Kia Ora Koutou,

This is a repost of the message in our Teams Channel (just in case you don’t use teams 😉

That channel will get deleted at the end of this week (having served its purpose) but before I do this and bring Orientation 2023 to a close, I would just like to thank everyone who has participated in our meet-‘n-greets and on the O Day stall and in generally being available and engaged in welcoming back our community.

You may have seen articles recently in the media about Canterbury University being a place of choice for tertiary studies, and our colleagues in Te Pātaka will tell you that they have been almost overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of students accessing their services. This is a Good Thing.  After three years of opening and closing and reopening and social distancing, people it turns out, really do want to be around other people.

Did our plan of action work? Time will tell – there was no strict measurement criteria – the whole process was designed to put us out there and get into our students’ heads what we want them to know: we are warm, friendly, accessible and eager to help them.

Has it felt busy? That’s because it has been. A quick look at the gate counts for the fourteen days between Monday 13 February to Sunday 26 February shows 48,470 people have been in and out of our three libraries. To give that some colour and context – this is almost the population of Invercargill.

Well done – thanks again – and we get to do it all again next year!

Ngā Mihi, Simon