Three Biologic Studies Group (BSG) registers recently spent a day outdoors, building vital connections with each other and with nature.

At the University of Manchester, we are very fortunate to have The Firs, which is an Environmental Research Station. This is home to:

• The Range greenhouse – split into 5 climate zones (lowland tropical, cloud forest, arid, subtropical and Mediterranean)
• A moss house
• Fernery
• Pond
• Vegetable plot
• Meadow
• Small orchard

The team at the Firs offer opportunities for staff to have an ‘away day,’ providing the perfect environment to work on team-building activities and also to enjoy the benefits that being in a green space offers.

The Day

Let loose with a spade!

After a warm welcome from the onsite team, we were given a tour of the entire site.  We were worried that we might get rained on but there was blue sky and even a good bit of sunshine.

We were then put to work to tidy the fern beds and prune the buddleias. Equipped with steel cap boots, spades and pitch forks, we dug overgrown ferns out of a bed. Armed with garden shears, we cut away at the buddleias and tackled tricky brambles.

Following this, we ate our picnic lunch just in time before the heavens opened and Manchester’s weather prevailed!

Benefits

The before and after!

The benefits to us were:

• Time – it was good to spend time with each other.
• Space – getting away from our computers and into the outdoors.
• Achievement – seeing the results of our hard work – there’s nothing quite like seeing a before and after picture!
• Peace – although the Firs is next to a busy main road, the only sounds we heard were the sounds of nature.
• Knowledge – we learned a lot about plants, gardening and about our university’s history in botany.

Our team said…

It was really nice to get out of the office and get some fresh air with my favourite people! I was pleased they didn’t work us too hard, just enough to feel useful and get sore muscles the next day. (Lianne, UK JIA Biologics Register Co-Investigator)

A proud moment

I love our annual away day. It allows me a chance to catch up with the team while doing something which is not just meetings and work. I learn about people’s family, their holidays and plans, and strangely (or not) their cats – and there seem to be a lot of them in our team! (Kimme, BSRBR-RA Chief Investigator, UK JIA Biologics Register Co-Investigator)

It was lovely to spend time with my colleagues, working together doing something other than looking at a laptop screen! It really did feel like proper teamwork when we were negotiating how best to tackle digging out an enormous bed of ferns – lots of tips shared and helping hands given. The Firs team were so welcoming and we would love to go back! (Katy, Studies Coordinator, Biologic Studies Group)

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