"Welcome to week twelve of our Lockdown Diaries and things slowly seem out there to be getting back to normal in some ways. And so, I'd really like to ask two things of you really to start with. One is, as things slowly start to get back to normal in some ways, can you have think about what's happened in the last twelve weeks Because, a number of you have really kindly sent some materials to the online project but I know there's tons more stuff out there and we'd really like to capture that before all the things move on in different sorts of ways. We're by no means out of this pandemic but we may be moving from one phase to another. So before things are lost, please, photographs, reflections anything. Please, please, please do send them in. The second thing is, even though we are going to see some shops opening, we're going to see some other things opening, this doesn't make a radical change to the way in which we as a university account should be working. On Monday last week, we did a forum for our extended Warwick leaders, just to try to describe some of the processes that we’re going through. To think about how we make sure that we meet our various objectives and slowly open campus. That is now a video. It's about an hour so please, if you get a spare hour, please have a look at that and try to understand with us how collectively we can open up the campus again over the next few months. Not over the next few, next few weeks.

I had a wonderful discovery when I was invited to the Warwick WI meeting. A Zoom drink. I realised that you could take drinks to these sorts of things. So now I've discovered these sort of late afternoon early evening drinks meetings which you're very, very welcome and I always take a glass of wine to them and I encourage, I encourage you all to be responsible but it's a great way actually just to unwind at the end of a day. Doesn't matter whether you've had a day working from home, a day as a key worker, a day on furlough. It's just a great way to unwind and connect with people.

Michelle, amongst others, has said to me what was that thing on the wall behind you? Today there isn't a thing on the wall behind me because normally what I try to remember to do is to take it down when I'm on calls of this sort so that there's a sort of at least as much as possible a kind of clean background but, as you will have been able to tell, I forgot on many, many occasions. I did promise Michelle that I would say what it is and it's this. And, what it is, it's a pennant from the 1966 World Cup. I'm a big football fan, in case you didn't know, and of course, 1966 was pretty important. England actually won the World Cup and somewhere in the late 60s early 70s, I think the story is, that my father was in at the pub. He worked in London for those years and for whatever reason he came home afterwards with this pennant and gave it to me and I've always really enjoyed it, really liked it and my wife got it framed for me a few years ago. So that's what it is, it's a pennant from the 1966 World Cup that I just really like it and it sort of says something to me about my childhood actually. Talking of football, something really important happened this week. The English Football League first division finished which means that Coventry City are champions and promoted to the championship and it is just the most fantastic achievement. Some of you may well know that Coventry City isn't actually my football team. Doesn't matter. For us as a University, for the city, it is just the most wonderful thing to have Coventry City right back, just bellow the Premiership. And no doubt, over the next few years, pushing to get into the Premiership. It's a fantastic achievement from a great manager, great set of players and of course all the supporters. Playing away. All the home matches have had to be played away this season and still to achieve that is really fantastic.

Thanks to everybody who's been writing to me again this week. I always really appreciate it. As you know, I always try now, the last few weeks anyway, to try to think about what are the common themes that tied together the sorts of things you're saying to me. And I think really, this week, there's been one overarching common theme which has been ongoing conversations. Is things that people have been talking with me about. It's things that we've been talking about. It's stuff that's been going on that people have been, I've been reflecting on. So just a quick example, we had Senate on Wednesday. The first online Senate and at just the right moment, just the right moment, Poppy the Penguin came in to lighten the mood quite considerably.

Elaine, Elaine's one of the people who's been writing to me about gardening and I think I mentioned once or twice that I've really got back into gardening in this period. A bit of time in the evening, after a Zoom or Teams drink in the garden, is a really fantastic thing. For those of us lucky enough to have gardens, this really has been the time to appreciate it. And Elaine's been talking about what she's been doing and she's had one of those projects that I would really, really love. The demolition of a shed. I'm afraid I'm one of those people who really likes to knock things down. I would like to dig things. I'm not great at maintenance but I'd like that kind of project stuff and it's been fantastic to see what she's been doing and achieving. Also Elaine, you tell me that you walked twenty-eight kilometres over one weekend and I've looked at that several times. Can that be true? That's an extraordinary distance and puts me to shame. I had hoped this week, to be able to unveil a personal milestone in terms of my own walking, my own steps but I haven't made it so I'll move on and hopefully be able to share that with you next week.

Mandip's been in touch. Now, one of the common themes that people had is how streets have been getting together through this period to be supportive and to engage with each other and Mandip tells us about the street in a village near Bedworth. Three homes originally on a WhatsApp group, growing and growing, fifteen homes supporting the elderly. Being able to support those being shielded. Supporting people who've had to go through a funeral in this period of time and also supporting people through the birth of a new baby. Wonderful to hear and to see.

Eddie is one of our retired members of staff. And Eddie, you weren't in direct touch with me, you were in touch with a colleague. Please be in touch directly. Eddie is writing a book at the moment and one of the things he's going to be talking about, he says, is Roman Coventry and we were talking about Roman Coventry a couple weeks ago when I was saying about the Warwick Classics Network and all the things they were doing. And Eddie, if you know stuff about Rome Coventry, I'd love to hear it, see just a page or something. It would be fantastic to learn about. As I said, up to a couple weeks ago, I hadn't really had any idea at all about the concept of Roman Coventry which is strange considerably there are bits of Roman remains all across the University so I'd love to learn more about that.

But several emails with Sarah. Now Sarah is one of the many people, probably the majority of us, who have found the whole aftermath of the of the racist murder of George Floyd really troubling and disturbing and unnerving, in some ways how these sorts of things can still go on in our society. And, of course, what it has done is it's is unearthed, it's revealed, or it's allowed the media to shine a light on all sorts of unacceptable behaviours. All sorts of unacceptable things that have been said in our country, in our community as well. And what Sarah's done, she set up an Instagram page which is called @blacklivesmatter_warwickshire and it's to be an educational page really so that those of us who don't experience firsthand those sorts of things, can learn and can understand a bit more. Many of us will have watched what's happened in in Bristol with the tearing down of the statue of Edward Colston. Bristol is one of the cities that do a so called slave walk and basically puts together various sites where wonderful buildings have been put up out of the profits from the slave trade or where people have been celebrated for things they've done even though they only became significant or rich because of the slave trade and I've done the Bristol slave walk on a couple of occasions. Takes about two-thirds of a day if you if you do it properly and of course the Colston statue is one of the centrepieces of that work. There's an extraordinary story, actually on Colston and I mean a mass-murderer. 80,000 people transported from Africa while he was in charge of his company. Probably 20,000 of them died on route and yet he became this philanthropist as well and, over the centuries, it was the philanthropy that was remembered not the slave owning. The slave owning was forgotten. The statue gets put up, people are saying he is a son of Bristol who did good things forgetting all the terrible things that he did as well. And I think it was something like 25-30 years after the statue was put up that his real behaviours were shared with the public. Not for the first time of course but for the first time in modern times. It's this really difficult process that we're all trying to go through at the moment of remembering and forgetting and trying to work through what we should celebrate and how we should revile the things that we must revile and Sarah is going to help us I think with that and I know a number of other people are as well, so please share your thoughts and any ways that you're trying to learn and get better informed or share some of your experiences as well. That would be very important for us all.

Tracy, Tracy said one of the big themes of this whole period has been Thursday night, the clap for carers and it's gone. You've done it, it stopped at a particular moment and what do we do now? And what Tracy's doing is a really wonderful thing. She said she's using that time on a LinkedIn page, using that time to write thank-yous to people and she's going to go through the alphabet. Working through the alphabet, just to write on her LinkedIn page thank-yous to people and I just thought was a wonderful idea to use that time that we've all put aside to say thank you for people to carry on saying thank you to two people. A wonderful thing.

Carol, Carol's on furlough and she's been one of the wonderful volunteers who've been doing fantastic things. So many of you have been volunteering and it's been so wonderful. What Carol has been doing is, she's been cooking food. One of the team cooking food at St. John's church in Leamington and what they do there, apparently, is they cook food for all who need it. It's not one of the voucher systems. It's simply, if you come up and you're hungry, you can get some hot food. And she tells me the tale of the police being in touch because an elderly lady had said to them all I have in my home is cereal and bread for toast. I've got no food at all and Carol and their team were able to provide food. And it just shows you how wonderful this volunteering period is because it's enabling us also to reach out to people, to whom we need to reach out. That perhaps we wouldn't have been able to do so without our volunteering works at this period of time. Tina had a similar experience going for walks with a friend, socially distanced, just going past an elderly lady in her front garden. Just desperate to talk to people. Very isolated, very alone so please, if there's anybody that you can reach out to who you think are in these categories, even though it is going to be possible for people now to engage in these social bubbles or whatever we call them, even though that is possible, please do take a moment if you can to reach out.

One of the other things Tina's doing is, she's making face masks and face coverings and that's a great thing to do and I know a number of you are doing this at the moment. Please may I make one request? If you are in the process of making face coverings for yourself, family, for friends, please can you see if you can put something visible across here for people who have hearing challenges. If you can't see the face to the mouth, it's much more difficult to hear what's going on so please, if you can, find see-through material so that people can see this part of the face. It's really, really important to be inclusive as we are trying to, in everything that we do as a society and as a community.

Now I've got my laptop here to one side because one of the other things I wanted just to reflect back on is, I mentioned Rolf the cat last week and I mentioned the poems and they're fantastic poems here and I just wanted to share a couple of the poems because in these poems, there are things about what we were doing and saying last week. Let me give you two quick poems on Rolf the cat's Twitter page. "What greater honour can there be, than to get a mention from the VC? It really is a nice surprise, you're a huge success in all our eyes", which thought was rather wonderful but I preferred this one. "David and I both feel humbled to be congratulated this way, in fact I speak for both of us it's really made our day, to be mentioned so very highly by the VC himself, a very lovely thing to say today we'll toast his health, Cheers VC" Cheers Rolf. I can make sure everyone can see the football club on this and I'm sure that will encourage lots of you to send messages in.

Actually, I wanted just to close by saying we've now got some figures to understand just how many people are watching these videos and it's absolutely fantastic to see that we have a high point of nearly 6,000 people watching these videos every single week and there were about 3,000, just under 3,000 people. Thank you so much, it's wonderful. It really only works though because you're sending in materials and helping me share with you what's going on in the community so please, please do carry on doing that.

That's enough for me this week, have a great week next week and whatever you're doing. I know that for some people life at the moment is still a really, really big challenge and there's one individual who doesn't want to be mentioned who wrote to me this week, after a day, and a week, and a month, and a year, of really desperate frustration. It looks like the thing that really put this person over the edge was, it's always the small things isn't it, the washing machine door wouldn't open and there's all that water inside and you've got to drain it and all the rest of it it's just those things that are so frustrating. I know, we all know that it's still really tough for everybody but the more we can stick together, the more we can share, the more we as a community can be one, the better I hope it will be for everybody.

Thanks very much and speak to you again next week."

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart Croft