Today I am feeling nostalgic. At the weekend I visited an old uni friend who I hadn’t seen in FAR too long. Although we had gone a long time without speaking we have one of those relationships where we could be apart ten years and nothing would seem to have changed. We chatted like we had never been apart and caught up 12 months of news in 2 days. Over pizza and wine conversation turned inevitably to reminiscing about our previous lives as students and housemates. We talked about people we hadn’t thought about since leaving uni 2 years ago, about days we would always remember and nights out we’d rather forget! We were both left feeling a sense of nostalgia for the student days we would never get back…. However, it was also great to see how each other’s lives had moved on, the new friends we had made, working and living in new places.

This sense of nostalgia has been added to today in the office as I have now started writing my handover which I will pass on to the new intern who starts in September, and will indeed take over the writing of this blog!  Although I am ... read more

I am writing my first blog entry after completing my first week of work at Congregation working in the Marquee! It was exhausting (I slept most of the weekend to recover) but I had a fantastic week working with our team.

We began with two initial training sessions which included familiarising ourselves with the Durham University Merchandise. We learnt about the significance of the Durham University Merchandise. To do this we carried out exercises which allowed us to discuss the specific qualities of each product.  In our training it became clear that there was a dispute over which was the favourite bear. Personally, I favoured Buster although Toffee was extremely popular at Graduation selling out on Friday! I was impressed by the amount of gifts and keepsakes available for students and families to purchase at Congregation. The range of local products such as Durham Gin and the Rail Prints Durham proved very popular at Graduations with students especially favouring the gin as a present for graduating.

Once we began work at Congregation I was amazed by the atmosphere in the Marquee, it was full of students and families celebrating. Working in such a great atmosphere was a pleasure as you felt part of ... read more