This year delegates are invited to enjoy the full Oxford experience. The City of Dreaming Spires, now a bustling cosmopolitan town, is famous the world over for its University and place in history.
For over 800 years, it has been a home to royalty and scholars, and since the 9th century an established town, although people are known to have lived in the area for thousands of years.
"Lots of opportunities to network and learn about other projects and organisations"
Advancing Adult Guidance
NAEGA delegates will stay in one of the city’s most spectacular colleges – Keble College Oxford where historic buildings are set around traditional lawned quads with flower borders and mature trees which form a stunning yet peaceful enclosed place to work and relax in. Its original brick Victorian buildings are now complemented and supplemented by award winning contemporary developments.
The College was founded in 1870 in memory of John Keble (1792-1866), a founding member of the ‘Tractarian’ movement, which sought to recover the Catholic heritage of the Church of England. Funding for the new College was sought from Tractarian sympathisers, including the benefactor of the Chapel, William Gibbs, whose family’s fortune was based on Peruvian bird droppings, a valuable fertiliser! Keble College opened its doors to just thirty students in 1870, and the Chapel, decorated with colourful tiles, mosaics, and stained glass, was opened on St Mark’s Day 1876. The architect was William Butterfield, whose striking polychromatic brickwork, ‘the most approved “holy zebra” style’ in the eyes of its critics, served as a defiant assertion of a distinctively high church position.
If it was the intention of the College’s founders to create a high church seminary, its first Warden, Edward Talbot, had other ideas, encouraging the teaching of science, and showing sympathy to the theory of evolution. Nor could the early students live up to the demands of ‘poverty and obedience’ envisaged by the founders as, we are told, regular unlicensed boxing matches at which ‘the liquid refreshment was not tea’ punctuated student life.
The College is no longer formally tied to the Church of England. No longer are the Fellows beholden to an external Council of ecclesiastical worthies; no longer is the Warden required to be in holy orders. Originally intended for ‘gentlemen wishing to live economically’, the College began to admit women undergraduates from 1979 and elected its first female Warden in 1994. In January, Keble was presented with the Disability Symbol. It is the only Oxford college to have this award.
Accommodation
Delegates’ accommodation is in the original student halls but you will not find ‘traditional’ cold and cramped student accommodation at Keble College. Bedrooms are all ensuite now and are both comfortable and well equipped with telephones and Internet connections, tea and coffee making facilities. Toiletries and towels come as standard. However, there are no mini bars or colour TVs, just the opportunity to relax in idyllic surroundings. The College has bedrooms specially adapted for disabled delegates and there is lift access to the Dining Hall.
How to get there
For directions provided by Google maps click here
Keble College, Parks Road, City Centre, Oxford, OX1 3PN
Tel: 01865 272727
For a map of Keble College visit: http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/about/tour
For further information email: naega@emmm.co.uk