Ripon newsletter: December 2022
This newsletter was originally sent to Ripon alumni in December 2022, and added to this blog in December 2023. If you would like to read our latest newsletters, please navigate to our home page.
Welcome to your Christmas Ripon alumni newsletter. Since your last newsletter we’ve had quite a busy time at York St John! We’ve announced an alumni reunion for next summer, enjoyed reading through alumni snapshots and welcomed our latest graduates in our alumni community through eight graduation ceremonies in York Minster.
Looking ahead to the new year, we’d love to connect with more of our alumni who studied in Ripon and maybe even welcome some of you to our summer reunion! As always, if you have any stories you’d like to share with us about your time at Ripon, please email alumni@yorksj.ac.uk.
Christmas in Ripon
The Christmas countdown is definitely on for many of us, but that doesn’t mean there’s not still a lot to be enjoyed this festive season!
- Ripon Cathedral are holding a range of Christmas services and events, including their Christmas Spectacular featuring performances from local groups and schools. Find out more on their website.
- Ripon Spa Gardens are hosting an illuminated winter wonderland from 15 – 18 December. Including light displays and an alternative Christmas Tree competition, find out more about what to expect at this event on the Visit Harrogate website.
- Enjoy an artisan Christmas Market on Sunday 18 December in Ripon Market Square. Find out more on the Visit Harrogate website.
- Plus, there’s free parking in Ripon every Friday after 3pm up to and including Friday 16 November! Find out which carparks this includes on the Visit Harrogate website.
You can search for more festive events on the Visit Ripon website.
Festive traditions at Ripon
What was Christmas like for you when you studied with us? We’d love to learn more about what you remember from those final weeks of the winter term!
In the meantime, we’re looking back to the very start of the 19th Century when Canon Garrod was principal of Ripon College. Between 1892 and 1908 when he retired, Garrod oversaw quite a few changes to the College, including much-needed building work, improving facilities and adding to what we now call ‘the student experience’.
One addition to the student experience of the time was the creation of social evenings throughout the year. In December 1900 this included a production of the sketch Blue Stockings of 1999 in the brand new ‘recreation room’. In the sketch, students were delighted by a look to the future of 1999 and what education would look like. Apparently picnics in the Sahara Desert, political upheaval on Mars, and pupils taking notes with both hands as they listened to simultaneous lectures were on the cards!
Although the above image is from 1928, we’d imagine the only differences to a 1900 production would be longer dresses!
If the highlight of your December wasn’t a ‘social evening’, please complete our alumni snapshot to tell us more about your Ripon experience!
Ripon update
- The annual Macmillan Christmas Carol Concert marked 25 years at the start of the month. Having raised almost half a million pounds, the annual concert has had several celebrity and even royal guests since its first concert. Find out more in the Darlington and Stockton Times.
- Like York Minster, Fountains Abbey has submitted plans to introduce solar panels to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. Find out more in The Stray Ferret.
Your YSJ Reunion
We know that many of our Ripon alumni might have only popped to York for the odd class, group activity or a bit of fun, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to welcome you to our York campus for Your YSJ Reunion.
Your YSJ Reunion will give you plenty of time to enjoy York, socialise with friends and make some new memories with us. There’ll also be an opportunity to see how Ripon is remembered at our York campus on a campus tour.
You can read how the reunion went in the 2023 magazine.
YSJ update
- Our annual York St John Carol Service returned at full capacity for the first time since the pandemic began.
- We celebrated the achievements of young Asians from Yorkshire at the YAYAs.
- We opened our new London campus location at the start of November.
- We enjoyed graduation with the Class of 2022, where Drama graduate Beth Lally won the Institute for Social Justice prize.
‘After Ripon; or “Hey, mister, I bet you’ve never seen a lesson like this before”?’
After our last Ripon newsletter, alumnus John got in touch with us to share his fantastic career story. John was one of the first men to attend Ripon College and later married a fellow Ripon alumna!
During John’s career he taught across a wide variety of schools, travelled internationally and even became the inspector for a secure unit.
You can read more about John’s fantastic career on our blog.
If you would like to share your story with us, please email alumni@yorksj.ac.uk or complete an alumni snapshot.
Alumni benefits
This month we’ve created an alumni advent to showcase all things alumni! This includes your alumni benefits! These include:
- Discounts at alumni businesses and services
- Free library membership
- Lifelong career support
- A 10% discount off most postgraduate courses, now including PGCEs
- A way to reorder your certificate and transcript from your time with us
If you would like your business or service to be added to the Alumni Business Directory, please email alumni@yorksj.ac.uk .
Webinars
Have you ever wondered what careers other alumni have? In our recent webinar series, we heard from alumni across a range of careers, including working in comedy and the film industry!
We can’t wait to talk to more alumni next year about their careers. We’ll be announcing our alumni line-up at the end of this week, so remember to check out our social media to find out more.
In the meantime, you can rewatch all of this year’s webinars on YouTube.
A season of giving
When Principal Garrod began his modernisation of Ripon College in 1892, he did two very interesting things. The first was he formally began their alumnae association. The second was he utilised his alumnae and their contacts to support his work at the College.
When Garrod started at Ripon, he began improving the student experience. This included making the College environment a better place for students by asking for donations of teaching materials, artwork for the walls and of money to improve their facilities. This included asking for support to create the recreation facilities we mentioned earlier. Since then, our alumnae, and later alumni, from Ripon have supported their college in many different ways.
Surprisingly, not much has changed since 1892 when Principal Garrod began asking for support for his students. We no longer need artwork for our walls, and we recently created more fantastic facilities in our new Creative Centre, but we’re still trying to improve the student experience, especially for those underrepresented in Higher Education.
You can find out more about how our alumni-funded scholarships support our students on our website.
We hope you find time to enjoy this festive time of year and are able to celebrate with those who mean the most to you.
