"Welcome to lockdown diaries episode five.

We now know that there'll be at least a couple of episodes to go with this, so let me just say a few things about what's been happening this week and of course most of the things that are happening this week I know about because you tell me what's going on this week. So, about a week ago I had no idea what a scrub hub was and then Rachel wrote in and said "this is where people at home make scrubs for the NHS". And now I find that loads of you are doing work of this sort. And Liz sent me some fantastic photographs of what she has made for the NHS.

You're also having fun which is a brilliant thing, Denise sent me some amazing photographs of a street party. How can you have a street party in an age of social distancing? Well, it appears you sit, just outside of your front door, you all have a drink, you sing, you cheer, you do all sorts of other things, absolutely brilliant. Many of you may well be doing it - and if you are, send me some pictures. Jenny, you sent me an amazing YouTube video of Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra. Everyone playing in their own homes, utterly amazing, and actually really emotional as well.

Nicola, doing amazing volunteering work, making food for people around about, including what looks like the most delicious soup. So when we're all back around, I think it's all around to your office for some soup. A couple of days ago, Gareth sent me this video he'd taken off Senate House and what it was like and what it's like now. With what I have to say is a slightly dodgy soundtrack of 9-5. But it really did, I think for me anyway, strike home the difference obviously of what campus is like now and how many of us really want to get back into that phase of our lives again.

William, one of our residential life tutors in a hall which has been emptied recently as students have all moved across into different accommodations tells me that as he's walking around this completely empty space, goes into one of the kitchens, find that there's a window open, there's a loaf of bread that's been left and it's entirely covered with birds feeding on it. I wish you'd taken a photograph, that would've been absolutely fantastic. While we're thinking about wildlife, Sharon's taken an amazing picture of Cryfield Pavillion. I love the Maltesers as well Sharon, but a great sense of actually how nature and wildlife is really taking things over while we are in our lockdown phase. And finally, thank you to Val. Val writes to me every single week, I really appreciate it Val, best wishes to you, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you're going to say after this particular recording.

Out there in the world, people are doing fantastic and wonderful things. So Jihong, as one of the leaders of British-Chinese Professors Association with some other colleagues at Warwick, have been raising money to buy face masks to go into hospitals. Absolutely brilliant, thank you. And we've had our own massive contribution as well this week. A few weeks ago our friends at Beijing City University, with whom we were sending support and encouragement to in their time of lockdown, their owner said they've got some face masks, would we like these face masks? So of course we went back and said yes please. And despite all the challenge of getting parcels from Beijing at the moment into Coventry, they arrived this week. Loads of face masks that we're going to be able to distribute around the NHS, around care homes as well, to really help around our region. Thank you, Beijing City University, and thank you to President Lin. One of the great things about Beijing City University is it is a City University, it connects to its city, it contributes to its city, it is about supporting its city, and I think we have probably got some more things to learn from them, about how we can do still more in our region and with our city. But of course there's so much going on at the moment and thank you again to everybody for all your wonderful volunteering work you're doing across the place.

And I think what really struck home to me this week is that, we are really here for our city and region, to support through this crisis, so we're going to be here for our city, and for our region, to help us go through that recovery as well. Because the recovery phase is not going to be that far away, and we need to be thinking and preparing for what it is we can do, not only for our own university, but as I say, for our city and for our region. And actually, there's a really important development ongoing in that context at the moment. Of course, one of the really important sectors of our local economy is creative industries. Lots of small companies, lots of individual people doing fantastic and wonderful things, but my goodness me that's a sector that's suffering economically enormously at the moment. So, we're working on trying to help support - in partnership with the City of Culture Trust - and of course with Coventry University, there's something that's been announced called Coventry Creates, and it supports those creative industries. And one of the things we're doing is matching up artists with academics to try and create new, imaginative forms of art. And all of this is going to be available digitally, and we're going to have a digital exhibition of this certainly through the City of Culture year and possibly even before that as well. So look out for it, and if you can contribute to that, that would be absolutely fantastic.

Finally, let me say my sets of thanks to you all again. Firstly thanks to all the furloughed staff for your patience. One request: I get very little email correspondence from colleagues on furlough, so please, this week, take a moment, tell me what you're doing, tell me what's going on, tell me what's happening in your life. Secondly, of course, thank you yet again to our wonderful critical key workers keeping campus going. And this week can I particularly give a shout out to colleagues in the waste and recycling team. Really, really important work, really challenging work, giving all the restrictions at this moment, really important to help us all keep going, thank you all very much indeed. And to all of you working at home and doing all of these amazing things to keep the university life working, thank you very much, and again, to see all of our examinations that previously would be filling examination halls throughout the campus now open online is an amazing achievement. Thank you all very much indeed.

So stay safe. I just want to leave you with one last thing if I may; Jeff sent me a brilliant video which was all looking at classical pieces of art and reinterpreting them for the lockdown age. Very clever, very amusing, but there's one line at the end - and it's just this one line that I want to leave you with this week, because it really meant something to me and I hope it means something to you as well. It says this: "Don't count the days, make the days count". And if you can do that, for the next week, all of us will all be much happier.

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

Best wishes."

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart Croft.