This will be a brief overview of the VC’s End of Year Celebration Tournament which myself and various other staff members from the university took part in. The tournament last year was a great success so once again staff and students were invited to participate in an afternoon of sports and games. Staff and students from across the university put teams together and prepared to represent their colour.
T-shirt for all of the various teams.
I jumped at the chance to be involved in the library and IT services team because it’s been years since I’ve played team sports of any kind and I loved sports days when I was at school (wasn’t a star sportswoman or anything but I always gave it a go). Plus I heard a rumour that there was a free BBQ which meant I was so in! There were loads of people involved and the build up to the day had hashtags flying all over campus supporting the various teams and creating some friendly competition. We were Team Royal Blue and we had some have some fantastic support from the library and IT services cheerleaders. Members of staff who weren’t competing donned their royal blue finery and braved the cold to cheer us on.
It was great to get the whole team and our supporters together before the events started and here we are in all our glory.
We had support from far and wide!
We also had the support of UoB Special Collections!
Myself and other team members prepared ourselves with war paint and pretty blue ribbons and that was all we needed because our physical prowess would speak for itself out in the field/ on the court… We participated in different games with a mish mash of students/ staff in each event. Games included rounders, swimming, rowing, football, wheelchair rugby, sitting volleyball, squash (we had a master squash player, it was epic), darts, climbing and tug of war. We did exceptionally well in squash, climbing and rounders, secured a couple of draws here and there and suffered one or two defeats but we didn’t care, we celebrated when we lost – now that’s team spirit right there!
It was lovely to have some down time and silliness with staff and to interact with students outside of the professional setting after what has been a busy year for everyone. This has definitely been one of the highlights of my traineeship. Obviously not in terms of gaining valuable library experience but in terms of working in a university setting, with a huge staff and student body, getting involved and feeling like a valued member of #TeamBradford. And that is really what the day is all about. Getting staff and students to interact outside of the normal frameworks, creating interactions which will hopefully add to the student experience. If you feel that the staff and the support networks in place are made up of “normal” people that that are willing to publicly humiliate themselves attempting to play sports, it is so much easier to ask them for help. The best thing was celebrating the fact that the students have made it to the end of the academic year. Because that is ultimately why we are all here, to help and support students through their academic careers and to share in their celebrations is a great way for all to end the year.
Below you can see our team captains flexing before their epic climbing attemps.
Here is the team playing wheelchair rugby which is so much fun!
And here we are trying our best to win tug of war – I loved it even though I wasn’t very good at it 😀
We came a triumphant fifth which we were all super impressed with! It was a great day, we all had fun and I am very thankful that I could be involved. GO TEAM BRADFORD and good luck to all of our students!
Books, Sweat & Tears 
