Dear 

A very warm welcome to our first newsletter of 2023. We hope you had a great Christmas and a good start to the new year. If you need some inspiration around resolutions or felt the sting of Blue Monday, this blog from Dr James Jackson may be able to help!

We are only a few weeks into the new year but we already have so many good news stories to share with you. Our Business School has gained full membership of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS) – the voice of the UK’s business and management education sector. Read more. Our Chief Operating Officer Jo Hynes has also shared her thoughts about a sustainable future on campus.

We know the start of a new year can lead to reflecting on new objectives, so please check out opportunities for new learning on the left-hand column and do feel free to share them with anyone else you think may be interested in our courses.

At the end of 2022, alumna Sadiya Salim (Psychology, 2015) met King Charles III after he joined Leeds City Council in celebrating 10 years of Child Friendly Leeds (CFL).

Sadiya is a Local Government Officer for Child Friendly Leeds. She presented King Charles with a golden CFL pin as well as a Child Friendly Leeds Passport. This was designed by children in Leeds as a little activity booklet including places to visit, where to access support and what CFL is all about. Read more.

Congratulations to alumnus John Goldthorp (Human Movement Class of 1980), who has been selected to represent England Cricket Seniors in the Caribbean Cup 2023 in Barbados.

Not only is this an amazing achievement, it is also history repeating itself as John toured Barbados as a student for British Colleges’ Sports Association 41 years ago. Read more.

We recently welcomed John back to campus and interviewed him in the TV studio. He spoke about his Leeds Trinity memories and what it means to represent England again at cricket. Watch the interview.

Congratulations to Zee Faridi (Secondary PE and Sports Development, 2016), who has won a Northern Enterprise Award. Zee only recently took over as Business Director at Ezmuve in January 2022, having invested in property for several years.

Ezmuve Estate Agents was named the Most People-Focused Real Estate Agents – West Yorkshire 2022 at the awards, which recognise companies and teams that are excelling and innovating within their market. Read more.

We were delighted to welcome Zee back to campus in December as a panelist and guest speaker for the Trinity Alumni Business Network. 

Congratulations to Leeds Trinity Honorary Fellow and alumnus John Flanagan (Drama, 1983), after being shortlisted for the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award (RBHA) 2023.

John was nominated for the prestigious award in recognition of his work in the Philippines helping disadvantaged communities. Named in honour of Scotland’s son, Robert Burns, the RBHA recognises courage, commitment, inspiration and hands-on humanitarian efforts from people of any nationality, race, age or gender.

John was announced as the runner up on 25 January. Read more.

Congratulations to Rebecca Mills (Photography, 2022), who was selected by our Leeds Trinity University reception team as the winner of our 2022 winter photo competition with her picture View from All Saints Court, January 2021. 

Thank you to everyone who entered. You can view a collage of all the entries we received on the Alumni Facebook page. 

We look forward to organising some more competitions this year!

Photo courtesy of Folded Wing

We were delighted to hear from alumna Karen Pearson (Media with Management, 1999) recently and the fantastic news about her being awarded a Radio Academy Fellowship for services to the industry at RADFEST22. This is the highest honour the Academy can give to a person within the sector.

One of the reasons Karen chose Leeds Trinity was because of the placements we offered: "I landed a placement at Virgin Records for two months in the promotions department in 1996/97. The year after, after being lucky enough to meet someone at Radio 1, I went on to do a placement there which was a real launchpad for my career."

The placements paved the way for an incredible career for Karen. She developed her production skills at BBC Radio 1, including seven years with Gilles Peterson’s legendary 'Worldwide' show. She also launched the Radio 2 Jazz Show with Jamie Cullum and fulfilled a lifetime dream of getting hip hop onto Radio 2 when they launched Romesh Ranganathan's weekly 'For The Love of Hip Hop' show.

Karen is the Founder and CEO of Folded Wing, which she formed in 2005. The award-winning company makes radio, branded content, podcasts and multi-platform music events. 

Read Karen's alumni profile.