Epiphany Term Newsletter 2017

John Snow College

Alumni College Newsletter Newsletter Michaelmas 2015 Epiphany term 2017

From the Editor It has been another busy term here at John Snow, with lots of exciting things happening throughout the University. We welcomed many new alumni into the John Snow community at Winter Congregation, and we enjoyed a lovely evening with many John Snow alumni in London at the Gherkin. Remember to keep in touch, I am always excited to hear from you to chat about your John Snow experiences, and any input you may have into how you would like to see future alumni events shaped is always well received!

We are also hoping to start a new feature in every newsletter focusing on specific alumni and what they are doing now, so please email snow.alumni@durham.ac.uk to let us know what you’ve been up to.

I hope you enjoy reading this term’s edition of the newsletter, Best wishes, Rosa Sparks, Alumni Relations and College Community Assistant

The Student Development Fund

The Student Development Fund receives support from John Snow Alumni, JCR and SCR. All students who wish to partake in activities which will enhance their student experience can apply to the fund for support once a term.

Examples of this include attending conferences, volunteering abroad or participating in music, the arts or sport.

If you would like to know more about the fund, or donate to the fund please contact snow.alumni@durham.ac.uk.

Merchandise College Stash is always popular with all our students and alumni, so if you are feeling a little bit nostalgic and need that extra bit of John Snow in your life, then visit our shop at: http://community.dur.ac.uk/snowjcr/about-the-jcr/ merchandise/

John Snow College John Snow College Message from the Principal It’s been another busy and exciting term at John Snow College. In this Newsletter we pick up on the transition of John Snow College to Durham City, and some of our students to Newcastle University. I’ll take this opportunity to outline the plan. All of our Pharmacy students will move to Newcastle University in summer 2017. This summer our 2nd year Medical students will move to Newcastle University as usual, and our current 1 st year Medical students will do their 2nd year with us in 17/18, and then move to Newcastle University. We will have no Medical or Pharmacy Fresher’s in October 2017.

All of our Business and Management/Marketing students will move to Durham City in summer 2017, but they will remain members of John Snow College and John Snow JCR. Business and Management/Marketing Freshers will start their University journey in Durham City, and they will be members of one of the existing Durham City Colleges (and not John Snow or Stephenson). The College will have an ‘outpost’ in the form of a cottage (near Trevs) in Durham City during 17/18 which will be a staff and JCR base for students living and studying in Durham City. We will run a mirror but smaller scale version of the College out of the cottage. We will employ a number of new staff and a new JCR Sabbatical Officer to help with the transition, and they will be based in Durham City. So, we will have fewer Freshers of John Snow College in Oct 17 - Business and Finance/Accounting, Applied Psychology, and Primary Education.

We are busy planning 18/19, where we will have a new separate building for John Snow College staff and JCR social space, and take on about 250 rooms (currently occupied by students of Ustinov College). We will share the Howlands site with Butler and Stephenson College. We are also busy designing the new building for John Snow College on the Mount Oswald Site, and plan to move into that in summer 2019. In forthcoming Newsletters, we will provide more information on these new builds, and create a new section to the College website where we will upload plans and documents, for your interest. Particular thanks to Anna for all the long hours and hard work she has invested in helping with the transition, on behalf of the JCR. We will not be leaving Queen’s campus without a proper send off. We are planning a grand farewell event, over a couple of days, in June/July 2018. Thanks to our wonderful Alumni who we have talked to about the event, and for their valuable contributions to date. We will let you know about what’s planned in future Newsletters, and hope very much that you will be able to join us, and of course we will continue our discussions at the new Alumni event.

In amongst all this change, the College continues to flourish, and some examples of what we have been up to and what we have achieved are highlighted in some of the articles in this Newsletter. Stand out activities include JCR sporting achievements and the JCR work around diversity and culture (special thanks to Viabs). In addition, the work of our SCR Archive committee has progressed very well and will form a really valuable historical account of the history of the College – many thanks to Jeremy, Jennie, Lilian, Barbara, Colin, John, and Michael.

Very best wishes to you all, Professor Carolyn Summerbell Principal of John Snow College

John JohnSnow SnowCollege College JCR Update The new JCR committee have been selected for 2017/18.Come July, Anna will be handing over to Will Lewington, who will be leading the JCR through the next year. We know he will do a great job !

International Agent Life as John Snow’s International Agent has been exciting, and that is undoubtedly down to our strong collegiate spirit. I feel privileged be a representative of the college, being able to have a positive impact on the creation of a close knit community. In November we focused on Anti-Islamophobia Awareness month. The month was aimed at providing everyone with more insight about Islamic practices and cultures to stop the prejudice against Muslims in our community. Although there were a wide range of activities (such as a Try-your-Own-Hijab Session), the most popular night was the Henna session that took place in the Igloo.

There has been a few more events since then, and we are currently trying to plan a joint International Night with Stephenson College. It has been a memorable year so far, and long may it continue!

Vaibhav Chandrasekhar, John Snow International Agent 2016/17

John Snow College JCR perspective on the move to Durham

John Snow JCR are preparing to pack up Queen’s Campus, and move our fantastic college 23 miles from Queen’s Campus to Durham City.

Although this was a decision that sparked some concern at the beginning, and perhaps a little upset as we all know how much we love our campus here in Stockton, we are now very much in the process of getting ready to move and we are all very excited! As JCR President, I am currently mapping out how the move to Durham will work for the JCR, working with our sports teams to figure out the logistics of how to operate our teams and training sessions to suit everybody, our events officers are looking into new innovative ideas that we may be able to implement when we move to Durham City, things that we haven’t been able to do before or have missed out on in the past, all opportunities that will be new to us and very beneficial to us as a College.

I am currently working day in, day out with the University, and College staff, on the plans for the new College, and making sure that we get every facility we could possibly need on our new site at Mount Oswald in Durham, to make sure that our College is the most attractive College to any prospective students. We are so very excited about the future of our College, and what the next chapter of John Snow can bring for us. Stay tuned in for regular updates on what happens next!

Anna Mackey, John Snow JCR President 2016/17

John Snow College JSBC - A review of the year so far

This year thus far has been one of great success for John Snow Boat Club, with new boats, great club participation and most of all the sweet taste of victory. Building upon last years “year of stabilising� where the executive committee got the club back on track with purchases, fixing and reorganising; this year has been one of pushing forward and achieving higher standards of rowing whilst at the same time getting more people out on the water.

With increased participation JSBC has been entering more head races than I have ever seen; with Tyne, Senate, Novice cup 1, Novice cup 2, However not only have we been entering races, but winning them too, with John Snow coming first in the sprint race of Novice cup 1 and also the time trial in Novice cup 2 and we hope more victories will follow.

Another big development for the club was our purchase of our Novice cup Winning Crew: Bilal Mohammed, newest racing boat named Broad Street; this arrived at the Amrik Virdi, Alex Titterington, Marcus Cassopstart of the year and is a Swift elite carbon coxed four.

Thompson and Richard Freeman With this new boat it really puts us in a strong competitive position come summer when already added to our substantially sized fleet. Broad Street arrived alongside a second boat purchase; an old wooden four named Grant Thornton purchased for the purpose of training the novices how to row, certainly coming in handy during Michaelmas Term.

This year has not only been a successful one for JSBC but also a fun one, with club engagement at an all-time high; we have a great turnout to our socials, particularly the lycra social, and we appear to have a great team spirit with many people interested in exec positions for next year. All in all things seem to be going swimmingly for JSBC and we are excited for regatta season next term and also the boat club AGM and hustings which will be occurring at the end of this term.

Club Captain Alex Titterington 2016/17 JSBC Lycra Social

John Snow College 24 hour football returns Due to the success of this event in the past two years the John Snow Football boys will be taking part in another gruelling 24 hours of football for two very well deserving charities, Mind and GOMAD. This year they will be joined by basketball and netball, making this years event the biggest yet!

This huge number of players will increase the amount raised for charity, with the fundraising target being set at a whopping £13,000, hopefully this will also raise awareness for some amazing causes. This event will take place at Queen’s Campus on 5th and 6th of June, so make sure to keep your eyes peeled for Just Giving pages, as every donation is very well deserved!

Sports and Societies Dinner For the first time ever, the John Snow Annual Sports Dinner has combined with John Snow’s societies to create what will be one of the biggest events of the year. Tickets sold out in a record time of under 3 hours! Nikhil Sharma (Societies Officer) and Charles Ingell (Sports Officer) are working hard behind the scenes to create an unforgettable night!

John Snow College Events On the 2nd of February we hosted our Annual Alumni Reunion event in London, at the Sterling bar in the Gherkin. This event provided the perfect opportunity for John Snow alumni and College staff to reconnect, it was so nice to see so many familiar faces. Keep your eyes peeled for future events as we have some exciting things being planned!

Upcoming Calendar Events 28th April: Sports and Societies Dinner 5th May: Annual College Dinner 27th May: Snow Day 30th May: Day of Knowledge and Wisdom 29th June: Graduation Dinner

John Snow College John Snow College SCR Archive Committee

The Archive committee was established in February 2014. Five SCR members formed the first committee with Ex-Officio members Andrea Hagan and Michael Stansfield, the University’s Deputy Head of Archives. The first Chairman was Ann Cains. For the second meeting Andrea had organised copies of ‘Breaking the Mould’ the first ten years of the University of Durham’s Stockton campus, which became a useful reference tool. During the next few meetings we purchased a display cabinet, which is situated outside the SCR room (later named the Broad Street Room) and began to explore the campus collection of cuttings and photographs already held. The Campus collection has become quite a focus as it contains material from the 1990s prior to construction and records of many key events including the Queen’s visit in 1993.We have added to the collection with the purchase of matriculation photographs 2006 onwards and have gone through the files adding additional information.

The Committee has undergone some changes with two members standing down through retirement and other commitments, and another member joining. The President, John Fletcher, has also joined as Ex-Officio. Jennie is now chairing but it is very much run as a team. The College donated a filing cabinet so material from each College can be separated.

The JCR President is now a member and we purchased a hard drive for the JCR archive material. We continue with the work to organise the material for future reference and we are very grateful for advice from Michael and the work undertaken by Andrea in compiling the material in the files.

Jennie Beaumont, Archive Committee Member

Photographs from the Archive Committee’s presentation board at the Dr John Snow Anniversary lecture

John Snow College Dr John Snow Anniversary Lecture 2017

On 15th of March every year we celebrate Dr John Snow’s Birthday. This year we had a fantastic talk from Felicity Callard, Director of Hubbub and Professor of Social Science for Medical Humanities at Durham University, on the fascinating topic of rest. Following this we moved to The Waterside to enjoy a delicious array of nibbles provided by Glen and the catering staff and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to John Snow, who would have been 204 years old!

Senior Common Room One of the highlights of the SCR’s busy Term was the SCR Dinner held on 23rd March 2017 at which Dr. Clare Melhuish gave a lecture on her work with University College London’s Urban Laboratory on University-led urban regeneration. The talk was especially significant as Durham University’s Queen’s Campus was one of the case studies used in the project.

Café Scientifique Café Scientifique’ s next meeting will be at 8pm on Tuesday 25th April 2017 at the ARC, Stockton. The talk entitled: “Is it possible to build a star on earth?” will be given by Dr Kate Lancaster, an experimental physicist and science communicator and Research Fellow for Innovation and Impact at the York Plasma Institute, York University. All are welcome to attend what promises to be fascinating evening.

This term has included the following stimulating talks: 

21st March: Dr Karl Claxton, Professor in the Department of Economics, University of York: “Which drugs, at what price and for whom?”

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21st February: Dr Lore Thaler, Lecturer at Durham University: “Echolocation in people – seeing with sound”

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17th January: Dr Alistair Brown, Lecturer in microbiology, Durham University: “Old diseases require new strategies: tackling tuberculosis”

John Snow College

College Newsletter Epiphany term 2017

Some more photos from our London event at the Gherkin ...

Please Keep in touch!

Alumni Relations and College Community Assistant Office John Snow College Durham University Stockton-On-Tees TS17 6BH 0191 334 0406

Email: snow.alumni@durham.ac.uk Website: www.durham.ac.uk/johnsnow.college/alumni/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/johnsnow.alumni Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlumniJohnSnow