January Alumni Newsletter 2022
Happy New Year and welcome to your first alumni newsletter of 2022! We hope you found time to spend times with friends and family over the festive period and are looking forward to the year ahead.
This month we’re excited to host our third webinar with Yorkey Dads and Menfulness founders Jack Woodhams and Dan Braidley. We’ve also posted a few blogs, including one from our former Vice Chancellor Professor Dianne Willcocks.
Festive help
Christmas might be over, but we thought we’d share a final ‘season of good-will’ moment.
There are a lot of reasons students might stay in their accommodation over the winter break. International students might not be able to afford the flights, or the long journey simply might not be worth the hassle. Students might not have a home to go to, or have a variety of reasons why they couldn’t return. However, these students weren’t just left to fend for themselves.
In partnership with our local Morrisons, students staying in York were gifted a free festive basket to help them mark Christmas in whatever way they felt best. You can find out more in the York Press article published last month.
Reunions
We love interacting with our alumni community, and we’d love to give you more opportunities to interact with your fellow alumni on our campus. Moving forward, we’re looking into the possibility of hosting reunion events on campus that include more activities and opportunities for you to take part in.
If we host more reunion events, we want you to enjoy them! So, we’ve put together a form for you to share what you’d like a reunion to look like. The form should only take a few minutes to complete, depending on how many ideas you’ve got!
Webinars
This month we’ve got our third fantastic alumni webinar. Founders of two local support groups for men, alumni Jack Woodhams and Dan BRAIDELY will be discussing what prompted them to create Yorkey Dads and Menfulness. This is a webinar you don’t want to miss!
Book your ticket for 26 January 2022 at 3:30pm. Can’t watch it live? Keep an eye out for when we post the recording on the Events YouTube channel.
Easy Fundraising
Christmas might be over but we know some savvy shoppers amongst our alumni will already be shopping the January sales. Last month, we launched our Easy Fundraising page, an easy way to do your usual online shopping and donate money to our scholarship at the same time, at no cost to you.
Easy Fundraising is free to use all year round, and will help support our students all year round too. Find out more and sign up now.
Alumni careers
Are you or your team recruiting for a new role in 2022? You can recruit directly from our graduates and current students by advertising your vacancy on LaunchPad Online. You can also advertise any paid internship, fixed-contract or volunteering roles. Add your vacancy now.
Please email careers@yorksj.ac.uk if you have any questions about advertising your vacancy. And remember, you can also use LaunchPad Online to look for your next role too.
Upskill your CV this January
Upskill your CV this January with our free Social Media Marketing short course in partnership with Mediaworks. Find out more and register for free.
New year, new address?
Last October lots of our alumni received their alumni magazine, but lots of magazines were returned to us too! When our alumni move house, we often receive their magazine back, either through the wonders of Royal Mail, or thanks to new occupants putting it back in the post.
Please help us keep our records up-to-date by updating your details if you’ve recently moved. You can update your details by completing this short form.
Upcoming events
There’s plenty happening at York St John this year, and our fantastic Events Team are already hard at work organising events for our calendars. Browse events and start booking fantastic things to do this year on our eventbrite page.
Lots to blog about
New year, new blog posts! Last month we posted a few different blogs, and this month we’ve already posted two for you to enjoy:
Graduation countdown
The Class of 2021 is graduating next month, but there are a few changes to this graduation ceremony everyone needs to be aware of:
- Everyone will need to collect their cap and gown from Merchant Taylors’ Hall. This is down Aldwark, just off Monkgate.
- Everyone will then need to make their way to York City Church on Gillygate for official photography.
Luckily, our beautiful campus is on the way, so it’ll easy to plan your campus photos too.
For more information, and a handy map, please read our graduation guide.
Our alumni communications and philanthropy assistant graduated in November and has this top tip to share:
“We all want a nice graduation photo, but remember how cold you might get! York in February means slippery cobblestones, biting wind and maybe even snow! Don’t bet on York Minster being toasty either – if your outfit has space for a thermal layer, or a layer underneath your graduation robes, wear it! If you plan on wearing a dress – tights are a must if you don’t want to shiver your way through the ceremony.”
