Leeds Metropolitan University News and Media

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