Hello

By Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

I am Krystle the new Campaign Officer at the University of Bedfordshire.  Trinidadian born and Wirralian raised I find myself living in Hertfordshire, which I have found to be a quaint and friendly part of the world.  I join you from a London based advertising agency where I project managed a portfolio of accounts.    

   

I have been at the University of Bedfordshire for almost 2 weeks now.  I received a very warm welcome on my first day with a tasty Thai lunch at Nakorn where I enjoyed a green Thai curry punctuated with good conversation.  I have since had the pleasure of meeting everyone in the MARC department and was given the opportunity to sit down with a number of colleagues to pick their vast brains during my initial induction.  I feel like I have learnt an awful lot already and look forward to expanding my knowledge further.  I have also had a chance to tour the labyrinth campus which I hope will become familiar to me in time. 

Last week I found myself on the set of our new cinema advert, shot “on location” in the Student Village.  The director stalked the scene, technicians honed set and lighting whilst the cameraman found that perfect shot. I even got to feature as a passing student in one scene, the most challenging part of which was resisting the plate of Haribo sweets that had been placed in front of me.  Look out for my acting debut where you may get to see the side of my head in a couple of frames.  It was a lot of fun seeing the Digital Team hard at work; their ideas being brought to life.

It has been all GO already! 

Walking, new face, ‘hello!’ handshake; meeting, listening, reciting, note take; talking, phone rings, ‘hello!’ pondering; what’s this? Where’s that?  Who’s this? Why do that? What’s his name? That’s that; print out, copy, ‘hello!’ typo; staff card, door card, parking card; line chart, pie chart, bar chart; note pad,  ipad, gel pen, empty pen, read, tap, type, write, click, send.

I am now getting my first taste of planning, working on our Clearing Campaign.  I will keep you posted as the campaign develops.

Type to you soon,

Krystle

It's a game of Guess Who

By Michelle Ramsumair, Marketing Administrator

It's nice to see what is going on at the campus, but being located off campus we don't get to. So opportunities where we can take a quick wonder round to feel part of the buzz, we head for a meeting there. It amazes me how much we can interact with people but if we were to see them in the street we wouldn't have a clue. I always try to put a face to a voice or name so met with a couple contacts I have been working with when I book directly for media activity for campaigns. That's always a good way to build the relationship, negotiate deals and get to meet new people.

We've never worked with a media agency before so we were not too sure what to expect when we went to London to meet the team. However, they were reassuring and we soon realised just how much they can do. Also, we finally have budget approval for the Pre-Clearing campaign! I just need to rework it to fit and then it's go go GO! It's always a massive team effort to execute these plans successfully and promptly. We do tend to work on the edge here, but will be much better once the Campaigns Officer starts. Next month we have a few new faces to welcome which will be exciting.We're a very welcoming bunch and thanks to Sarah's induction schedule they will feel like part of the team in no time.

I do enjoy sitting at the Marketing team's pod as I got to see the little victory dance my colleague did when she finally signed off the UG 2015 prospectus (no video footage available unfortunately). We work super hard so a celebratory outing is definitely in order. However, hot desking waiting for my PC I now occupy two desks and somehow with the same amount of paperwork on both. I must say for an Administrator I am rather messy.

I have my next CIM exam next week so have been studying for what feels like forever. I know it will all pay off  in the end so just got to keep pushing through. During the stressful times it's always worth having things to look forward to though like one of my closest friend's weddings in Easter and I booked my flight to Israel for the summer. I'm so excited!

Week One Whirlwind!

Hello there. I am Clare, Marketing Assistant and newest member of the University of Bedfordshire MARC department.

I’m Lutonian through and through and have lived in the town all my life (excluding a three year adventure courtesy of the University of Warwick). I have previously worked in arts marketing for Luton Culture, the charity that runs the town's libraries, museums and theatres.

This blog post marks the middle of my second week at the University of Bedfordshire and I can’t quite believe how quickly the days have gone by! Among introductory meetings, cups of hot chocolate and even a pizza lunch thrown in for good measure, I’ve found a bit of time to settle in to my new surroundings and got to know campus a little better.

Highly recommended: every new starter
should have a Sarah Hampton induction
schedule.

I arrived to a lovely warm welcome and a meticulously planned – and really appreciated! – induction schedule which has allowed me to get to know teams and their roles via a series of mini meetings. Meeting people one-to-one has been absolutely priceless for somebody who is, admittedly, pretty useless at matching faces to names and names to job titles! A week and a half later and I finally feel like I’ve got a grasp of who’s who and what’s what, although I’m sure there'll be tons of questions to ask now I’ve started to do some real work!

It seems like I've joined the team at a really interesting time; last week I sat in on the meeting with Z3, the people who will be putting together the 2015 prospectus, heard about various campaign plans, and had some training for the new CRM system and Matrix – plenty of excitement for a first week and a half!

I'll be at the Luton Campus open day this weekend and I'm really looking forward to experiencing the university with all the buzz and excitement of an open day. Being as new as I am, I reckon it'll be a massive help for me as well as all the prospective students hoping to get an idea of what the University of Bedfordshire is all about.

Time has really flown by and I've had a great time so far. It'll be Christmas before we know it!