October Calendar

Bric-a-Brac sales

As usual we held a series of Bric-a-Brac sales last week and despite the low, low prices we ask (10p for a mug or glass, £1.50 for a jumper or sweat-shirt, £1 for a saucepan) we made a grand total of £215.39!!!

Thank you to all those who have donated items,

to those who came along to help

- especially Frank -

and of course to those students who discovered

our little corner of the campus

and came along to purchase stuff.

International Orientation Day

International Orientation Days, run each September & January, are two of my most favourite days of the year.  It's always a pleasure to be part of this welcoming programme and to play a small part in helping students to adjust and settle to life in the UK.
This year I ran a session in the morning entitled 'Arriving in the UK: first impressions and expectations'. 

Students engaged well in the exercise and my post-it board was soon inundated with comments.  

Not sure who wrote this but there are plenty of
sports societies on campus, you should check
the GKUnions website :-)

Sorry our beer is weak,
try some of the local stuff!!

This is my very favourite - what a lovely comment :-)

Thank you to Mohamed, Aiste and Yasir who helped to round off the orientation programme with a student panel, sharing a little of their own experiences with the new students and answering question.

We then held a social/games session for new internationals though I think many had gone off to have their dinner!

Last, but by no means least, a HUGE THANK YOU to My colleague Katie Jenkins who put a mammoth amount of work in to planning and organising the day. Katie, you are always a pleasure to work with :-)

Pilgrimage for Peace

I want to thank all those involved in Medway InterFaith Action for the work they put in to organising a Pilgrimage for Peace through the Medway towns.  








The event began at Rochester Cathedral at 9am and went through Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham.










Because of other commitments I was unable to participate in the entire programme but did join with others at the Mosque on Canterbury Street, the Hindu Sabha Mandir and a time of prayer for peace on Gillingham High Street.

The event ended with a time of celebration at the Sunlight Centre in the evening.

Next year it would be great to have students involved in this event!!!

Welcome Cafe

This past weekend, for the third year running, we helped our colleagues, Toby and Pat, in the accommodations department by providing a Welcome Cafe for all the new students and their parents as they arrived to collect keys for their halls of residence.

BIG THANK YOU

to Frank, Aiste, Mohamed, Arshad and others

who helped to man the cafe all day Saturday & Sunday.

As well as lots of hellos, this is also a time of goodbyes as some of the Masters students are handing in their completed dissertations and preparing to return home.  Tashfeen from Pakistan, who has been a regular at all of our activities, came to say goodbye :-(

Sad face :-(

New arrivals

It is always a real privilege to be part of welcoming new students to the campus. Having realised how many new internationals were already on site we threw together a week long programme of welcome from Monday, Sept 14th; including an afternoon in Rochester and a day-trip to our Greenwich campus.

Students also enjoyed an hour long speed-meet session ...

 

Plus an evening of games, including pentanque along the corridor in Blake building and an artistic challenge of pictionary ...

 

This is a mouse - believe it or not!