Virtual Coaches Kitchen

Join us as we attempt to adapt, just like you! During ‘real life’, us coaches would host a monthly Coaches’ Kitchen in the Chaplaincy to foster a sense of community and comfort with some hot food and chat. We’ve worked to translate this into a virtual space available to staff and students, with a focus on keeping in touch and having safe spaces to share ideas and reflect together during this period of isolation.

We run weekly live cookalongs in the conferences tab on Thursdays at 12pm, where viewers are invited to either cook along with the recipe that we host, or make their own thing with the ingredients that they have. This is then followed by a virtual communal lunch so we can enjoy our creations together. We’re building up a digital catalogue of our favourite go-to food which is easy to make and using many basic cupboard essentials.

On Tuesdays, we will also be running an alternative activity which will differ each week. It may be crafts to do with kids, it might be yoga, a drawing workshop, or a Netflix viewing party. On Tuesday 21st April 2020 we’re doing a family friendly (pub) quiz. The link to join the canvas topic is: www.tiny.cc/coacheskitchencanvas and everyone is welcome. Staff, students of all levels. In addition to this, is an initiative which has been started by Karin Dannehl (History Lecturer) and her students.

Based on the ‘Journal of the Plague Year’ that Daniel Defoe published in 1772, we are using a discussion forum in the Academic Coach and GTA Canvas page to write the Collective Journal of Covid-19. We would love for as many staff and students to engage with this collection as possible, with contributions varying from text, drawings, music, sign language or film - there should be the option to upload varying files once in the Discussion on Canvas.

This has the potential to become a fantastic culmination of many disciplines and subject backgrounds, and has been kicked off with a post from our History GTA, Daniel Kinsey. The hope is to see the collective journal preserved in the local archives (for future historians) but also, selectively if necessary, to publish it at a suitable point in the future.

More information as well as a loose guide of what to post, is available in the Discussion topic.