"Welcome to Lockdown Diaries week eleven. Seventy-seven days - I don't think any of us ever thought it would be going on this long, and I know I say that every single week, that it is extraordinary the way in which this is going on.

I think there's been a couple of really big themes in what you have been sending in to me this week but some other stuff as well which I'll talk about. But a couple of big themes and one is about new beginnings. That things are changing and this has been going on so long now that new stuff happening. One example there is we had a Welcome Webinar this week for thirty new members of staff being inducted and welcomed into our University, and I know now a number have been writing to me to say you know I've joined Warwick during this period from the 1st April onwards, 1st May, 1st June - it's a strange time to be joining the University but if you are new to us you are very, very welcome and that's hopefully what you heard in the recording that I did for that Webinar and I hope everybody in your teams are welcoming you as well.

Also in terms of new beginnings, Jas sent in a brilliant video this week, Jas has been shielding for the last ten weeks and after ten weeks has come out and done her first walk outside after that period of time. She's taken a video of it and is absolutely brilliant. The wonderful look on your face being outside in the area is fantastic to see but you're slightly scary person Jas, as you did ten-thousand steps having been inside for ten weeks so congratulations to you, absolutely wonderful to see. Also in terms of new beginnings, Anna in the Estates team has sent through this fantastic, fantastic stuff about what a number of colleagues in Estates, particularly people on furlough have been doing to help renovate St Peters Primary School in Leamington and a particular shout out for Nicki who's done such great work putting all this together. And I put it here under new beginnings because their head teacher wrote a brilliant note back in to thank everybody and to say it's just like having a new school. Fantastic timing as some kids start slowly to go back to school. And finally under this, George has sent me a great, great piece of information about the fantastic work key workers on campus are doing, looking at where we can save power, where we can be more green, where there are lights that we don't need to have on, where there are really energy inefficient things that we can switch off and do different things with. And why is that new beginnings? Well it is new beginnings because as we go back, as things start to change, we need to be greener, we just have to be greener in the future than what we've been in the past. So some great stuff around new beginnings.

The second big theme is about anguish, frustration and worry, and I think we really ought to just acknowledge that and how people are feeling at the moment, and I think the sharpest part of that is I have been receiving lots of stuff about the racist murder of George Floyd in the US and it's just had such a powerful impact on so many people. Yes colleagues in the black community, yes colleagues in the BAME community but actually more broadly as well because he see their brutal injustice and it makes us think. I think it makes all of us think, not only about what's been happening in the United States but about injustice in our country as well. They just have to look at some of the numbers for example, of fatalities because of Covid-19. And you look at the difference in the white community and the BAME community. It's just heart breaking. There was a piece I read the other day about devastation of amongst communities, BAME communities in our country because of covid 19. We need to do more, we need to do better, and we as individuals, we as a University need to address what the Pope yesterday, called that the sin of racism. You may or may not be a person of faith but I think the sin of racism is a fantastic phrase to understand what it is that we need to do better about.

In other things as well, I've had a heartfelt message from from one of our key workers doing physical work in fantastically hot temperatures on campus, knowing very well that some of us are sitting inside in relatively cooler spaces and just frustrated with it all. And I think I hear, I think we all hear the frustrations have certainly been with how we are at the moment, as a country, as a society, kind of stuck, sort of things are changing but we're not quite sure what it's all or changing to. Another person wrote to me and she knows who she is talking about worrywarts, and that's a fantastic phrase, worrywarts. It's certainly one that my mum uses quite a lot, worrywarts. And I think perhaps also because it's been so hot recently, until very recently, and hard to sleep and I think a lot of us have been lying awake just worrying about the future. And I think this is perfectly normal - why would we not be worrying about the future, given the challenges of things that going on at the moment?

We're doing a lot of work at the moment trying to think through how the rest of us come back onto campus, how people come off furlough, how we organise this, and we're going to do next week a big presentation about the thoughts and possibilities for our new extended leaders forum, and then we're going to take their recording of that and show it to everybody around the middle of the end of the week, so you can see where our thinking is. It's really difficult to plan clearly at the moment, social distancing rules are very tight and make things quite challenging but we don't know how they're going to change. Quarantine rules, fears of a second spike of the pandemic, all these things make things quite difficult. So what we are going to try and work through is a variety of scenarios. And I think the truth is that we're going to have to be very flexible about how we work, what conditions we work and where we work over the course of the next few months. What's vitally important is as we come back to these plans of working more together and little bit more on campus we have to do it together. We can't have departments going off in different directions and opening at different times because social distancing rules will constrain how many people are physically able to be on campus at anyone point in time.

Lots of great stuff that's come through this week, more music and I know everyone loves to see some of the music and two great examples this week of all the different forms of music that people are producing during this lockdown period. James sent me, James from the music centre has sent me this fantastic piece by the wind orchestra, absolutely brilliant and hope you James, and colleagues in the music centre and the orchestra itself are really proud of how you have been able to put that music together during this period. James tells me if we're very lucky, some of the other orchestras might be putting pieces together as well but we might see over the course of the next few weeks. And in the clinical trials unit, which is a centre of creative music at the moment, Carrie sent me the latest piece, 'Online Food Shopping', which we'll put out so that you can see it as well. And when I heard this, I sort of heard it being sung by a certain government chief advisor. Just watch it and listen and see what you think.

I've been told off this week because I have failed to mention that Rolf the cat is back patrolling on campus. Thank you to Joanne and to Paul for telling me that I should say that things must be coming back to normal because Rolf is back around, and I'd encourage you all go to the Twitter page and you'll see some fantastic pieces of poetry on there. Someone has just rung the doorbell, the dogs are barking their heads off I'm going to keep going and hope that my other half is going to get that. This is what it's like working at home isn't it?

Claire sent me a fantastic picture of her dad in a Warwick hoodie, thumbs up! And that's really the spirit I think you know, we've got challenges, we've got lots of things we're going to do, but thumbs up. We're going to work together and get through all this together. Helen sent me a brilliant note (the dogs still barking) telling me about her life and particularly gardening and how she's got much more into gardening. I have to say that we have gotten much more into gardening in the course of it last eleven weeks, and at the moment we are involved in this fantastic project, I think it's fantastic, I'm putting in new veg beds. Got a couple of new veg beds going in and we got the excitement, hopefully this weekend of completing that project and getting some produce in so that we can eat it over the course of this summer.

Brilliant volunteering stuff still going on, thank you so much everybody doing this brilliant volunteering work. I'll just give you a couple of examples this week. I'm going to about Jill in the CTU who's been crocheting coronavirus things, crocheted things and raffling them off to raise money for different charities and this weeks is for Dementia Friends which is certainly a charity close to my own heart as my father is a person who has significant dementia. I haven't seen him for eleven weeks as he's got to be shielded away in this period of time because of other health issues, and I know that's true for so many people and it is really, really hard so fantastic, thank you so much for that that work. There's also something about Mia, Mia is one of our students and Mia has started this fantastic idea of letters for the NHS - so this is where we've got some information about people who are doing brilliant things for the NHS, and we're being invited to write to say thank you. It's brilliant what you're doing, we really appreciate it and so far Mia has got 500 people volunteering to write letters to thank people in the NHS which is absolutely wonderful.

There is a phenomena around teams meetings at the moment, apparently around campus and some of you may have enjoyed this phenomenon. It is the phenomenon of Poppy the Penguin! And Kate has sent me some pictures of Poppy the Penguin. Kate is on a cool, Poppy the Penguin appears from one side because her daughter Emma makes sure that Poppy is part of every single meeting that is going on, and I think there's quite a few of these sorts of things going on so please if you got other phenomena of that sort, do share them. Let us see what's going on.

Finally, colleagues are organising some virtual, what is it called? Virtual Community Cafes, that's what it is called, for our colleagues on furlough. So if you're on furlough, there are a couple of moments where we're going to try and put together this community cafe. Friday the 19th at 10am and Tuesday the 23rd at 2pm. If you're on furlough and picked this up, just come together to give yourself a chance just to talk and stay connected and stay in touch with what's going on.

So that's it for this week, please keep sending me things in - I haven't said much about the online time capsule work that we're doing. We're still doing it. Thanks so much. People are sending things in, still collecting the moment, see where the balance of the contributions lie and then we can see what the next steps will be. Really excited about putting that forward. A couple of people who said, well when the Art Centre reopens, perhaps we can have some of the pictures up as well which will reminders of this period, and also be a physical kind of manifestation of this period - another great idea. We'll certainly be looking into that but thanks for watching or reading depending on how you have been engaging with this. Stay safe and please stay connected.

Thanks very much.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart Croft.