guests there was a unique number on the reverse of their name badges, which they were directed to when raffle tickets, were pulled out of a glass bowl.
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