"Welcome to the lock-down diaries, episode three.

The sun is shining beautifully outside and last week I asked you to send me some messages to tell me how things are going and thank you, lots of you have. I had a wonderful email from a final year student who wanted to say how brilliantly he thought all of the staff at the university were doing. He described everyone as being world-class and I don't think I can be the person to argue with that. I have had brilliant photographs from Andy in Estates who sent pictures of what campus looks like at the moment. And from Ann, at Wellesbourne of all the fantastic work that's being done to keep the plants going there. It's not all been good. I got a critical message from Andy, Andy you know who you are, who said that last week I wasn't clear enough. So when I am saying 'do stay in touch with people' I meant virtually. Do stay in touch virtually.

I've got a confession. I've been outed. People have been saying to me "this fitness online stuff you're doing, how's it going?" And the truth is, yep I've given up. I'm doing instead, steps. I'm trying to do ten-thousand steps a day. And I've discovered that ten-thousand steps a day doesn't do your carpet very much good. But it does me some good, so I'm going to carry on and worry about the carpet later. And finally, I've had quite a few emails from people just saying how they're feeling, how am I feeling, how does this all go and Luke said something that really struck home, he said: "Sometimes I feel really calm and sometimes I feel really anxious". And that really sums me up at the moment. Sometimes I feel really calm, I look out the window the sun is shining. And at night when it's dark and you can't hear very much in terms of humans going around it seems very different. And then during the day as the news comes in, well it's difficult not to feel anxious. But we've just got to get through it because every day that passes is a day nearer the end of the crisis.

One group of people I particularly want to call out this week and say thank you to is the group of colleagues who have gone onto furlough. This is a really important piece of work for us all. We're working hard to make sure that we protect jobs. Government has said they're going to help support organisations to protect jobs by funding up to 80% to a certain threshold the wages of people who can't work at the moment, because their jobs simply can't function when there's no face to face activity. We're obviously making their pay up to 100%. We've got a lot of colleagues now out on furlough and it probably feels strange and different, but this is all part of us working together as a single community to achieve those four major strategic goals. So for those of you who have gone into furlough this week or have had the agreement that you're on furlough this week, thank you. Keep watching, keep being engaged - you are absolutely part of our Warwick community.

So thank you all very much, keep safe, keep looking out the window, and keep where you can doing great things for our community all around us.

Thank you".

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart Croft