PhD Cafe

It was a great privilege to take part in the PhD Cafe today. Many thanks go t0 Sona and her team of volunteers who helped today's event come together. 
There were 35 PhD students present, from both University of Greenwich and University of Kent, and across a very broad range of research topics.

We began with a welcome and some refreshments.

Lesley Gould and her colleagues are also to be thanked for all that they have done to establish this room, allocated purely for post-grad researchers.

PhD study is, by its very nature, a rather lonely and isolating role which has a tendency to extract a severe toll on some. So, in order to get people mingling and chatting we played 'Find someone who ...' which everyone really engaged with.

Then it was on to some discussion about how frequently people wanted the cafe to run and what they wanted to do with the time together.

It became very obvious that the need for a social life amongst PhDs is great ... there was much mention of pizza and film nights, etc., with the odd academic twist thrown in.

Remembrance Day

Shoulder to Shoulder

with those who serve.

Thank you to all those who helped out with readings at our Remembrance Day service this morning  ...  but most especially Rev. Saju Muthalaly (Minister of St Mark's and St Mary's Island churches, and my boss) who led our time together.  
Approx 150-180 staff and students attended the 20 minute service outside the Drill Hall Library on campus.

Why do we remember?

What is the purpose of remembrance? 

The purpose of remembrance I suggest

to us this morning, is to remind

ourselves of who we are.

We remember to make sense of our identity -

individually and collectively as a society.

We recall the sacrifice of those

precious lives because 

“for our tomorrow they gave their today!”

So today we remember.

Remember Ypres, Gallipoli, the Somme,

Mons and Verdun.

Remember the Western Desert, 

El Alamein, the Normandy beaches.

Remember Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima

and the Burma Road.  Remember Korea,

the Falkland Islands, Northern Ireland,

the Balkans, East Timor, Afghanistan

and the Gulf. 

Remember the 130 men who lost their lives

in this Drill Hall on September 3rd, 1917.

Remember the courage, the companionship,

the ingenuity, the spirit of working together

for a common cause, the planning together

for a better world that would come with peace. 

Remember the call to arms,

the patriotic songs, the partings which were

such sweet sorrow. The sound of the drum,

the skirl of the pipe… 

Remember the carnage; the colossal horror

of war.  Remember the widows of sixty years

and more, the old men and women who

never knew their fathers. 

Remember the love that was lost,

the wisdom wasted,

the minds that are still pained by memories.

Remember the families bereft by

recent wars and conflict. 

Remember this day the children who will die

while nation fights nation. 

Remember the One who asks us

to remember them. 

Followers of Jesus around the world

eat and drink at communion to remember.

We share a meal to remind ourselves of

who we are: recipients of the extravagant love

of God, who gave his Son for us. 

The Kohima Epitaph:

When you go home tell them of us and say,

for your tomorrow we gave our today.

Happy Birthday Wayne :-)

Wayne, everyone at TABLEtalk wishes you a very happy birthday and an even happier retirement!!

Mohab, soooooooooo marvellous to see you again :-) I'll be on the look out for those discounted flights with Emirates!

Health & Well-Being Fair

A Big Thank You to Ruhsen, from the University of Kent, for the excellent 'Health & Well-Being' event she organised yesterday. Thank you too for inviting me to hold a Chaplaincy stand as part of that event.

In the space of three hours, from 11am til 2pm, I talked with over 60 students, from each of the institutions. It was great to feel like I was able to give advice to some or help point them in the right direction for further guidance. I came home feeling like a very happy bunny  ...  I simply LOVE my job :-)

There were 15 or so stands including security, well-being departments, local GP surgery, Diabetes UK, Re-think, the Drill Hall Library, GK Unions, etc

In addition to excellent contact with both students and staff these events are a great opportunity to explain more about what/who the Chaplaincy actually is. It is a great time to network with other departments and also see ideas which I can make use of in the future.  I especially liked this provision of cards to write a word of encouragement to someone else :-)