West Life

At West Kent College we print and publish a monthly newsletter called West Life. It’s aimed primarily at our staff, who provide the content, but we love the students to read it too as most of the stories are about them. West Life is filled with interesting stories from in and around the College and local community, there’s current news and upcoming events, the latest happenings with our Campus 21 regeneration and a lot more to keep you up to date with everything happening here at the College.

We have now made all the issues of West Life from 2009 available to read online. You can see them all here. In the December issue you can see the fun things that happened for Children’s in Need, see the winners of the Equality and Diversity bookmark competition and read a great story about our ‘Reining Champion’, Antony Irens, plus lots more.

We are also setting up a new magazine which will be ‘by the students, for the students’. Any learner can get involved with any stage of the publishing process – writing, editing, photography, graphic design, marketing. Hopefully we’ll soon be able to show this off online too.

Happy reading!

First Shoots Film

As part of our Campus 21 regeneration we plan to hold a number of events showcasing the College. On October 19th 2009 we held the first of these, a take on the traditional ‘Topping Out’ ceremony, where builders celebrate reaching the highest point of a new build, which we called First Shoots.

The First Shoots event featured a reception in the Media and Arts Centre, a tour of the impressive new build and then a tree planting with College Principal, Bill Fearon, Cllr. Sue Murray, Mayor of Tonbridge and ex-West Kent College student, Richard Saward from Galliford Try and current National Diploma construction student, James Andrews. We reported the news initially here but now we have an update: a video recorded at the event with lots of great comment from our guests. The short film also features a composition from music student Andy Frasier.

Click here to visit the West Kent College Youtube channel.

Snow Day!

On Friday 18th December it snowed. It snowed so much, in fact, that we had to close the College for the day, but we still managed to get a few photos of the Brook Street Campus.

The Campus is still very icy so please take lots of care while walking around.

And here are a couple of pictures of Tonbridge looking great in the snow.

Reining Supreme

In October, Year 1 Built Environment student Antony Iren competed for Great Britain in the FEI European Reining Championships in Germany, finishing 5th out of 180 riders.

This is the second year running that Antony has represented Great Britain in the Young Riders category. Reining is known as the Western form of dressage and it’s a discipline which requires the rider to perform one of a set of patterns with smoothness, correctness and control, all done at galloping speed. Antony started riding lessons and soon became interested in the Western style of reining, as he says, “it’s really fast, all action and you can be casual and wear jeans, breaking from the traditions of English riding.” Antony also explains how, because they are raised as working horses, “it’s a natural style of riding which is much less stressful for the horses.”

Here’s something you might not know: reining is the fastest growing sport in Europe, with 18,000 people taking part this year compared to just 3,000 last year. Robbie Williams is a fan as is racing-driver Michael Schumacher’s wife (who offered to buy Antony’s horse off of him – he said no, of course!).

Well done Antony, it’s a great achievement.

Panto Promo Film from WKC Students

Recently a group of media students from West Kent College got the chance to help out with a promotional video for the Tunbridge Wells Christmas pantomime, Peter Pan.

Adrian Smith, the Course Leader FD Art and Design, and his students recorded this video of the show’s star, Ray Meagher (who is best known for playing Alf Stewart in Home and Away). Ray plays Captain Hook in the panto which is on at the Assembly Hall Theatre from the 12th December 2009 to the 3rd January 2010. The show also features Sarah Jane Buckley, Jessica Punch and Christopher Pizzey.

Here’s a picture of Ray and our students during the shoot.