I can’t believe we’re in the last week of January, which means I only have two weeks left in my placement with the news and media team. Since I started in the team five months ago I have been exposed to the world of communications and learnt so much. From the smallest tricks in copy writing, writing lengthy features on volunteering and wellbeing to becoming a daily tweeter. (I now follow over 100 tweeters, mainly universities, the voluntary sector and social media bloggers.)

I now understand what it is like to work in the hub of our University. Our phones tend to be always ringing, whether it be with media requests, staff from our faculties asking for their news story to make the top banner, or photography requests. I have always enjoyed the phone conversations, trying to help people out and offer advice. Dealing with the media requests adds another dimension to your day. I’ve been able to find out about the vast range of academics we have at our University and some are extremely popular in the media world.

Engaging with more students and staff through social media and how we are moving forward has been a topic of discussion throughout my placement, especially since I got the twitter bug. Leeds Met hosts its own twitter page with a feed of our latest news and most of our faculties, library and Carnegie sport have entered the world of social media too. It’s been great to see this week we have broken the 1,000 fan members on Facebook with the Leeds Met fan page and we have more students and staff interacting with it, such as posting snowy photos of Headingley Campus and asking what it’s like to study here.

I have spent time learning to record, edit and interview for podcasts to support the web stories. My latest podcast was from the Leeds Year of the Volunteer Launch, where I found out how students and staff can get involved in volunteering and become part of the campaign.

Staff volunteering at Leeds Met - find out how you can get involved. by leedsmet

As I begin to look forward and prepare for my new placement with the people development team in corporate HR, I can take forward everything I have learnt and integrate it into my new placement. I will certainly miss a few things from the team - the milk saga every morning, cake mountain (which hasn’t been well stocked recently), lavender fairy wishes to give our washing up a sparkle, the wellie wearing weather, Betty our office goat - and that for the last few Tuesdays I have bounded into the office singing songs from Glee. Although everyone pretends they have no idea what I’m talking about, I know they are secretly watching it.

They’ve been a great team to work with and I know I’ll always be singing their praises.

Ash

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I'm not a great fan of New Year. Take New Year's Eve celebrations for a start. Rather than partying the night away in some crowded nightspot, waiting for hours to get a taxi, and being wholeheartedly overcharged in the process, I'd much rather stay in with good company and fantastically calorific food, washed down with a bottle of champagne. And then comes New Year's Day and our obsession with New Year resolutions. And so I become frustrated as every year, people scrabble around to find new ambitions or 'resolutions' ie the things they wanted to get round to last year but never did.

Ok, so I might sound totally miserable now, but I like to think I'm the kind of person who doesn't need to wait for one day out of a possible 365 to set myself new goals and objectives, and re-examine my expectations.
However it cannot be escaped that a new year brings new challenges and opportunities and, undoubtedly, reflection on the previous year which has gone. The past year at Leeds Met has certainly been one to remember, and one that has kept the press office busy. The unprecedented media coverage has warranted constant objective setting, re-evaluation, and reflection and has certainly been a challenge for the New & Media team - one which the team has coped with impeccably. We have seen one Vice-Chancellor go, a Chief Executive come in, a new Vice-Chancellor appointed, the business school move in to the Rose Bowl, the Faculty of Arts & Society move into Broadcasting Place, two new Deans, a royal visit, unprescedented success at student sport, new student accommodation launched, and much more (all of which is reported daily on our news site).

The New Year at Leeds Met brings much more to look forward to. Our new Vice-Chancellor started this week, which is the beginning of a new era for our university. Professor Price has already said that the priority will be to develop a new strategic plan, which I know will be the subject of much interest. It will then be down to teams like ours and our colleagues across the rest of the university (we have 3000 staff!) to put the plan into action. We'll be working with the new Vice-Chancellor on a monthly e-newsletter, launching blogging at the university, the new university sport website will go live, and we will be launching our eagerly awaited staff magazine. We're also keen to develop a social media strategy to ensure we are engaging with our key stakeholders in the most appropriate ways, so whether you log on to facebook, twitter or you tube, we will be there!

All in all, lots to look forward to and even more to do. A busy year ahead. Happy New Year!

HG

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