Us being awesome.
Welcome to Hoare Lea.
We recently hosted our annual Welcome Event at Kings House, Kings Cross. The event brought together our 2025 early careers starters, along with those who joined towards the end of last year, to meet each other and learn more about the firm.
The morning began with introductions to Hoare Lea, our history, purpose, and values, followed by an interactive session exploring the different disciplines and offices across the firm. We heard from some of our Rising Stars, before diving into a lively speed networking session.
The afternoon saw teams head out for a Kings Cross Scavenger Hunt, visiting some of our projects and discovering the local area, before returning for lunch.
Early Careers volunteering events.
Our Early Careers programme connects those in the early stages of their career together from across the firm. As part of this, we ran several volunteering events across the UK, with around 80 people taking part!
In Manchester the team supported seasonal habitat management and green space improvements, removing invasive species.
In Northampton they helped to build a new duck pond and some new raised beds, as well as planting lots of new veg for the local community to enjoy.
In London at Stave Hill Ecology Park in London, our volunteers helped with hedge clearing, building land dams and planting reeds around the pond.
And in the Southwest, the team cleared an orchard and meadow of invasive species to maintain the local parkland for the use of the local community.
All aboard flight Tom Collins.
Tom Collins has been learning to fly for the last couple of years, and recently – he flew solo for the first time! Here’s what he had to say:
"I am not often proud of my own achievements, but this one I don't mind admitting that I was proud and it was a very emotional experience."
And that’s a wrap.
Plymouth’s Cycle & Breakfast events have officially ended for the year. During its time, they welcomed more than 20 cyclists for chilly early morning starts to explore the beauty of Dartmoor (and the odd lesson on how to fit a puncture). After each trip, they’d all enjoy breakfast and a coffee at Boringdon Golf Club.
A summer away day.
Colleagues from our Scotland team cycled around the stunning Isle of Cumbrae in the beautiful sunshine for their summer away day. The island is approximately 10 miles wide - and they set a challenge for cyclists to find treasures along the way. This was followed up by lunch and a game of rounders.
Supporting Marie Curie.
Paul Winning is on the Charity Committee Board for Marie Curie. He, alongside a dedicated team, supports this charity through the year, and in 2025 they raised raise £257,000.
International Coffee Day.
Gael Vilatarsana kindly hosted International Coffee Day in the Oxford office with a tasting of coffee’s from around the world, which teams had to guess which region each coffee was from.
Día de los Muertos Celebration.
To celebrate Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Chloe and Karina from Oxford hosted a Taco Tuesday (on a Wednesday) where everyone enjoyed Chloe’s father in law’s homemade beef barbacoa. Karina also shared an insightful video that educated us all about the rich traditions and meaning behind Día de los Muertos.
Oxford Office Bake-Off.
Our Oxford office are hosting a fiercely competitive Bake Off. Recent entries have included everything from white chocolate and raspberry bakes to Bakewell biscuits, Tunnocks snowball cake, and even a curried squirrel puffkin (yes, really.)
November marks the final wave of bakers, all vying for the coveted title of 2025 Star Baker. The winner will be crowned just in time for bragging rights at the Christmas meal.
Halloween in Birmingham.
Our Birmingham office took part in some spooky Halloween fun. They created themed headbands with Jon Holmes taking the win! This was followed up with a race to find all the 25 bats dotted around the office. Our successful scavenger team with most bats was Ian, Yvonne and David.
Well done to Katie O’Sullivan for organising the event!
Picasso eat your heart out.
Our Bristol MEP clusters joined forces to have a big social together. They hosted at a sip and paint class, and there were were lots of smiling faces, laughter and great chats, making for an amazing event. Olly Price comments that he was amazed at how many great artists we have!
Busy in Bournemouth.
Our Bournemouth office has been hosting socials left right and centre. They’ve brought people together, raised money for charity, and had a lot of fun whilst doing so. Here’s some of their recent highlights.
Team challenges
The offices monthly team challenges have been going strong. In the last two months they’ve travelled around the world connecting to nature through a photo competition, puzzled over hilariously mistranslated song lyrics, put brains to the test with a general knowledge quiz and even suspended themselves over a high rise building to walk the plank in VR.
World Mental Health Day
In recognition of World Mental Health Day, Bournemouth organise an event called ‘from my culture to yours’. This consisted of bringing a dish from your culture or a dish that reminded you of home and then sharing them over lunch and a chat.
Events galore.
Our Reading office have been hosting a variety of fun events over the last few months. Here’s some of their recent activities.
Diwali
Diwali is the Festival of Lights and to mark the occasion, Bournemouth painted traditional clay diyas and design vibrant rangoli patterns using stencils and coloured sand. This was enjoyed with Kaju Katli, a traditional sweet.
Pumpkin carving
Reading embraced the spooky spirit with their pumpkin carving competition! Offices within FORA (the building where Reading is based) received a pumpkin and submitted their creation for judging. The team’s spook-tacular creation earned us the top spot and a faboo-lous Halloween Snack Box.
Macmillan Coffee Morning
For the Macmillan Coffee Morning, members of the office brought in a variety of cakes and sweet treats to sell and then shared over tea and coffee.
Manchester mayhem.
It’s been a busy few months for Manchester, taking many opportunities to socialise together. Here’s a few things they’ve been up to.
- Two mental health tea and talk events.
- A great evening with their new starters at the Slug & Lettuce.
- As part of Black History Month, Anesu Chinzowu, brought us Maputi to share in the office, which is a popular snack very similar to popcorn from his home country Zimbabwe. It’s made from maize kernels that are popped using high heat and pressure.
Their building management team also joined in on the fun and hosted we’ve had some pumpkin carving and even puppy yoga (the best social ever?)
Sarah Granville organised a very successful netball social, Rich Monksmith loves all sport socials so had the best time.
And finally a sip and paint social in the office for Halloween.
Get your clubs.
Members from our Plymouth and Exeter offices have been teeing off across Devon, all in the name of charity.
In August, James and Hannah joined a Taylor Lewis pairing at the Co Create Architects golf day at Dainton Golf Club, raising funds for Children’s Hospice Southwest.
September saw Rob, Sean, James and Adam at the Mitie golf day at Woodbury Golf Club in support of The Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity and Plymouth Hospitals Charity.
Then in October, Phil, Hannah and Rob took part in the Hugs Children’s Cancer Charity golf day at Staddon Heights Golf Club, helping raise vital funds for children and families affected by cancer.
They also hosted their own “Tour de Elfordleigh” golf day, welcoming over 30 industry friends to a day of French-inspired fun, cycling puns, and weather more suited to watersports — all in support of Children’s Hospice Southwest.
Across all events, our combined efforts have helped raise over £15,000 for local charities.
Your best foot forward.
Finn Hatton, Blair Hay and Lucas Quinn-Toye successfully completed the Glasgow Half Marathon. A huge well done to them all – hoping you weren’t too tired the next day!
On the run.
Chris Braycotton took on the Eryri Snowdonia Marathon. The weather, as you could guess, was horrendous rain, hail, sleet and cold wind. Chris did indeed survive to tell the tale, with a time of 4 hours 35min and came 794th out of 2276.
Sporty Birmingham.
The Birmingham office participated in the CIBSE West Midlands Football Tournament at Aston Power League. We were represented by Josh Humpage, David Iroegbunam, Tejas Pragnesh, Leo Kieran, Josh Hines and Jacky Wong.
They also took part in the Colemore BID Community Games. Our team consisted of Andy Vernon, Kieran Hunt, Leo Kieran, David Iroegbunam and Nick Nicholson, who came ready to do battle as "The Hoare Lethals". After some grueling events, they finished 4th out of 15, narrowly missing out on the podium by a single point.
