The CRAL EGO-Virgo “Roberto Cosci” APS inaugurates its new space

Yesterday, Thursday 28 May, the new space of the CRAL EGO-VIRGO Roberto Cosci APS, the social club of employees of EGO and members of the Virgo Collaboration, was officially opened. In addition to the CRAL council members, CRAL associates and partner associations, the event was attended by the director of EGO, Prof. Massimo Carpinelli, the mayor of Cascina, Michelangelo Betti, and the councillor for sport and relations with research bodies for the Municipality of Pisa, Frida Scarpa. The ribbon was cut by Cristina Cosci, widow of the late president of the previous EGO-Virgo CRAL, Roberto Cosci, a technician at the INFN in Pisa who passed away prematurely in 2023, to whom the CRAL is dedicated. 

The new CRAL has been established as a project designed to strengthen the sense of community at EGO-Virgo, promote the well-being of its staff, and foster the link between scientific research and the local community. The CRAL aims to create and consolidate a space open to participation, sharing and collective growth through activities focused on social engagement, sport and culture. The planned initiatives include sporting events, recreational activities, social projects and charity campaigns, with a particular focus on involving local associations and promoting the values of inclusion and participation. Social facilities dedicated to children and people with physical and mental disabilities are due to be built shortly, open to employees and residents of the surrounding area.

“The CRAL offers an important opportunity to strengthen ties between colleagues, families and the local community, placing values such as collaboration, solidarity and the sharing of knowledge at the heart of its work. With over 500 members, the CRAL EGO-Virgo Roberto Cosci is establishing itself as a key organisation in the province of Pisa,” states the CRAL board, comprising 23 employees. “The opening of the CRAL Club marks, in short, a new step towards building an increasingly cohesive community that is attentive to people’s well-being: that of EGO employees, of the wider community, and beyond.”

Roberto Cosci was remembered both during the inaugural speech and through the screening of a documentary film he made in Africa in 2010. The film recounts an expedition organised in Sierra Leone ‘in search of Atlantis’: a theory put forward by his father Marcello, who was a scholar of aerial photography and whose life’s work is preserved at the University of Pisa.

For information about the association’s activities, you can subscribe to the mailing list by emailing cral@ego-gw.it or visiting www.ego-gw.it/cral-ego-virgo/