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Presidential Monthly Report (July)


Dear Postgrads, 


This document serves to highlight the activities, events and officer engagements over the month of July as far as the KPA is concerned. As our first month on our own in these new positions, it has been both exciting and challenging, with loads to look forward to and watch out for over the next academic year! Myself, Currie, Sharon and the new committee are looking forward to holding lots of exciting events over the course of the year for incoming postgraduate students! 

Officially Starting Out…

We took our official titles on the 1st of July, which was both exciting and daunting as new officers! Some of our initial fears, such as big decision making and generally being alone within the first couple of weeks subsided as we had help from our co-ordinator, our new committee and the encouragement from our members! A huge thank you from us to everyone that has helped us settle into our new roles! We have also established good relationships with the SU sabbatical officers, who we have shared joint training with and will be great allies for the year ahead! 

Our New Postgrads that Lunch Event...

As some members may be aware, we have been holding our new “Postgrads that Lunch” event, every Tuesday of this month! As a committee, we set this event into place on the 2nd of July and are pleased to report that it has had some great feedback and brilliant turnouts. The purpose of the event is to get postgrads together for a natter over lunch with FREE  savoury and sweet healthy snacks provided. As we had seen such good turnouts to the coffee mornings, we were keen to create a new weekly event, which would be ideal for students who may not have previously attended coffee morning’s on the basis of being too busy. We aim to keep this up and running throughout summer and the new academic year! We hope to see you all there for future events! 


Currie attends OfS Lunch in Birmingham… 

Report from Currie: On July 8, I represented students along with Dr. Helen Galbraith and a couple of other reps from Keele and Staffordshire Universities for the launch of an OFS organised Mental Health Event (Competition) in Birmingham. This competition invites Higher Education providers to deliver new and innovative collaborative approaches to improving mental health outcomes for students. Keele in partnership with Staffordshire University is embarking on a whole community approach to supporting student transition into, through and beyond University. This is something we are really positive about going forward, as we really feel like this will make a huge difference to students suffering with mental health problems at the university. We cannot wait to engage with the PG role we have been given to focus in on postgraduate mental health and wellbeing. Watch this space for more information, as we start to gain more focus and awareness of how this will impact our students over the year! 

Graduation…

What an amazing atmosphere on campus over graduation week! Currie and I were delighted to be able to sit on the graduation processions and felt that it was a true honour. Watching postgraduate members,  friends and colleagues graduate in the chapel was truly one of the most amazing experiences we have both had. The positive energy that radiated around campus truly was special and we wish to take our time to say a huge CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL GRADUATING POSTGRADUATES. The work that goes into postgraduate degrees really is something to be admired. We also held the Mad hatters Cream Teas at the KPA Clubhouse which was another outlet for graduates to enjoy their days to the fullest. We also gave free glasses of prosecco away for all graduating postgrads which went down a treat! Celebrating your graduation ceremonies with you all was such an honour, and I would like to thank and congratulate all postgraduates. Best of luck with all your future endeavours! 

PG Summer BBQ Party…

What a fantastic event the BBQ was! The weather held out perfectly for us and brought in crowds of postgraduate students to meet each other and the rest of the committee. We provided free BBQ food, which was so popular that we managed to run out in less than 2 hours!! Huge apologies to any disappointed postgrads, as myself and the committee have noted demand and will be working on this for all future events! It was a lovely atmosphere and was so nice to see so many of you come along! Firstly, I want to say a massive thank you to the committee for all their work in promoting the event and making everyone feel welcome. Secondly, I would like to thank the staff at the KPA Clubhouse and the kitchen manager, Charlotte, who worked so hard in such scorching temperatures to serve our food and drinks all night! Having seen the success of this party, we aim to host similar events in the coming months, so keep track of our events on our Facebook, twitter and instagram pages! 

Clubhouse Events over July…

The Clubhouse have held some truly fantastic events over July, which have all  been well attended with some fabulous feedback! To name but a few, we have had the 4th of July Independence Day BBQ, Writing Retreats, KPA Cocktail Masterclass, Alice in Wonderland themed cream teas and Tapas Night. These have all been fantastic events, and I would like to thank the Clubhouse manager, Jules and her team, who have gone above and beyond in attracting postgrad attendance and making everyone feel welcome! We will be holding many more events over August and welcome all to attend! These events will be posted on all our social media accounts, our website and across campus! 

Things to look forward to....

Here at the KPA, we are constantly working to ensure that we are putting on the correct events and providing our best service to our members. As you know, we have a full committee this year, who all have tonnes of enthusiasm and ideas for events! We will be continuing our coffee mornings and postgrads that lunch throughout the summer, so please do keep coming along to these! We will also be working alongside the clubhouse to hold some fantastic events over the summer months. If you have any thoughts or ideas for events that you would like to see, please do get in contact kpa.chair@keele.ac.uk, or kpa.vp@keele.ac.uk! We would love to see some ideas!!! 

Celebrating Success…

I would like to use this space to congratulate some of our postgraduate students in their academic achievements and contributions to campus...

Congratulations to Yaar Dagan, who has been nominated as 1 of 12 other candidates in the national Vitae Three Minute Thesis Competition! Best of luck for this and commendations on your great work! 

Congratulations to Felicity Adams for publishing, Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya and Nancy Fraser: Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto, in the Journal of Feminist Legal Studies on the 24th of July! What a fantastic achievement! 

Congratulations to Molly Drummond who went to a conference in Brighton to present her paper on Zines! 

Finally, I would like to say a huge congratulations to the many PhD students who are currently passing their progressions! We admire all your hard work and commitment! 

(If you would like to nominate yourself or another student to feature within this section, please get in touch with me at kpa.chair@keele.ac.uk)  

If there’s anything missing that members would like to have seen included or anything members are expecting to be done, you are welcome to get in touch with queries or issues. 

The committee and I look forward to working with all you amazing postgrads! Please feel free to email either Currie or I on kpa.vp@keele.ac.uk or kpa.chair@keele.ac.uk if you have any concerns, want to give us updates or simply just want a chat!! 

Best,

Katie Charlton

(KPA President)



Get in touch with us! We would love to hear from you! 

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