Applicant: The Staff Common Room Senior Steward: Dr. Nandini Vasudevan, n.vasudevan@reading.ac.uk

Secretary: Charlene McGroarty; scr@reading.ac.uk

Introduction: The Staff Common Room (SCR) is a social club for both staff members currently at the University and for ex-staff members of the University. We hold several events including wine and other alcohol tastings, rambles, Arts and Crafts Fairs to bring members together as well as supporting members of the local community.

Request: We request funds for two small projects, both of which we anticipate will significantly enhance the experience of our members. One of these projects will also initiate a collaboration with the Arts Collection. This will hopefully translate to supporting a student from the School of Art as well as increasing public and community engagement if the SCR spaces were to host original pieces in partnership with the Art Collection.

Garden furniture:

We request foldable garden tables and chairs for the Acacias lawn outside Acacias. Acacias is a beautiful space that is frequently used by the SCR members for various events including wine tastings and private events organized by members. For several years, we have wished to expand this to include the lawns in the summer and late spring so that we may have outdoor events such as Morris dancing during May or croquet in the summer and to include greater numbers of members and members’ guests than is currently possible in Acacias. In particular, with the pandemic, we would like to hold some events outdoors to reduce the risk for more vulnerable people, in the absence of available testing. Most of our events have up to 25 people; we hope to buy furniture to enable us to use both the inside and outside of Acacias effectively for a larger number of people.

Budget: £700 (roughly 4-5 tables with about 16 chairs).