Win Backstage Passes for The Main Event!

On Saturday 13th November we’ve got the launch event to celebrate the merger of South & West Kent Colleges. The whole day will be a showcase of what we have at our campuses across Kent in Ashford, Dover, Folkestone and Tonbridge (we’ve also got a campus in Tunbridge Wells but there’s no event there on the 13th) and we’ve got a big open day featuring a chance to look around the campuses and see what we’ve got to offer for you or friends and family, we’ve got a chance to win lots of prizes and we’ve got X Factor stars Lloyd Daniels and The Reason, plus Nicole Jane and a number of great College performers to keep you entertained throughout the day!

All the details are on the facebook page – www.facebook.com/kentsnewestcollege - and this week we will be running a competition each day to win backstage passes! We’ve got five passes for each location and each day a different town will have their allocation up for grabs. Entering the competition is easy… each day a different photo will be posted to facebook and anyone who wants to enter needs to ‘tag’ themselves anywhere in that photo. We will then randomly draw five lucky people from everyone who tags the picture to win the passes. Each picture will have a 24 hour time limit on it and any tags made after that time won’t count. The winners will be announced soon after the time runs out! Got it? It’s simple!

If you haven’t signed up for it yet then you can do so on the facebook page where all the information about the event is and all the latest news is posted. The schedule is now on there and we’ll be adding the College performers to the list very soon, plus you can see directions of how to get to each campus. If you sign up then you could also win £100!

We hope you can make it to one of the campuses on the 13^th November – we can’t wait for the day, it’s going to be lots of fun!

Oh, and we’ll also be announcing our new name to the College on the day…

Maritime for a Career at Sea

Principal Bill Fearon with Performing Arts students from Folkestone

Opening eyes to careers at sea, the Kent Maritime Festival attracted thousands of school pupils from across Kent who spent the day at Cruise Terminal 2 in Dover on Thursday 14 October.

The College was a key sponsor of the event with Principal Bill Fearon telling ITV Meridian that the town was central to future plans for the College: “I can’t think of a better place than Dover to meet the needs of employers in the maritime industry. We want a national reputation for our College in Dover for training for this sector.”

Bill said the College was working with the Council in Dover to match training to employers’ needs. “There is nothing more important than upskilling adults and training young people in an area where there are jobs. People in the town will really notice a new emphasis on maritime skills at the College from next September, but we can, and do, offer short courses to local employers now.

The Kent Maritime Festival sets out stalls where 14-19 year olds may be inspired to consider the Marine and Maritime sectors for their future working life. There were more than 75 interactive stands from Marine engineering to extreme water sports, as well as specialist workshops in subjects like logistics and navigation. The College had stands and exhibitions from a range of departments and disciplines including Catering, Engineering, Body Workshops, Travel & Tourism, Creative Arts, Performing Arts, Hair & Beauty and Furniture Studies.

Organised by the Education Business Partnership (EBP) in Kent, which works to bring together schools and employers, the day provided youngsters with the opportunity to work with marine employers and take part in hands-on activities with the overall aim of promoting careers in the maritime industry, a broad and varied area of work.

You can see a video of the event, including Bill Fearon, on the Meridian website here.

Kent’s Newest College: The Main Event!

...it's coming very soon!

X Factor stars Lloyd Daniels and 2010 boyband The Reason are coming to the launch of Kent's Newest College on Saturday 13th November and you can see them for FREE!

You may have seen the news that Kent’s Newest College is coming soon… Since South Kent College and West Kent College merged in April 2010, we’ve been working together to establish one College and in November we’ll be launching the new College name.

Lloyd Daniels

The Main Event will take place across Kent in Ashford, Dover, Folkestone and Tonbridge and at each place we’ll have music from Lloyd Daniels and The Reason, plus College bands and performers. There’ll also be competitions, the chance to win £100 and an opportunity to look around the campuses and see what courses we can offer to you… and it’s all free!

The Reason

We’ll also have a brand new name (so we won’t be West Kent or South Kent anymore!) and new logo… but we can’t tell you what that’s going to be yet and we’ll be keeping it a big secret until the day – you’ll need to be there to find out what it’s going to be called!

It takes place on Saturday 13th November from 10am until 4pm and it will be at the campuses in Ashford, Folkestone, Dover and Tonbridge. A full schedule will be published on our facebook page soon but get the date in your diary now – you don’t want to miss this!

You can pre-register for the event on the facebook page here – everyone who registers stands the chance to win and we’ll be giving away £100 at each site. And make sure you ‘like’ the page to keep up-to-date with all the latest news! And you can follow us on twitter - @kentsnewcollege. We’ll be using these in the run-up to the event and on the day so follow us, like us, say hello and tell us if you'll be there!

See you there – it’s going to be a great day!

Tonbridge Arts Festival is coming - 15-24 October

Tonbridge Arts Festival is less than two weeks away… beginning on Friday 15th October, it runs until Sunday 24th October with fantastic events such as The Original Bucks Fizz, internationally-renowned magician Jonathan Shotton, bestselling author Josephine Cox, 'Grumpy Old Man' Arthur Smith, sculptor Guy Portelli and Phil Collins cover band, No Jacket Required.

The Original Bucks Fizz

The festival aims to bring the joy of the arts to the people of Tonbridge and beyond and will focus on literary, performing arts and visual arts events. The festival is being organised by a committee of representatives from Tonbridge School, Tonbridge Library, West Kent College and Hillview School for Girls with the support of Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council and events will take place in a wide variety of venues including the Media and Arts Centre at the College, Tonbridge School, a number of bars, restaurants and pubs in town, the E. M. Forster Theatre, the Angel Centre, Hillview School, the castle and more!

Arthur Smith

As reported by Tonbridge Blog, there were 13,000 programmes printed but they seem to have got lost somewhere… If you’ve seen them then let us know! In the meantime a list of events is on the Tonbridge Arts Festival website so you can see for yourself some of the fantastic things that will be happening around town. It’s not to be missed!

Here are some of the headlining shows taking place at the College:

No Jacket Required: Friday 15th Oct: Doors open 7pm

Arthur Smith: Tuesday 19th Oct: Doors open 7pm

Josephine Cox: Friday 22nd Oct: 2.30-4.30pm

Jonathan Shotton: Saturday 23rd Oct: 2.30pm & 7.30pm

The Original Bucks Fizz: Sunday 24th Oct: Doors open 7pm

The College’s music department is also holding an event on Friday 22nd Oct at Tonbridge Boys Main School. See the poster here.

Special Invitation for our Neighbours

The Media and Arts Centre at Brook Street

The Tonbridge Arts Festival runs from 15-24 October with a number of events taking place at the College. As an exclusive invite to our neighbours we’re offering 50 free tickets to the opening night on Friday 15th October, plus a meal in The View restaurant.

The invite will combine a tour of the campus with the chance to talk with us and ask us any questions you might have. You will then be treated to a two-course dinner before seeing the Phil Collins Tribute ‘No Jacket Required’ in the Media and Arts Centre.

Join us from 4pm for the tour with dinner served from 6pm. The tickets are only available to residents who live in the Brook Street and Quarry Hill area, including all roads leading off of College Avenue, Masefield Way and Molescroft Way.

If that’s you and you’d like to attend then RSVP to Alison Prangnell on alisonprangnell@wkc.ac.uk with your name and address. There are only 50 tickets, and it’s limited to two per person, so act fast!

Here's the invite - click to enlarge. No need to print this out, just contact Alison who will tell you everything you need to know.

The new building in Tonbridge - come and see for yourself!

The new building at Brook Street opened last month and here’s a selection of photographs taken by National Diploma Photography students to give you a flavour of what it’s like inside and out.

Their tutor, Nigel Carr, said: “The students had been set a project titled 'Structures, Constructions and Deconstructions' and I thought the new building was an ideal opportunity, for those that were interested, to research innovative photographers work and explore photographing architecture… Only this morning I found two of the students taking self motivated photographs of the building.”

The photos were taken by Dan Wheeler, Andy Robertson, Kieren Plowright, Carrie Coupland and Ele Parkman-Mayne.

The large, modern college building already feels like home and we’ve had fantastic feedback from students, staff and visitors. Inside we are using the latest technology to support students in bright and airy classrooms with numerous open learning and breakout areas. We also provide opportunities for people outside of the College to use our facilities with a 500-seat art centre, a restaurant which is being run by Whiting & Hammond, hair and beauty studios, Costa coffee and Optimise gym.

If you’d like to take a look around the new building, whether you want to study here or use it for business, then we have an Open Day on 3^rd July from 10am-4pm. Alongside this we have a number of exhibitions including the excellent Art and Media Show and Enterprise Factor (look out for the windmill and robots). Everyone is welcome. You can read more about the Open Day here. We are running simultaneous Open Days at all our campuses – North Farm at Tunbridge Wells is also open from 10am-4pm where the Motor Vehicle and Construction Crafts courses will be on display. Ashford, Folkestone and Dover will be open from 10am-1pm.

For more details about the Photography courses available at West Kent College then read here.

The final building work at the College will be finished by September 2011 - exciting times ahead!