‘I’ve been trying to get something like this in the UK for the last 15 years,’ says a proud Phil Hall head of ABDO’s National Resource Centre in Birmingham’s Aston. The ‘something’ he is talking about is the Association of British Dispensing Optician’s NRC and the CLO-cum-educator Hall and ABDO members have plenty to be proud of.
Aston has had a long association with optics and the NRC is housed within 11,000sq ft spread over two floors in a five storey block, just a stone’s throw away from the old Dollond & Aitchison Waterlinks HQ. Aston University is also on the NRC’s doorstep but more importantly so is the M6, M42 and the UK’s second city.
Facilities at the NRC can only be described as first class mixing ‘hotel standard’ catering with the very best in interactive educational resources, modular room layouts giving maximum space flexibility and technical wizardry. There is a calm, comfortable and large reception area with great views and plentiful catering and coffee.
The centre is roughly made up of two parts: the lower floor houses four well-equipped lecture rooms along the front of the building with another sizeable meeting room and three smaller meeting rooms close by. This floor also houses a kitchen where food can be prepared and laid out, rather than cooked, and offices for the staff. The floor above features 10 fully-equipped examination rooms, a large lecture area equipped with a range of pre-screening instruments and a second large lecture theatre. Even the smaller rooms have projectors and multiple technology points. The wider industry support for the NRC is demonstrated by the many sponsor name plates on the consulting rooms, the latest instrumentation and the fully equipped glazing area complete with six glazing machines on the lower floor. A further hidden gem is an outdoor roof terrace which Hall admits needs further consideration as to whether it should come into general use.
Consulting room
What puts the centre on a different level from many educational venues is not just the quality of the fitting: soundproofed rooms, air-conditioning, flexible layouts and great views with the option of blackout screening. What really brings the venue alive as an educational space is the use of technology, details and its interconnection.
The largest of the lecture rooms feature enormous interactive touch screens using the latest presentation and teaching technology allowing lecturers to talk to a presentation, annotate and draw free hand. Everything can be captured recorded and saved for student use. The six foot wide screen saves the lecture into a workbook which generates a QR code for student to zap and download later. The nattiest piece of interconnection is a two-way, multi-camera link between one of the examination rooms and the lecture spaces on the floor below. The flexibility of the spaces is impressive as is the detailing in the controls for lighting and sound.
Hall is still clearly amused by reactions to the space which cannot fail to impress. ‘I think people got the impression we were going to be in an old church hall and they would ask us to leave a key under the mat and bring their own sandwiches,’ he says. Hall is a CLO by training but has also run optical stores and risen through the ranks to be the contact lens portfolio manager for Specsavers. It was here he got involved with professional CET training and finally joined the company’s professional training and development team.
Reception area
The lessons learned there have helped design many of the details when it comes to presentation technology and lighting. It was Hall’s role as an examiner for ABDO that brought him into contact with people who had an ambition to open a learning centre of the type he had long dreamed of. ‘Alicia Thompson, ABDO director of professional examinations and the ABDO board had been discussing opening a centre like this and I have been trying to get something similar in the UK for 15 years. My ideas fitted with theirs,’ he says and so he was both delighted and privileged to be recruited by ABDO in the role of bringing the NRC alive for them. ‘The idea was to have hotel standards of welcome and catering with the best optical facilities.’ The NRC delivers just that and you can park for free just outside the front door.
Hall is candid about seeing similar resources elsewhere and aiming to create something bigger and better as a go-to educational resource for the whole of optics. At the moment around 60% of the occupancy is ABDO and the rest outside. Among those who have chosen to use the NRC are the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and he does not rule out non-optical companies using the site.
‘Everyone has been quite wowed by it,’ he says. He admits that some aspects of the project are evolving and there are always new skills to be acquired. ‘It’s a learning curve,’ he adds. ‘I didn’t realise how difficult catering was.’