August Alumni Newsletter 2021

by · August 3, 2021

Welcome to August’s alumni newsletter. With rising temperatures, we hope you find time to enjoy the sunshine with friends and family.  

In the past month, York St John University has welcomed pop-up vaccination points, hosted a fantastic series of events to celebrate Korean culture, and been nominated for an award. In our alumni community, we celebrated alumna Amy Stewart’s Northern Writer’s Award win, continued accepting submissions to our business directory and enjoyed reading Rosie Cammish’s blog post about her debut novel.  

Vaccine centres 

Last month, York St John hosted pop-up vaccination centres in Foss Sports Hall to help the local community get vaccinated. As a city centre pop-up, a wide range of people from the local community were able to attend, including local students. You can read more about the pop-up centres on our website.  

Join our business directory  

Last month we launched the applications to join our free Alumni Business Directory. A free resource to join and access, the directory is for alumni businesses providing alumni discounts or benefits. To apply for the directory, please complete this form. 

Four people sit on an ochre, L-shaped sofa. An Apple Macbook sits open on a coffee table. To the left of the picture are two women on one arm of the ‘L’, both are blonde and dressed in business attire. They are both laughing. On the other arm of the ‘L’ are two men in business attire, minus suit jackets. They are also laughing. Behind them, in the background of the shot is a freestanding fish tank.

Green Gown Awards  

You might remember us mentioning the Green Gown Awards at the start of the year. We’re excited to announce that York St John has been nominated for two awards: Tomorrow’s Employees for our work on Green Week, and the Sustainability Champion Award for the amazing work completed by our Grounds and Maintenance Team. You can read more about the awards and our nominations on the Green Gown Awards website.  

Recent blog posts  

Last month we posted alumna Rosie Cammish’s fantastic blog post about her debut novel, Man Vs Machine. Including how she fits writing into her everyday routine, her favourite place in York and what she’s up to now, read the blog in full on our blog.  

York Literary Review: The Alumni Blogs 

This month, we’re posting the first two blogs in our new blog series. As part of the new Publishing MA course, students revived the York Literary Review and managed the entire anthology process. Our blog series will explore both sides of the anthology: editing it and submitting to it. Speaking to editors and contributors who have already completed a degree with us, we can’t wait for you to read them! You can read the first post from alumna Catherine now.  

Northern Writer’s Award 

Have you ever thought about how all the big publishing houses are based in London? The Northern Writer’s Award recognises ‘northern’ talent, including alumna Amy Stewart’s. Amy won the Word Factory Apprentice Award with her short story Lunch at Lucy’s. As part of her award, Amy will receive a bursary and expert mentoring as she completes her first short story collection for March 2022. You can find out more on the Word Factory and New Writing North websites.  

The image highlights alumna Amy Stewart’s Northern Writer’s Award win. To the left of the image is a photo of Amy. It is a headshot, taken from a professional selfie angle. Her hair is blonde and down, she is wearing a grey top and has a pair of gold hoops earrings in. To the right of this is a blue section with writing on saying, in brief: Word Factory Apprentice Award 2021, Amy Stewart, followed by a quote from her saying that she is ‘absolutely thrilled to have won’.

Magazine coming soon 

Is it that time of year already? After months of dedicated work, we’ve begun finalising content for this year’s alumni magazine. Set to hit your letterboxes at the end of September, we can’t wait for you to read it!  

The 2020 alumni magazine is held up in front of the Lord Mayor’s Walk front entrance. It is autumn, so although the grass is green, the sky is grey and the lavender beds are brown and dead looking. The hand holding the magazine has a red painted thumb nail, contrasting with the orange cover of the magazine.

Alumni Careers

Are you still looking for a graduate role? On 5 and 6 August, the careers team are hosting a free campus conference to help you navigate, prepare and feel more confident about searching for graduate roles. Book your place now.  

Want to start applying now? Check out the latest vacancies on LaunchPad online: 

 Local charity Accessible Arts & Media are now hiring for a Marketing & Community Fundraising Coordinator.

⌛ Apply by 16 August 2021 
✅ ability to plan events and campaigns, great at building relationships, confident communicator 
💻 Apply here: https://yorksj.jobteaser.com/en/job-offers/7543295-accessible-arts-media-marketing-community-fundraising-coordinator  

Local start-up ExP are looking for a Graduate Marketing Executive to join their team. Working directly with the founder to develop a marketing strategy, this is an amazing opportunity to grow your career along with the company.
💷 Salary £18 000  
✅ Key attributes: Huge responsibility for graduate role, skills development, content creation across multiple platforms  
💻 Apply here: https://yorksj.jobteaser.com/en/job-offers/7427839-exp-graduate-marketing-executive?fbclid=IwAR14r6V8l1-JqhA0n8uOUh6x9uUBhgc9OlcfoSrXADXzc98SlWSU95D3xss  

Have you connected with our LinkedIn group yet? We post weekly job vacancies, alongside information about career events and alumni benefits. 

Events 

As we begin looking forward to the Olympics this year, why not delve into the original world of the Olympic games, Imperial Rome? From now until October, the York St John history department are hosting frequent talks about the Roman Empire, inspired by the British Museum’s Nero exhibit.  

You can find out more about the public lecture series on their website. You can catch-up with their first few events via the Events YouTube page.  

Yor-k: Korea Day Festival  

On Saturday 17 July, York St John hosted a fantastic day of events to celebrate Korean culture.  Including day activities hosted in our Quad and an evening of traditional and modern entertainment, you can find out more on our website.  

During the evening event, the winner of the k-pop competition also debuted their winning entry, Strawberry Soda. You can listen to it now on YouTube.  

Taken during Yor-K, the picture is in the Quad. Two people sit in deck chairs holding a banner that reads York St John University in Korean and then in English. The sun is shining. Both are dressed smartly and looking at one-another. In the background, a few people look at a stall. Dr Jungwoo Lee sits on the left, and York St John’s vice-chancellor on the right.

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