A UKREiiF special with guest Matt Christie - what makes this such a great event for the shared living community

It's episode 9 of season 3 of Housed – The Shared Living Podcast and we’re joined by Matt Christie from UKREiiF to give us a sneak peek of what’s in store for the 2025 event.

We discuss:
- Why UKREiiF was created in an already packed property event calendar
- What’s new this year and what those working in the shared living sectors need to know
- A look at diversity, inclusion, and sustainability at the event
- How to get tickets for this must-attend event

Our sponsor for this season, theEword  are true experts in digital marketing specifically for the property sector.

We are also delighted that MyStudentHalls are continuing to sponsor the podcast, Mystudenthalls.com - Find your ideal student accommodation across the UK.

Each week, Sarah Canning, Deenie Lee of The Property Marketing Strategists and Daniel Smith of RESI Consultancy will be delving into a wide variety of subjects and asking the questions that aren't often asked. This podcast is for anyone who works in Student Accommodation, BTR, Co-living, Later Living, university accommodation, Operational Real Estate or Shared Living.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are the personal views of the individual hosts and guests.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_05 0:00

Hello and welcome to the ninth episode in season three of Housed the Shared Living Podcast. I'm Dean Eli from the Property Marketing Strategists.

SPEAKER_02 0:08

And Dan Smith from Resi Consultancy.

SPEAKER_05 0:10

And I'm Sarah Canning from the Property Marketing Strategists. And first, a quick word from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

This episode of Housed, the Shared Living Podcast, is brought to you by the EWord, digital experts in driving leads and putting people in your places.

SPEAKER_05 0:23

We're delighted the EWord is sponsoring this season of Housed with their expertise in digital marketing to renters. We can't think of anyone that is more relevant to support us. We also love having Dan and the team at MyStudent Halls continue to be involved in Housed, and they're also sponsoring this season, and we will hear a little bit from them later. Now, this week's episode, we've got a very special episode that we've been really looking forward to, and we have an interview with Matt Christie from UK Wreath. Sarah and I attended the event last year, and quite frankly, we've been recommending it to anyone who will listen, including Dan, about attending this year. I distinctly remember recording the podcast last year from our Airbnb in Leeds, which was a little bit stressful. I think we might have had to record it once or twice. But and Dan definitely had massive FOMO because he couldn't beat with us. So we're really pleased that Matt has agreed to come on the podcast today and talk to us about the 2025 event. And we've got lots of questions ready. So welcome, Matt.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Thanks for having us, and let's make sure that Dan decides after my pitch, I suppose you can say, that to come along this year.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yeah, I had major FOMO last year. And yeah, we had to record the podcast twice because Sarah literally forgot to press record last year.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

So, Matt, if you could just tell us a little bit about kind of where the idea for UK Reef came from in what is already quite a packed property calendar.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

UK Reef, to be honest, was born out of frustration. We obviously there's a lot of, like you said, a lot of events, some global, some regional, some extremely local. And pre-pandemic, the previous majority shareholder of a company called Built Environment Networking, Keith Griffiths, was gearing up to kind of take on, if that's the right word or the right phrase, a rather big event that that takes place in in the south of France. But he didn't quite know how to do it or how to start it. So what Keith did was want to assemble a team of disruptors. And one of his ideologies that he bought into very early was he didn't want to employ anyone on the product side, so on my side or the marketing side, which is which was Nathan Spencer's side, who would come from the property sector because he felt as though that all that would do is create an echo chamber of people who had an opinion on property already. Once he brought us on board, and Nathan's background is uh sports marketing, my background is international relations. Once he brought us on board, he realised actually a property event is pretty pretty dull if you if you term it a property event. So we wanted to go down the route of region, economy, you know, social mobility and and growth. But at the time there was a little phrase being bandied around by the government of levelling up. So the sceptic in me, uh or the political activist in me, thought, what the hell does this even mean? And then as we were making plans, the first event for September it was meant to be September 2021, a little thing called the global pandemic happened and kind of stopped that in its tracks. But actually, for our business, the pandemic was the probably the best thing to have happened because we realized at that point that we were gonna rush into trying to do something very, very quickly with only like I think it was 12 months' notice, and it probably wasn't the right thing to do. The pandemic also aimed. The pandemic also helped us because post-pandemic everyone was really enthusiastic about getting out and about and networking again, but there was also a lot of people reflecting about the type of networking they wanted to do or the type of event they wanted to do. So we spent the best part of 18 months while we were locked in our living rooms or wherever you do your work, essentially building relationships with key players in government, the opposition, which is the Labour Party at the time, local authorities, investors, lots of research went into this. We created an advisory council, and ultimately, what we believe, we were then able to create an event that was the principles of inclusivity and you know welcomeness to it. And when I say inclusivity, I don't really want to go down the route of EDI stuff because really you should that shouldn't be a thing anymore. Everyone should know that events should be welcoming to everyone on that pathway. When I say inclusivity, I mean that you can come to UK Reef if you are the mayor or chief executive of of Greater Manchester, or if you're the mayor or leader of Great Yarmouth and West Norfolk, and have just the exact same opportunities as each other. It's not entirely budget oriented. Secondly, we also found the gap that some of the thought leadership that goes on in the industry is essentially people sitting on stage and saying, I agree with Nick to coin an old Liberal Democrat. We wanted to do something where people didn't necessarily sit on stage and just nod along with each other. People weren't afraid to challenge the norm. And that's how UK Reef was born. And in in year one, we had 4,000 people who took a punt on us and came along to leads. May 2025, we're already on track for over 16,000 official delegates that are going to be on site. And because of people like yourselves, you know, taking on board your advice, we completely recalibrated the event for this year. It's our fourth year. Uh we're under new ownership, so some of the founders have left. There's only me and Nathan of the original founders that that remain. And we've kind of recalibrated what we're trying to do with the event and how it how it feels.

SPEAKER_05 5:34

That's great. And it that whole story makes me think that you're a real disruptor, that you came in to do something different. How is this event in 2025 going to be different, or how have you kept it fresh year on year?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

For 2025, the feedback that we've had is although everyone has a great time when they're when they come to Leeds and they have the ticket, they come through the barriers, it can be a bit overwhelming based on you know everything that's happening. And I've got the really cool job. I think I've got the coolest job in in the entire office, which is designing the program with my team, like my my division of the business. There's never really been any structure to the programme, and there's been a lot of crossover. So, you know, if you're interested in, let's say, PBSA, for example, in previous years there might have been three PBSA sessions on the same day that overlap with different speakers, and ultimately at that point, it's like Sophie's choice, isn't it? Where do we go? Who do we listen to? So the effort that we've put in this year is we've created content streams. So if you're interested, and I use this one all the time, if you're interested, for example, in healthcare, health infrastructure, healthcare policy, new hospitals programme, etc., the plan this year, and it's worked so far based on the programmes that we've put together, is you can pretty much go to everything over three days and not have any overlap. So you can if you all you're interested in healthcare is buy a ticket, start on the Tuesday morning, work your way through to the Thursday, just after lunch, and probably get to see or meet everyone that you want to meet. And that includes now creating convening points for different sectors. So obviously there's there is some off-the-limits stuff like with round tables with ministers and whatnot, but ultimately, you know, if you are a consultant in healthcare property, you probably do want to meet NHS Estates directors or the chief executive of BUPA or or whatever. And now we've got those rooms where you can go in and be part of general networking. There's a destination for you to go to where you'll be able to find your future pipeline of work rather than thumbming through a delegate directory and sending messages, which we absolutely think you should do as well. But ultimately you'll be able to filter now and find out where you should be. The final investment we've made, finally, finally, is an app which is kind of coming online over the next couple of weeks, which will essentially allow you to direct message different delegates and they will see the messages because they'll get pop-up notifications on the phone if they opt in, which a lot of people are opting in. So it should be easier for you to make make plans for people you actually want to meet. So that's how we're evolving the event. Just finally some of your content-driven yourselves. What we've tried to do this year is not just have a load of panels, we're doing a lot of roundtables, we're doing a lot of workshops, we've got a few hackathons on the go, we're doing like reverse mentoring, speed dating, we've transformed the way we're doing our investor facilitation from just banning a load of people in a room to actually setting tables up and setting timers up for people that move around tables. If you're an investor trying to meet a local authority or trying to meet a certain asset class, you'll be able to find them and we'll actually be able to say, you know, we we we mentioned before we came on on the preamble, sometimes you go to events and you don't know who you're going to meet and where you're going to meet them. Now you're going to be able to book those meetings via us, and hopefully that means you'll get something out of it.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

Yeah, they all sound like really, really great initiatives. I think, I think I agree with you. I think Deanny and I, it was our first time last year, and we were really overwhelmed. We we we arrived sort of after lunchtime on the first day, and we we were, you know, a bit discombobulated, you know, we didn't know where to go, where to start. An app would have been amazing, so that's really, really positive that you you put that on. But I think kind of that variety of different types of content delivery, I think, you know, everybody's different, aren't they? They go to events with different things. Some people like just watching panel discussions, some people want something more interactive. I think everybody that attends has to justify the ROI. You know, you want to come back and say you've had meaningful interactions and meaningful meetings, which you're not going to do if you just sit and and and watch, you know, and that that might not be your objective, but I guess what you're you're doing is you're ensuring that if people come with the right attitude, the right plan, and I guess the right motivation, they will come out with something.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah, that's that's the idea. And I guess I'm I always like people seem to think that I really love putting together all the panels, and and I do, but the reason we we do it mainly is so that we can identify where certain VIPs are gonna be at certain times. And if your approach to business development is you want to meet that golden ticket and they're on that panel, you know to be in that room and to grab them at the end, but ultimately that's not for everyone, like you said, Sarah. Like that is, you know, some people genuinely like the happenstance I'm gonna bump into someone at a fringe event, or I want to start working with that company and they're all organising a bowling night or a crazy golf night, so I need to go to that. Or it might be that actually I don't know who I want to meet, but I know I want to talk to a certain topic, which is why the round tables and the and the workshops are coming in this year, so that you know you might you might think, look, I'm really trying to do a bit of research on BTR. I know there's a workshop on BTR on day one. I know there is because the Association of Rental Living are running it for us. I'm just going to go along and you know see who's in the room and see what it's all about, and then who knows who I'll meet, but at least it's structured around a theme.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

I love I love that. I love the fact that you genuinely are disrupting the event space because quite often a lot of these events are the same people saying the same things, and you know, it's just a different year and slightly different, you know, macroeconomic uh situation, etc. But I think that that makes a huge difference to really be innovating. Now, PBSA last year in particular, I know that it was quite a small venue, and I was talking to Scott Lewis actually from Homes for Students saying like it was standing room only, it was it really, really well attended from across the industry. So it's definitely making strides in in PBSA, but also BTR as well. What have you got lined up this year for the shared living sector? Uh and do you have a slightly larger venue?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

We have to battle within the constraints of the space that we've got on site. First of all, it's probably worth seeing another very important improvement is the site's expanded this year. So Leeds City Council trusts us now, so they've allowed us to close the road around the armories so we can create a complete kind of food and drink street with chairs for you to sit and randomly network with people. What that's allowed us to do is to create more space on site for bigger spaces for sessions like this. Right. The approach that we're taking for shared living is very simple. We we're not experts in every single sector. In fact, probably I'm probably not an expert in any sector apart from putting on an event. We've been working with uh influencers like the British Property Federation, like the Association of Rental Living, like certain sponsors like JL, for example, who have a candid interest in that space to say to them, you manage the programme, you curate what we need to do. But we want to see from each of you at least two events going on within that within that space. So I'll mention the the work we've done with the Association for Rental Living, which is uh Brandon and Graham, who've been massive supporters of UKV for the last three years, they are doing a workshop on building trust in build to rent because there's a feeling from their members that perhaps local authorities or public sector don't trust the build-to-rent or the PRS sector. So, what better way to do it than to put on a workshop that you know up to 60 people can take part in, hopefully 30 from each side of the fence, and then hopefully create some kind of contract or consensus at the end of it. They're also doing several study tours for us, so it's not just all about being on site. So we've got a private sector study tour and we've got a public sector study tour taking place on the Tuesday and the Wednesday. So if you are um uh a local authority that likes the idea of build to rent or PRS or PBSA, if you have got a PBSA site on that tour, don't quite know you know how to get it off the ground or up into the air, so to speak. Come and have a look at what some people are doing, and we'll be open and honest with you about what the what we can do for you. So the whole point of it, you said it's not just about sticking something in a hall and 100 people squeezing in shoulder to shoulder, offering an opportunity for more expert voices to have to have their say. And I hope everyone on this podcast you know goes along to as many of those things as possible. You can actually find out now, go on our website ukreief.com, click on 2025 program, you can filter everything that's currently planned under BTR and PRS and PBSA, and you can map your whole week out.

SPEAKER_05 14:12

That's great, and we're definitely gonna be really exhausted and excited when we get there because it sounds like there's loads of great things going on. So, yeah, can't wait. What would you working with your partners? What would you say are kind of the key themes that you're tackling this year?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Things that we've seen a lot of this year. So that the theme of UK Reef overall in my head, although we don't advertise this anyway, it's actually on the on the board behind me, is working around this the this term, a decade of national renewal, and what should that look like? Now, obviously, we know that the government has got a five-year term, they haven't got a 10-year mandate, but in the run-up to the election, which by the way was called at UK Reef last year, which was fantastic, because there's a load of parliamentarians there who I'm in contact with regularly now who goes, I know where I was when the general election was called, it was at UK Reef. And the whole point of the event is to hold the government to account at the end of the day, to hold the sector to account. So we've taken that topic, we've essentially created a strand. What does a decade of national renewal look like for BTR, PBSA, or even just General Resi? And then we've built the spokes off that in regards to the programme. When it comes to other themes, I've seen a hell of a lot this year and infrastructure. It is in our title, in our event title, so there should be a lot, but in previous years, maybe we haven't paid enough lip service to it. There's a lot on infrastructure, a lot on transport, a lot on moving people around and what good growth looks like this year. BTR is a massive I can't stress you know, if you click on the filter on the website, you'll see there's loads on BTR. Always will be. It's a hot topic. The other thing that there's a lot on this year is uh energy. Obviously, you want to build houses or build schemes out, but I think it's pretty well known that the UK can't really power all of its growth plans, so it's kind of going back to basics and how to do that. And then the other the other thing that's massive on the on the general programme's devolution this year. Obviously, we've got three new combined authorities coming online in May this year, six more in May 2026. That'll take the number of Metro mayors up to something like 19. We're starting to create this American-style, you know, federal system here, aren't we? Where each region has a senator, but it's not, it's a mayor. And there's more and more coming year after year. But what we're tending to find is some of these combined authorities are getting set up first, but they're not really working out how they're going to integrate or interact with our industry. So there'll be a lot on helping them do that. There's a session on the Thursday morning that we'll have a minister at that'll essentially be right, combined authorities being set up, devolution's being pushed forward. How can the private sector benefit from that, or how can the public sector benefit from private sector advice on devolution? And that'll be around home building and transport and networks and stuff like that. So there's so much happening this year that I think the stat is if you want to clip a stat, there's 73 different things happening every hour from 8 a.m. on Tuesday to 2 pm on Thursday, and that's not a made-up start, that's a genuine, a genuine start.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

It's great again to showcase that this isn't just a simple property event. You've created it's it's a it's a behemoth. You've done it in a really short space of time as well. And I think that property industry has been primed and ready for something like this. Uh, I'm thinking about MIPIM right now. Everybody is either getting out there or just about to get out there. It'll be a sea of blue suits in Cafe Roma in in no time, sort of six pm, once you've done a little bit within the bunker, as it were. How have you been able to pull all of that together to make sure that where MIPIM is effectively, you know, doing business and networking in one place, and maybe you nip into the bunker and go and watch a couple of the sessions, how have you made sure that you can have some of those extra events, get all of the sponsors on board, you know, really branch this out, but also then really create the the panel discussions that are going to get people talking because they were. People last year were genuinely talking about some of the panel sessions they'd seen on BTR, on PBSA, and and I I spoke to quite a few of the panelists too, and they were very complimentary about it. So, yeah, how how have you tried to make sure that it's different from MIPM in that way?

SPEAKER_01 18:18

The the way we've done this is when when we started putting UK Reef together, we didn't actually start with what we wanted the event to look like. It it actually started on a on a Zoom call on a Friday evening, about four of us ranting about the barriers to getting involved in some major events. So I'll run you through some of the barriers, and these are my personal opinions, not the opinions of my colleagues, although some of them will be shared. One of them's cost. Obviously, you know, I'm not saying our tickets are super cost effective or cheap, but ultimately we are more cost effective or cost-efficient to budgets. Second is time and the barriers to having to travel. Third was the sustainability agenda. I can't take anyone seriously, really talking about sustainability from the private sector side at least, when you send in a hundred staff members from a major agency to the south of France, and then you're publishing a report two weeks later on ESG. You know, I'm not saying you don't send one or two because people we have we have to be outward facing, we don't have an inch of the nation. Then that the final thing is around essentially around inclusion. I mentioned the first part of inclusion, which is you know, we speak to local authorities who just cannot afford to go overseas or don't have the private sector backing to go overseas. It's really palatable from all political colours to get the train to leads for a couple of days to take part in something.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Totally agree. And and this is where I think there's a big differentiation in that it is very accessible to go to UK Reef to for local councils, etc., who do not have the budgets of the Night Franks and the Savals and the JLLs to you know fly out to MIPIM. And I think that's where for PBSA, BTR, co-living, the shared living sectors in particular, I think that's there's a huge amount of value in actually speaking to the planners, to the local councils, to the universities, etc., and really trying to understand their points of view, because otherwise you're just stuck in an echo chamber with agents telling you to buy and build properties. And that's what's happening at MIPIM, or will be happening at MIPIM this week. It'll be a lot of the big agents saying, Well, you know, you should develop PBSA in particular locations and do it in this way. And oh, by the way, we're uh interested in the in the sales side, and that's that's how we get paid effectively. So I think that's where UK Reef can really differentiate itself quite nicely. Um, and that sustainability agenda then comes into play as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

One of my frustrations, I'll be totally honest, when when I and I've been to Mipping a few times, I can see why people go, it's a fanfabulous experience. The south of France, you know, the sun's out, spending 19 euros on a tepid glass of rose wine, you know. Uh again, you know, undoubtedly the um the people on this podcast have an unlimited budget. But one of one of my biggest frustrations, the first time I went was in 2019 on a fact finder, and we were doing some work for the Scottish Government, and I couldn't get my head round the fact that all these like UK regions had like pavilions on the quasette, and you'd go into them and all you'd find is people from that region talking to each other. And part of my I was thinking, surely you should be out there in other people's pavilions or it in other meetings doing stuff like you know, bringing investments. So but then we realised it's actually not that easy to do that, you know, to be honest, because if you've not got the network out there, you're not very network yourself, it's hard to to go and set those meetings up and have the confidence of running a meeting knowing what you want. So, what one of the principles that we've based UK Reef around is facilitation. So we know now that you know, I'll put my neck on the line here. We do facilitation better than than anyone for our partners. So, you know, as a A dinner in the West Midlands the other day, sat with, as you said, a broad brushstroke of investors, developers, some of the private sector service side. And they essentially spent the dinner telling me, you know, what they want to get out of UK Reef. And I came away with a long list of people who I think they should meet. Now I can do the introductions to certain people. I'm not saying they have to take up my introductions, but I know that at UK Reef, at some point they will have meetings with people that UK Reef have helped set them up with. So we know that that broadens the I mean, obviously they've got the pavilions. We love we love them having the pavilions, it's great. But what the terms do with the pavilions and the and the expo stands at our event is actually hold things that are not aimed at an audience of that region. They're holding things that are aimed at people who don't know about the region, and that's why UK Reef works. You know, the West Midlands programme at UK Reef looks excellent this year. It's aimed, designed for people who have an interest in the region that maybe don't know how to get involved in the region. That that's the magic of it. There's no secret source other than that, the actual facilitation and introductions that we can do.

SPEAKER_05 23:05

That's absolutely the key thing that I think that we all would talk about on this podcast is that you can't achieve the goals that we need in terms of housing infrastructure in this country without that collaboration. So the fact that you're bringing everyone together with that viewpoint and agenda is is brilliant. We're going to take a quick break now to hear from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Season three of Housed, sponsored by MyStudentHalls.com. Let's find your place.

SPEAKER_05 23:31

Thanks again so much to MyStudent Halls for supporting us for a second season. We're so happy that lovely listeners of House are getting their properties listed where it matters. Now back to our brilliant chat with Matt. Thank you for joining us. I know we talked a little bit earlier of kind of about that sense of inclusivity that you you have, and I think that absolutely is one of the things that Sarah and I came back with from last year was the minute we arrived, we just felt that we were welcomed there, we were engaged in in the process, and it there wasn't any of the issues on diversity and inclusion that sometimes you get in the sector. So a big, big welcome to that. What more can you say around kind of the diversity and sustainability?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Since inception, we've achieved ISO 2012-1, which is a sustainable events accreditation. Everything we do, and we get audited every year at our cost. And each year we get pushed a little bit further to be a little bit more sustainable. If you wanted to have a chat about that, although I know what we do, you know, it's the it's the operations team that really drive that in our side, you know. So the types of generators we use for electric and the types of, you know, we we discourage people giving away non-reusable plastics and you know, thing things like that, you know. It also goes down to the suppliers that we have on site, pretty much all sourced locally, that includes the F and B. We don't charge, like we literally, they can't believe this when we phone them up. People who you see at festivals who go and do, you know, like burgers or whatever at festivals, we don't charge them at the company UK Reads. So there's that element of the inclusivity. The other thing that that we've done, I think, quite well is build bridges with industry pressure groups, you know, like women in architecture and we've got Muslims in surveying and regeneration brainery and people like that. We allow them to bring people to the event for free: young people, early career professionals, people who might otherwise feel excluded. We ban alcohol on site until after 3 pm, which some of the other property conferences actively encourage you to drink mimosas in the morning. And what that's actually allowed to do is, you know, we've got people who aren't comfortable being around alcohol, being able to participate in large portions of the day without feeling as though they can't go to that networking event because everyone's going to be drunk there. You know, these are the little things that we that we think of. And then there's things like parenting. We like to put a broad range of events on across the three days at different times, so people who have childcare commitments know that they can the good stuff isn't all in the evening at a dinner, for example. There'll be like lunches or 11am brunches with industry bodies so that you can literally fit it around your childcare. We actually do this, we think about it the minute we start constructing the programme. We cannot put a ministerial reception at 7 pm on a Tuesday night that we organise because that cuts out over a load of beers, because that cuts out 40% of the people who might want to come to the event. And we had some brilliant statistics last year, so you know, going on to what you helped us with, 48% of our speakers were female last year across the programme. 14% of our speakers were BAM, and that's against uh identify from an ethnic minority group. That's against 4% in the sector, I believe, that identify generally as from an ethnic minority. We're doing a lot around disability this year. We experien we realise we have to do more. I'm working with a company called the CIC called Ability RE. They're going to be running some workshops about um how we can make buildings accessible, how we can make events accessible. So we we're we donate our time and and space at the event to these groups who can tell the industry or advise industry how to do it better. What you did for us last year, helping us get you know students involved. I think we had a student on the the PBSA session, and that went down an absolute storm with not just the audience but the other panelists getting that that perspective. This year we've got a session on how we can rehabilitate prisoners and get them working the built environment. And we've got um an a couple of ex-inmates whose life's been changed round through initiatives with with organisations that are part of our movement coming along to talk about there's a lot of skills in in prisons, there's a lot of untapped potential there of people who are you know there. We're not talking about the high-risk prisoners, but people are there with petty crime or just can't get out of a life of petty crime, and they're coming along with our with our sponsors now to get jobs and to actually produce meaningful contributions to society. So we've got a session on on Wednesday morning on that, for example. So anything that we can do to make it more inclusive, we give away over a million pounds worth of free tickets to under 25s last year. We reckon that's going to be even more this year than the future. I don't this is another criticism of me. I'm wearing a rant now. Sometimes you go to events and you have four middle-aged white blokes on stage talking about inclusive spaces or inclusive economy. And I've run out against white blokes, I'm one myself, you know, not quite middle-aged yet, but I'm getting there. You know, how can that happen? Like, who in that room is not saying this is totally inappropriate? So we need those young voices to be on the stage to put people in the place. And we've got a great speaker bank and network of those now as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

It's a great show. I'd I'd like to think that most events have learned from what was a bit of a shocking panel, the the the all-star panel at student accommodation uh by by Property Week, which had five middle-aged white guys effectively uh on the stage. And they have all you know done a bit of work to that. But but equally, I know from talking to Sarah and Deany and from other people, other panelists and and people there, that there's a lot of work that has gone into making this a more diverse event. I love the fact that you've given out those three tickets to young people, that there's a focus on the gender equality side of things too. That stat is fantastic, you know, the number of women that you have on those panels. So long may that continue. I think that's um that's a it's the way that the industry needs to be headed. So that is what I think everyone else can can start learning from. So yeah, kudos to you guys for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

We're not 100% where we want to be yet, but ultimately you don't change things overnight. I mean, I could tell you stories now, probably uh probably not on the podcast, but certainly if we were in the pub where we've actively given money back to sponsors who try to sponsor us and then do things that don't align with our beliefs. And that's quite shocking to some. There's a big tier one contractor a couple of years ago who thought because they'd dropped not an insignificant amount of money on sponsoring the event that they could call the shots. And when we were policing is probably a too strong a word, but advising that this doesn't look good for anyone, they said, Oh, well, we won't sponsor it, so we just give them the money back. And I think they were like a bit a a gawp that we did that, but ultimately, you know, how do we inspire, and I can say this having worked in education, 18, 19-year-old females or people from a different ethnic background to white Caucasian, to think that coming and working in property is a good idea or in construction or in investment if they don't see people who are like them or who they can identify with on platforms or or in rooms. And that's why we love Regeneration Granary and the and the team over there, because they essentially run a full three-day program focused around that reverse mentoring and access. We we've heard of jobs being offered because of meetings that have had at UK Reef. And it it that excites us as a business to see that change happening. And hopefully, long after we left this business and other people are doing my job, it'll just be normal. We should it we should not be having conversations about EDI in 2025. And the other thing we should not be having conversations about in 2025 is net zero. Like it should it should just be par for the course that we need to be more sustainable. You know, we shouldn't be having panels. Are we on target for 2020, 2035? That's pointless. That's six years ago now. It should be involved in every single discussion at the event. What's happening in sustainability? We shouldn't be talking about whether it should happen or putting it on a separate pedestal, a separate stage. It shouldn't just be in par for the course.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

I love it. You can certainly get on your uh get on your high horse about sustainability, that's for sure. Uh and and I do think that we've moved beyond the what is ESG or what does the S in ESG mean? Like it's gotta be pretty hard-hitting, and every single person needs to know a little about a lot when it comes to sustainability in real estate, but also the the uh the EDI piece as well. So yeah, I think that that's great to see.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

Yeah, I think we agree with you that it this all should just be normal, you know, that but it's not like I don't think you should take for granted that you know that everybody is thinking this way, Matt, because they're not, you know, we go to many events and probably Deanny and I as as females maybe feel it maybe differently to how Dan does at different events, but certainly on the gender diversity, you know, we you know we don't feel as welcome at other events as we we did we were at UK Reef. So I think you know, to our listeners who maybe have a female or from minority backgrounds that have felt intimidated at other events, this is a really good opportunity to give it another go. And I guess it's just that variety that you put on, you know, it might be that one panel's not for you, it might be that one session's not for you. That's fine because there's loads of other ones. You don't feel like you've wasted your day or your three days because you know there's a there's an hour that doesn't suit you because you're just going to pick a different hour that does suit you. So I feel like from an ROI point of view, understanding why people go to this event is it's not the cheapest, it's certainly not the most expensive, but it means you can get you can tailor your own agenda, can't you? You can get what you want out of it and like I said, not feel like, you know, actually I didn't engage with that, or you know, I had to, you know, step out and do some emails because that wasn't engaging me. Instead, you'll just go and find, you know, a session that that does, and hopefully everyone will feel included and that they've got something out of it.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

I'm of the opinion that you should probably go to things that you didn't think you'd be interested in. There's a lot of, you know, you've got it's not just the property events, but just in general, you know, like one of the beauties that going to a comedy festival, for example, would be, and no jokes about UK Reef having anything to do with with comedy or or or anything. One one of the things that, you know, the beauty of going to a festival is discovering kind of you know new things, and that's we we very much, you know, I I coin the term that I want it to feel a bit like Glastonbury on the programme. I want you to be a bit overwhelmed, I want you to have to sit on the train up or on the Sunday before and say, where am I gonna be at certain times? Because that's how you'll you'll you'll probably find things or learn things that you didn't necessarily know before. So, you know, people say, Oh God, it's so much going on, can you slim it down? No, we're just gonna keep we're gonna keep adding to it, but just adding different things, not adding repeat, repeat things, just adding because you know we we probably don't even touch the surface on some things, being totally honest. That's why we need people like yourselves to hold us to account and to come to us with ideas and to say, can we have X and Y? Can you do that next year? Can you make this a bit different? Because we're by no means like the the oracle of the sector. We we we we just go with the flow, listen to what people are saying and design an event around that.

SPEAKER_05 34:38

That's brilliant. It's so refreshing to hear what you say about change because change only happens if you're there's determination to change, and I think everything that you just said shows that you are determined to support that change in the sector and drive it to achieve what it needs to achieve. So that is brilliant. But we need to let people know how they can get hold of tickets.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Quite easily, to be honest. Go on the website ukreief.com, click on the event programme and buy then buy tickets on there. There will be a price rise in, I think it's in mid-April, I should know this. My commercial director uh will kill me if he hears this and I don't know the exact dates. But in at some point in mid-April there will be a uh price rise, so it's probably best to get them before that price rise, you know, takes takes hold. Similarly, if you're listening to this and you want to kind of be part of the change, I guess, I don't know, you might be working with some underrepresentative groups or underprivileged people from underprivileged backgrounds or people who are trying to help the social mobility. We're always open to those conversations about getting delegations of those people along, you know. We've got a lot of universities bringing students this year based on the fact that it's grown this reputation. And we're quite happy to for a college to say to us we've got you know 10 students doing construction project management at BTEC level or whatever. Can they come and experience it? Absolutely, we'd we'd love that to happen and we'd love to help put together a program for them to get the most out of spending the day out of class. Yeah, just get in touch as well with with me. My email don't mind being shared, it's matt.christy at ukreief.com. All my team are have the same kind of enthusiasm that I have. We're only a 15-person business, people don't can't believe that. It's actually only 15 people that work for us. But the beauty of our business is everyone's bought into what we're doing and everyone loves the buzz of what we're doing. And everyone right now with 10 weeks to go is also feeling a little bit stressed and uh scared about what's coming over the hill, but it'll all work out on May the 20th when we open our doors.

SPEAKER_05 36:40

That's brilliant, and we absolutely can't wait, and we will be there. So we're looking forward to catching up with you, Matt, and seeing all our listeners there. So we look forward to seeing you then. But thank you so much for coming to join us today. It was a brilliant chat, and we loved speaking to you. So a big thank you from us. Thanks to the eWord for being our headline sponsor for the season. Your support, as always, is greatly appreciated. And of course, thank you to our friends at My Student Horse for joining us as a sponsor once again. But the biggest thanks goes to you, Matt, for joining us and telling us all about UK Reef and your focus there. As I say, we will be there, so we hope to see as many of you there as possible. Next week marks the beginning of a brand new segment of HALS as we launch the Ask the Expert series with Howard Kennedy, your real estate legal expert. We've already got some great questions that we can put to the team, but if you have anything that you would like answering over the next few weeks on Rentis Rights Bill, Building Safety, and Leasehold and Freehold Act, please do send them into one of us. Please subscribe to how so you get the brand new episode every Friday. And if you could leave us a rating and a review, that would be fantastic. Thanks very much, and we will see you again next week.