Staff Festival 2020 cancelled

Organisers of the hugely popular Staff Festival have promised it will return “bigger and better than ever” after reluctantly deciding to cancel this year’s instalment.

A flashback to last year’s hugely popular Staff Festival

Friends are captured on canvas by one of the caricaturists

An action-packed entertainment extravaganza was planned for Friday 26 June to celebrate everything colleagues across campus do to make the University such a success.

As a result of the outbreak of coronavirus (covid-19), however, committee members felt it was in the best interests of everyone involved to abandon plans for this year.

Despite their best efforts, it proved impossible to identify an alternative date later in the year to stage the event, so all their attention is now focussed on planning for 2021.

LOGIK Centre manager and Staff Festival project manager, Jo Westerman, said: “It really is with a heavy heart we’ve taken the sad decision to cancel the Staff Festival this year.

“So much hard work had already gone in to planning what promised to be a really special celebration of the achievements of colleagues. But it was the right decision to make in light of the current health crisis.

“We refuse to be downhearted, though! We’ll simply redouble our efforts to make the 2021 Staff Festival bigger and better than ever.”

Hundreds of colleagues registered their vote before Thursday’s closing date to select this year’s chosen charity. Homeless Street Angels, which finished top out of the 10 worthy nominees, will instead receive the proceeds from the 2021 Festival fundraising.

The committee thanks everyone who took the time to make a nomination and/or vote.

Watch this space for further announcements about Staff Festival 2021 later in the year.