Jacquie Edwards is PA to the Director of Sport, but better known to many as performer Ginger Bennett. During Black History Month, she tells us how stories of being and growing up in the UK during lockdown helped create this alter ego. 

‘I joined the University in 2001 as a temp in the Estates Department. Jill Andrew’s Friday afternoon tray bakes were amazing and I think I knew from the first bite I would be working here until they shoehorned me out!

‘I’ve always had an affliction or a gift, whichever way you look at it. If I say I’m going to do something out loud, I will generally do it. Sometimes I will fail spectacularly but I will always see it through.  

‘In the past, this has led to some marvellous opportunities: I was a canoeing Instructor (who couldn’t swim that well); a karaoke hostess (with chronic nerves); PA to the Head of Exhibitions and Displays at the National Maritime Museum (with no keyboard skills whatsoever); and managed to hoist the Women’s Rugby World Cup (even though I really don’t like mud and dirt). 

‘I think a lot of working mothers know how that adventurous, pioneering spirit can so easily be diluted once you have children. It happened to me and, three children later, I was more prone to muttering under my breath than boldly proclaiming my next bonkers venture.  

Becoming, Being and Belonging 

‘Enter global pandemic and the lockdown. I’d always thought I came from a very close family but those Zoom calls take to you to another level! Those talking heads revealed family stories I’d never heard – stories about my parents’ arrival to the UK and their feelings of being and belonging. When I shared these stories with friends, I found the stories of their parents’ arrivals meshed with their own feelings and stories. Unconsciously, I had started to build an account of Becoming, Being and Belonging for 1st Generation Immigrants to the UK and their 2nd Generation children.  

‘Somewhere around month six or seven, I became very low – Long Covid, lockdown, three children, home-schooling and menopause all played a part. I have a lovely friend who saw through my thin smiling veneer – we talked, sometimes daily, and I read her the stories and poems I had written around the theme. She told me they were funny and important and, before long, I said out loud “I think I can write a play about this” so I did. It may have helped that friend is an award-winning jazz pianist but, regardless, I’ve done it.  It’s out there. 

The England Women’s Rugby World Cup-winning team, 1994. Jacquie is in the front row with her arm around the flag.

Songs from My Soul 

‘Songs from My Soul is an amalgamation of tales told to me by friends and family about being and growing up in the UK. I think it cuts across race too as I hope it tells the age-old story of mothers fighting for their children the best they know how and then letting them go.  

‘The stories are distilled into the life of Aretha a mother who, now retired, sees the path travelled very differently from her daughter, Bernadette.  

‘Those Zoom calls were a real awakening and I now have a few more job titles to add to my dodgy CV: Playwright, Producer, Actress.’ 

Listen and find out more 

Jacquie performs regularly across Kent as Ginger Bennett with her funk and Soul Band Project F and the KD Dance Orchestra.  

Songs from My Soul will be performed at the Tower Theatre, Folkestone, on Friday 29 and Saturday 30 October from 20.00. Tickets, priced £12, are available on the Tower Theatre webpages.  

Songs from My Soul is a year-long Arts Council funded project and will examine, Becoming, Belonging and Being as part of a performance of new works next year. The Songs from My Soul team would love to hear your stories and write your song. Get in touch via this Songs from my Soul link.  

You can also listen to original songs for the Songs from my Soul project on YouTube. 

From Simone Davies, Director of MORA

We’re holding an Open Day for potential UG students this Saturday (23 October) and we need your help! The Open Day takes place from 10.00 – 14.00 on our Canterbury campus and we need extra staff volunteers to meet and greet visitors and to be available on information points.

Please help us by encouraging colleagues across your team to help on the day. MORA will be able to cover overtime to those on grade 6 and below. Anyone able to volunteer should get in touch asap with the Schools Liaison team. They will need to be at Grimond Building from 08.45 on Saturday for a pre-event briefing. Further information on the Open Day is available on our Visit Kent webpages.

Many thanks your help with this.

Simone Davies | Director of MORA

This Autumn, we’ll be hosting postgraduate open events on Wednesday 17 November with two ways to attend, designed to make the events as accessible to as many potential postgrad students as possible.

12.00 – 14.00 – Virtual event

17.00 – 19.00 – In-person event

Our virtual events have been really successful, especially for overseas enquirers and this November we’re delighted to also be able to invite prospective students to come to the Canterbury campus to meet academics as well as support staff and students.

The November events will be of special interest to potential PhD students looking to the meet January funding deadlines, January start Master’s students and final year UG students researching the next steps for their careers.

The scholarships team will be there to advise on Research Council funding applications as well as Tomorrow’s World and alumni discounts available to Kent graduates.

To make 2022 postgraduate recruitment as successful as possible it would be great if colleagues could promote the events to current Kent undergraduates, through professional networks, among family and friends and on their social channels.

For further information about the event and to find out how to register, please visit the Postgraduate Events webpage.

Congratulations to Dr Jim Everett, Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, who is among the winners of this year’s 2021 Philip Leverhulme Prizes.

The annual prizes recognise the achievement of ‘exceptional researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future careers are exceptionally promising’. 30 prizes are awarded annually, each worth £100,000 to be spent on further research.

Jim has been awarded the prestigious prize for his work ‘on experimental social psychology; moral psychology; experimental philosophy.’ His recognition by the Leverhulme Trust is an honour given to only a handful of the UK’s psychologists in each three-year cycle, and follows several other awards from the international research community, including a Rising Star award by the International Association for Psychological Science, the Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Early Career award from the European Association for Social Psychology.

Jim said: ‘To see my name amongst such impressive awardees in psychology from this year and previous years is a very strange feeling. As always, thank you so much everyone who has supported me. I say this every time I get an award, but nothing I have done, or will ever do, will be mine alone and I remain deeply indebted to my family, mentors and colleagues.’

Head of School, Professor Robbie Sutton said: ‘We have always had an outstanding international reputation for research in social psychology, which in recent years has only grown stronger with the recruitment of  supremely talented and energetic researchers who are publishing in the world’s leading journals, winning millions of pounds in research funding, and training the next generation of researchers with the skills and enthusiasm to address the UK’s, and the world’s, most urgent challenges.’

Read more about the awards on the Leverhulme Trust website.

From Martin Atkinson, Director of HR and Organisational Development

This is to confirm that all deferred salary awards associated with 2020 academic promotions and salary award processes will be paid in the October pay run.

Standard progression ‘automatic’ increments, including academic advancements, and any transition arrangements from the Reward Strategy deferred by 12 months due to the pay freeze will also be paid in October along with 2021 academic promotions and advancements.

Given the volume of work involved in processing these payments, all awards associated with the 2021 salary award processes will be paid in November and backdated to 1 October.

We aim to send all letters detailing the outcome of 2021 salary awards processes to staff by Thursday 11 November.

Martin

Martin Atkinson | Director of HR and Organisational Development