The Hub meeting and events space

We may be a little biased, but we love The Hub meeting and events space at Helimed House, the Norwich base of East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA). It offers a business venue perfect for away days, conferences, meetings, lectures and courses. It also brings the charity even closer to the community that we are proud to serve.

The Hub is a large purpose-built space, flooded with natural light and offers flexible seating options for up to 75 guests, along with refreshment and catering options, a dedicated event support team and technology to support the success of your event. And of course, money raised through the event hire is reinvested back into the community by helping to fund EAAA’s 24/7 life-saving operations. 

We recently spoke with Amanda Reynolds, Founder and Managing Director of Blend Associates, who have used The Hub for several of their events, to learn more about how the space supports their business activity.

Amanda is a certified executive coach with a master’s qualification in executive coaching and mentoring. Ten years ago, she established Blend Associates. At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Blend expanded quickly to provide Leadership Coaching to hundreds of NHS Leaders as they were seeking to navigate the challenges of the pandemic. Blend has now grown to over 30 executive coaches and a supporting team of seven, working across the NHS, education, local government, charity and the private sector.

“Our priority is to use local suppliers for all of our support,” Amanda explains. “When we run in-person events with our clients, we have a policy of not using large national or multi-national conference/hotel facilities. We are drawn to identifying local businesses where the money we pay stays locally and if we can, we like to use charities.”

Recalling a medical emergency at a sporting event attended by her family a few years ago, Amanda says that the patient was attended by EAAA. Advanced critical care at the scene contributed to a life being saved. This led Blend to make a donation to EAAA and receive the charity’s regular communications, which made them aware of the meeting facilities at Helimed House.

“It is a wonderful space to work in as coaches and facilitators,” Amanda says. “The building is modern and efficient. The space can be configured to meet our needs and the wi-fi and tech integration is amazing. This, and the fact that by using this facility we are helping keep East Anglian Air Ambulance flying and saving lives is a real bonus to us and our clients when we use The Hub.”

Blend have since used The Hub for group coaching, leadership development programmes and wellbeing sessions for their clients. Amanda continues: “Our experience is that the space will meet the needs of a wide variety of users. Being on the ground floor with a refreshment area, toilets and parking available is an added bonus in a busy city like Norwich. This makes attendance at our events more likely because it is such a well-designed space for clients.”

Full support is available from the EAAA team from the initial point of planning, through to ordering food and refreshments and sending materials in advance to help events run smoothly.

“On the day of our events, staff are amazingly friendly and accommodating. Nothing is too much trouble and it’s all done with a smile. It has fantastic Wi-Fi and AV equipment that doesn’t let us down. It then takes the pressure off us knowing this is all in place so we don’t have to think about it and when we arrive, we can just concentrate on welcoming our clients and giving them a great day.”

Amanda continues: “We really value EAAA and the work it does as an emergency health response service in the air. Blend, in all its work, is driven by our values. Two of these values are enabling and being the difference. We are proud therefore to work with EAAA and know that as we work, our event running costs are contributing to such a vital service for the region.”

To learn how The Hub could support your meeting or event, please contact us on 03450 669 999 or email info@eaaa.org.uk.