January alumni newsletter 2023
Welcome to your first alumni newsletter of 2023! We hope you all had a positive festive period and found time to see those dearest to you.
Looking to the year ahead, we can’t wait to connect with more alumni, share your stories and celebrate your successes. That’s why this newsletter will be a little bit of a sneak preview of what to expect this year!
2023 at a glance
Christmas might be over for many of us, but did you know the 12 Days of Christmas last until 5 January? So to keep in the spirit of things, here are 12 months of alumni activity to look forward to this year:
- One YSJ Reunion
- Two months until Old Johns
- Three campus locations celebrated
- Four Ripon alumni newsletters
- Five fantastic webinars
- Six ways to support students
- Seven weeks until our Cordukes Circle event
- Eight graduation ceremonies
- Nine months until your alumni magazine
- Ten thousand metres run for charity
- Eleven more alumni newsletters
- Twelve months of YSJ alumni!
Your YSJ Reunion
We can’t wait to welcome alumni back to campus this year during Your YSJ Reunion! Alumni who pre-registered last year will get early access to buy tickets on 9 January with main booking opening in February.
- Day tickets cost £30 and include access to the reunion, a BBQ in the quad with two drinks tokens and the chance to book a campus tour and complete a treasure hunt around York.
- Evening tickets cost £40 and include a drinks reception, three course meal and evening entertainment in the Students’ Union.
- Tickets for the evening are limited, and cannot be purchased on the day.
- If you buy both day and evening tickets, you’ll receive a £5 discount!
- All tickets include a £10 contribution to the alumni-funded scholarship fund.
We’re also holding a raffle with some fantastic prizes and will be selling a YSJ reunion pin badge on the day too. All proceeds from the raffle and the pin badge will be donated to the scholarship fund.
Old Johns
Did you take part in a society, club or sport team when you studied with us? If you’re already looking for a reason to have fun with friends, remember to check out our annual Old Johns event!
Including sports fixtures, chance to socialise in the Students’ Union and a societies showcase to enjoy, there’s something for everyone at Old Johns.
For more information about fixtures, the societies showcase and how to get involved, please visit our website.
CELTA course
New year, new career direction? At York St John, we run a range of short courses including the CELTA. The Certificate in English Language Teaching to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA) is a qualification which gives you the theoretical understanding and practical training to enable you to teach English to adult language learners anywhere in the world.
The course can be taught in a variety of ways, including intensive face-to-face, online classes and part-time. As an alum you can also get 10% off!
If you have any questions, please email celta@yorksj.ac.uk. Find out more on our website.
We’re running the York 10K!
And by we, we mean we need your help. We would like a York St John team to run the York 10k to help us raise money for alumni-funded scholarships.
We have 15 discounted tickets available for our team which will be made up of alumni, students and current staff members. All team runners are asked to raise a minimum of £100 for our scholarship fund to take part.
Alumni tickets are £15 each which is £9 cheaper than if you buy them independently. In return you’ll receive a YSJ t-shirt, a community spirit and a fab cause to fundraise for.
The York 10K is known as a personal best 10k because it’s such a flat course around the city. But this also means it’s a less challenging 10k for beginners – no hills, lots of pretty scenery and plenty of convenient places to slow down to a walk. If one of your new year’s resolutions is to improve your fitness, make the York 10K your challenge!
If all 15 runners in our team raise £100, we’ll raise £1500 for our alumni-funded scholarships. That’s half a three year scholarship!
Tickets will be made available in February.
Cordukes Circle
This month we’ll be sending out invites to our second annual Cordukes Circle event! Cordukes members are invited to join after committing to regular donations for over five years or after donating over £1000 to our fund. Those who have pledged a gift in their will are also invited to join.
You can find out more about our Cordukes Circle on our website.
It’s cold outside…
Somehow winter seems more gloomy after Christmas! When we wrote this newsletter in mid December, we were in the middle of a cold snap that saw plummeting to -4 and more!
At the time, York Press posted a piece looking back at previous ‘cold snaps’. If you studied with us during the 60s, 70s or 80s, do you remember any of those snowy days?
Webinars
Last month we revealed we would be hosting five new webinars this year! This year we’ve done things a little differently and have already pre-recorded each webinar, so don’t worry if you can’t watch it when it premiers!
This month we can’t wait for you to meet alumnus Nathan, the Strategy Director and co-founder of CreateFuture.
Nathan graduated in 1995 and has worked with brands like Orange, Expedia and Tesco Bank! With over 25 years’ experience in brand and digital strategy, we can’t wait for him to talk us through his career and share his advice.
Watch Nathan’s webinar when it goes live on Tuesday 10 January 2023 on YouTube. Please note that the link will not go live until the date, so don’t worry if you can’t see anything when you click it now!
New year, new you?
It’s the start of a new year, so you’re probably already thinking about, or been asked, about your new year’s resolutions. But we know that new year’s resolutions are a difficult subject, with many people focusing on big life changes that seem unachievable. It seems more daunting to make a resolution to ‘run a 5k by March’, ‘lose weight by my birthday’ or ‘ save money’ than it does to set out smaller, more manageable goals.
- Good Housekeeping have written up 65 resolutions for a healthy, happier life. From simple resolutions like making your bed on a morning to more complicated ones like planning a trip, find your more manageable resolution inspiration!
- The New York Times have written about the best way to keep to your resolutions using SMART targets. If you always struggle to make your resolutions more manageable, this article might be helpful.
Could you be our next governor?
The University Board of Governors are currently seeking a new governor. Governors play a vital role in driving the university forward and are responsible for overseeing our university strategy and financial matters. Governors also safeguard our institutions’ mission and character.
To find out more about this exciting opportunity , please see our website. If you would like to apply, this application window closes on Monday 23 January.
EasyFundraising
Donating to our scholarship has never been easier, or cheaper! When you shop through EasyFundraising, a percentage or flat figure will be donated to our scholarship fund, entirely for free. You won’t pay extra for your basket, but you’ll be donating to our fund to support the students who need it most, for free.
YSJ love stories
We know that many happily ever afters started because you studied with us, and we’d love to learn more about our YSJ love stories! Whether you studied in Ripon or York, we want to know more about the lifelong, romantic connections created on our campuses.
If you’d like to share your YSJ love story with your fellow alumni, please email alumni@yorksj.ac.uk.
