Anne Cooke

What is your job title?  

Head of Learning and Development.

How long have you worked at Outsourced Events?  

Since May 2023.

What is one thing you cannot live without?  

Enough sleep.

Where is the best place you have travelled to and why? 

Probably Paris: a perfect combination of art, history, architecture, Proust, weather, good food, romance, and café culture. 

If you could learn to do anything what would it be?    

(Re-learn) horse-riding. I learnt in my early 20s but haven’t been since. 

When you have 30 minutes of free time, how do you pass the time?    

Go into the garden and tend to / bother the plants.

What is your favourite thing about working at Outsourced Events?    

Assuming ‘the people’ is a given 😉 I would say it’s the openness to ideas.

If you could invite four people to dinner (living or dead) who would you invite and why?    

Oliver Sacks, Cordelia Fine, Tom Troscianko and Jonathan Miller, to hear them discuss the brain, consciousness, mind, perception and good whisky. (Sorry, bit neuro that one!) 

What was your childhood ambition?    

Not sure I had one. To leave Marlow Bottom? 

What is your most memorable day at Outsourced Events?    

Probably the first Event Executives’ training day. 

If you could do any job, regardless of skills and training, what would it be?    

Paramedic, emergency doctor or intensivist.

What are the top three items on your bucket list?    

Balloon flight over Bristol. Sicily by train. Finish mending/decorating the house!

What would people never guess you do in your role?    

Um... tricky – it kind of does what it says on the tin! Maybe that it involves coming up with fun activities to help people learn. 

If you could witness any historical event, what would you want to see?    

Bristol at any point in history prior to the arrival of motorcars, ideally with the original Bristol Bridge and its six-storey buildings still standing.