Week -2, Michaelmas Term

Term – 2, and counting…

Here we are at the Autumn Equinox. St Giles’ Fair has been and gone.

The weather is ‘changeable’, and every day takes us closer to the first week of term 2017-18. Students have begun to arrive and the majority of the snagging works to our new building have been completed.  Substantial refurbishment has also been carried out on other residential sites.

The Student Representative Committee (SRC) has planned another full programme for our Freshers. Other colleges have Freshers’ week: we have a Fortnight. The admin teams have hundreds of information packs ready to put into pigeon-holes, and have already been directing the first arrivals to their accommodation. The Lodge is gearing up to receive post and parcels, and enquiries of all kinds. New this year, we have maps of the main site to help everyone find their way around – necessary now that we have so many more public spaces.

And we have been welcoming more and more people into those public spaces. Three joint tours of Pusey House and St Cross took place as part of the Oxford Open Doors event, and all were fully booked. We have started planning for next year already.

We had two very nice events as part of the University’s Meeting Minds Alumni weekend. An Authors’ event in the West Wing, at which Andrew Goudie and William Scott-Jackson spoke about their new books, illustrated the huge variety of work undertaken by members of the College, and our traditional afternoon tea in the Common Room enabled people to meet old friends and make new ones.

The catering team from BaxterStorey are back at full stretch, with external bookings, on top of College lunches, already keeping them on their toes.

We have a number of overseas visits planned for Michaelmas and Hilary term to meet friends and alumni and have been delighted to be able to begin to put alumni in touch with new students before the latter set off for Oxford. This is something we are hoping to do much more of as time goes on.

David and I are looking forward to welcoming continuing DPhil students to No 10 – spread over a number of evenings: everyone at once might not be too comfortable! Rosie is bound to get very excited, despite looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth last time she was in College.

A new term is about new beginnings. We’re looking forward to welcoming all new students and returners to our beautiful College, in the heart of Oxford. Please say ‘hello’ and introduce yourselves when you see me around the place – and please remember that we all want you to have a successful and enjoyable time with us.

Carole

And finally: keep your eyes open around Oxford and see if you can spot this rather superior looking individual!