Previous Conferences

Please select a conference to view:

Autumn Conference 2018: Active and Social Places
Annual Conference 2017: Health & Happiness to Strengthen our Economy
Annual Conference 2016: Re-thinking Transport
Annual Conference 2015: Food for Thought: Becoming a Smarter Coast?

See also:

Spring 2019 Conference: Streets Ahead: Pathways to thriving town centres

Autumn Conference 2018

Active and Social Places
Thursday, 11th October 2018 | 6:00pm to 8:30pm
Worthing College Exhibition Hall, 1 Sanditon Way, Worthing, BN14 9FD

Waves Ahead Autumn Conference 2018 will saw Dr William Bird, a leading light in the world of wellbeing, kick-start a conversation about what we can do to make Adur and Worthing more social and active places. A community that is active and social is happier, healthier, better connected and more prosperous.

Participants shared ideas about Adur and Worthing becoming a more active and social place to help partners take action, including the development of Adur & Worthing Councils’ activities strategy. This conference started the conversation about how we can work together to create more active and social places.

Annual Conference 2017

Health & Happiness to Strengthen our Economy

Held Thursday 12th October 2017, 17:00 to 20:30
at The Shoreham Centre, Pond Road, Shoreham-by-Sea, BN43 5WU

Overview of the Conference

The 2017 Annual Conference took place at the Shoreham Centre in Shoreham-by-Sea. This year, the aim was to consider how individuals, organisations and businesses in Adur and Worthing can work together to promote the health and happiness that are key to a strong local economy.

Delegates to the Conference first heard from Amanda Fadero, who has more than 35 years’ experience within provider and commissioner organisations. She explained the need for a radical shift in the way the NHS organises its services and she briefed delegates as to how the new Coastal Care Accountable Care Partnership hopes to achieve this through the formation of Local Community Networks. Katie Glover, Chief Executive of Coastal West Sussex Mind, with broad experience in mental health, social care and housing services, focussed on mental health in the workplace – why it mattered and how it could be fostered. Angela Tanner, head of the consulting company Anisclo, has an extensive background in environmental health. She made a convincing case for a workplace wellbeing charter to benefit the organisation through fostering the health and happiness of those working in it.

After the presentations, delegates networked over local, handmade food from Ren’s Kitchen, before breaking up into groups to discuss three topics: Mental Health in the Workplace, Dementia Friendly Services, and Workplace Wellbeing Charters. This was followed by feedback from each table.

At the close of another successful Conference, delegates left cards with pledges as to how they would take things forward.

Conference papers and presentations are available to download:

Annual Conference 2016

Re-thinking Transport

Held Thursday 10th November 2016, 17:00 to 20:30
at Worthing Assembly Hall, Stoke Abbott Road, Worthing, BN11 1HQ

Overview of Conference

In November 2016, the annual Waves Ahead conference took place at the Assembly Hall in Worthing.

The theme of the event was local sustainable transport and delegates were asked to ‘re-think transport’. The conference set to explore what can be done together in the community to improve things at a very local level, and to achieve better social, economic and environmental sustainability in our transport networks. In particular, looking at cycling, walking and public transport as an alternative to the car and pushing what the barriers are to choosing alternative ways of travelling. We also discussed the future of local transport and where new opportunities and innovation may lie. There were informative presentations, three workshop sessions, a exhibition area and voting on the night.

A full write up of the event will be added to this page in due course, but in the meantime, here are the slides from our speakers, an overview of the voting and the raw data from the discussion tables. Our thanks to the presenters, the facilitators, delegates and members of the Waves Ahead Strategic Partnership for taking part in the event and making it another successful evening.

Documents and presentations from the 2016 event:

Annual Conference – 2015

Food for Thought: Becoming a Smarter Coast?

Held 15th October 2015 at Sir Robert Woodard Academy, Lancing

Overview of Conference

The 2015 annual stakeholder conference for the Waves Ahead Strategic Partnership was another very successful event with nearly 100 attendees from a wide range of sectors and from across Adur and Worthing. Held at Sir Robert Woodard Academy in Lancing, the conference aimed to provide delegates with an opportunity to consider how we can become smarter communities and how smarter partnership working can really add value and extra support to our ideas. The sub-topic of food was used to help explore the ideas and work out how we can apply smart thinking in practice.

Delegates heard from Benita Matofska, an inspirational international speaker on the Sharing Economy, and from Craig Lister, Green Gym Manager for TCV and an experienced professional. accomplished in connecting health and wellbeing with digital and the wider community.

Delegates took a break to network together over an interesting and tasty buffet of local, seasonal and handmade food provided by Ren’s Kitchen of Broadwater.

The conference was wrapped up with lively food-based workshop sessions. Workshop topics included a digital caring network, a local casserole club, a food festival in Durrington, supporting our local fishermen/the local fish market and a food waste project. There was huge enthusiasm in all the workshops and some great ideas and offers of support put forward that will allow the ideas to be implemented through Partnership and help our people and places flourish.

The occasion showed how smart, innovative and productive partners can be when working together on ideas for the local area.