Conferences, seminars, training days, exams and hybrid meetings for up to 140 people can be organized at the St Thomas Centre, a conference and meeting venue set in a former church building on Ardwick Green North, Manchester, a 12-minute walk from Piccadilly station.
Seminars and company events
The centre is run by Manchester Community Central, and the profits from room hire go back to voluntary, community and social enterprise organizations and local people in Manchester. Bookings suit conferences, seminars, exhibitions, presentations, large meetings, workshops and exam sessions. Hybrid formats, with some delegates in the room and others online, are part of the offer. A main hall flanked by two connected breakout rooms makes it simple to run a plenary and parallel workshops on one floor, while smaller rooms handle training sessions, board meetings and evening classes. The first floor holds fully accessible offices and open-plan desks, let separately from the event rooms.
The venue is set up for working events rather than celebrations: birthday parties, christenings and weddings are not accepted in the main hall.
Rooms and capacities
Ardwick Green Hall, with its ornate ceiling and walls, is the central space. It seats 140 in theater style, 64 in cabaret, and 40 in boardroom, horseshoe or exam layout. The Gaskell Room and the Mambu Room both connect to the hall and serve as breakout rooms for large events, each taking 30 in theater style, 22 in horseshoe and 18 in boardroom. The Wilkinson Room, popular for training and workshops, holds 30 in theater style, 20 in horseshoe and 18 around a boardroom table. The Sham Room is the smallest, with 25 in theater style, 18 in horseshoe and 16 in boardroom. A small private room is kept for prayer, expressing milk or a private phone call.
Each meeting room is named after a figure linked to the city: the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote some of her best-known books at her home in Ardwick; Ellen Wilkinson, suffrage campaigner, later a Labour MP and the first woman to serve as Minister for Education; Yomi Mambu, one of the first Black councillors elected to Manchester City Council and Lord Mayor in 1989 and 1990; and Sylvia Sham, former director of the Wai Yin Society.
History and setting
The centre occupies the former St Thomas' Church, a Georgian building on the edge of Ardwick Green park, just southeast of the city center. It stands next to the Use Space building, behind the park, a short walk past the Manchester Marriott on London Road.
Getting there
The address is Ardwick Green North, Manchester M12 6FZ. From Manchester Piccadilly, leave by the Fairfield Street exit and follow London Road (A6) under the railway bridge: the walk takes about 12 minutes, a taxi about two. Buses 192, 201, 202, 203 and 205 run from London Road to Ardwick Green, with the closest stop at Ardwick Green South, opposite the park. On-street parking is free but fills quickly on weekdays, and the Powerleague Manchester Central car park on Union Street is about five minutes away on foot. The nearest electric charging points are at the Esso station in Ardwick, about half a mile away.
