On October 9th-10th, The Rank Foundation hosted the annual conference at the fantastic Queens Hotel in Leeds.

Every year the Foundation brings together beneficiary organisations, Time to Shine Leaders, Rank Aspire members, RankNet members and external funders and guests to a 2-day themed conference where delegates get the chance to participate in tailored seminars, the annual Accelerator Event, networking opportunities and celebratory showcases. This is the biggest event of the year for the Foundation, and we are always excited to share the amazing work of Leaders in our network.

This year, the theme of the conference was Valuing Place: Creating Collaborative Change. Earlier this year, the Foundation released a Valuing Place report focusing on the successes (and lessons learned) of Place-Based funding in Hull, Dundee and Plymouth. Building on this, it felt apt to spend two days with the network looking at how Place affects our communities, and how best to make every opportunity count. We had 250 delegates join us in Leeds, including seminar leaders, performers, key note speakers, judges and panellists.

We would like to thank all delegates for their participation at what we feel is our most successful conference to date, with an extra special thank you to members of the network who helped the team deliver the conference content by running seminars, acting as judges and panellists, and sharing their stories with attendees.

You can take a look at photographs of the event on our conference page here.