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PALS Celebrate a dear colleague’s retirement, following 30+ years of service
19 October 2022
PALS threw Cristina Gardini a special retirement party to celebrate her 33 years of affiliation with UCL.
Cristina has predominantly worked in UCL and has spent all that time working with colleagues at PALS (or in departments that eventually became part of PALS).
She initially joined the National Hospitals College of Speech Sciences, which eventually merged with UCL in 1995. Throughout this period, she completed a training course in mentoring and coaching, worked her way up to Senior HR Manager and seamlessly became a key and prominent member of our team.
Cristina has achieved much during her time with us, most recently introducing a unique initiative to PALS known as SPICE TIME.
The SPICE in Spice Time stands for social, physical, intellectual, career and emotional, and is an innovative wellbeing model that has been championed by Cristina. The scheme encourages staff to take positive actions to improve their wellbeing by allocating one half day per month towards personal activities.
One member of staff used her Spice Time as study leave towards a part-time undergraduate degree, enabling her to develop her career goals alongside her work. Another colleague used Spice Time to attend a nearby pottery class, and a group from professional services even arranged to see a play together. The introduction of Spice Time in 2019, highlights Cristina’s vision and commitment, alongside the Division’s, to increase the wellbeing of PALS’ staff.
Together with her work in HR, Cristina has also been involved with one of PALS longest running courses, the Summer Course in English Phonetics. Her dedication to her projects has meant that she hopes to continue supporting the course in her new capacity.
From all of us here at PALS, we wish Cristina well in her retirement!