We had the great pleasure of celebrating 40 years of Orcina at Brathay Hall on the shores of Windermere in July. It was a wonderful opportunity to bring together almost all of our current and former colleagues from the last four decades, including the original founders of the company, as well as family members and close friends of the business.
Our agents travelled from the USA, Brazil and Korea to be with us, and families came too, because 40 years of Orcina has also been 40 years of partners and children counted as part of the extended Orcina family. There is something special about watching people who worked together 20 years ago pick up a conversation as though no time had passed. It was a privilege to see old colleagues reconnect, and strangers become friends over the course of the day.
Brathay Trust were fantastic hosts on a glorious sunny day, organising activities for the children including canoeing and high ropes, and laying on lawn games for anyone who wanted them while the rest of us caught up. The weather, which nobody can plan for, was kind to us. Anyone who has spent a summer in Cumbria will know how rare and welcome that is.
The Tipsy Truck Co provided the bar and kept us entertained all afternoon with a fabulous array of drinks served with warmth and humour, enjoyed alongside some superb food from Iain Mckey and his team at Bespoke Catering Cumbria. Events by Nashe provided the custom decor, and we also had an incredible cake made by cake artist Hilary Hurst, which we are still trying to finish off back at the office!
Speaking in the afternoon, our Managing Director David Heffernan gave a special mention to the founders of the company, without whom none of us would be here. They each invested a great deal of themselves into Orcina, and we hope they can see how much we care about that legacy. The company has changed in many ways since those early days, but the principles it was founded on have not: we care about our colleagues, we care about our users, and we care about our community. The best moments at Orcina have been the ones we shared with colleagues, and our 40 years have been grounded in people choosing to do good work together.
That third principle, community, was visible around us all day. Brathay Trust is one of several local causes we have supported in recent years, and we were glad that St Mary’s Hospice in Ulverston and the Furness Primary Collaborative were represented too. We have also supported the Ulverston Victoria High School band’s annual European tours for the past couple of years, which made it especially good to have them playing for us. They were superb.
All of the photographs here were taken by Joshua Sokoya Photography. Joshua and his partner Nerea spent the day with us and managed the unenviable task of taking a great many photographs without ever being in the way, which is why we have such a good record of the day rather than a folder of blurry phone pictures. We are very grateful.
Thank you to everyone who came, and to everyone who helped make it happen.
Most of all, thank you to our users. Orcina exists because engineers and analysts around the world choose to trust our software with their work, and keep telling us what they would like to see us do next. 40 years of that is not something we take for granted. David closed his speech with a toast to 40 excellent years and to many more, and we will happily raise a glass to that.
