AN INVITATION TO THE FIRST MEETING OF NORTHERN GUILD’S UKCP ALUMNI
Northern Guild Curator, Julie Harding, talks about the first meeting of the new alumni association.
22 September at 5.00pm at our Jesmond Centre and Online.
This year’s Graduation was on the 22nd of July 2022, the first since 2019. The Pandemic put on hold our annual public celebration of our graduates achievements. This resulted in disappointment for so many students and it was a ‘big miss’ for the for the Graduation team.
We all have a great fondness for the Graduation, it rounds off the academic year, and there is an atmosphere of pride, admiration and love in the air. For me it encapsulates the whole process of bringing new counsellors and psychotherapists into the world.
On a personal level I look forward each year to filling the Graduation venue with as many bunches of flowers as my garden can muster. This year the Graduation took place on Teesside in Acklam Hall, a beautiful Stuart mansion. The room looked absolutely stunning. I was filled with pride at the sight of the crisp white table cloths with my flowers in place and all of the beautiful students with their families celebrating their accomplishments.
Those of you who have attended our previous graduations will know that I grow and pick all of the flowers and herbs from my own little garden, I collect the jam jars and decorate them and create a message to go within the posies and bouquets. Everyone seems to appreciate the flowers and at the end of the day I gain great pleasure giving the flowers away to people.
I have attended every graduation since 2009 and it has been a pleasure and an honour to work with the other members of the staff team who make this event happen. It is an amazing experience to watch our students receive their awards and a delight to congratulate their hard work.
I like to think about the Northern Guild and its students being somewhat like my garden. As I cultivate seeds and plants in order to bloom into gorgeous flowers that grow and produce the bouquets, so we and our students sow and grow together to produce outstanding practitioners.
I tend to the plants throughout the year and watch them grow until they bloom. I cut them and arrange them into wild yet beautiful bunches that smell gorgeous, look good, and then go out into the world to bring a sense of wellbeing and joy to whomever encounters them. As one of our graduates, you have been on a similar journey yourself. Our hope is that by forming an Alumni Association we will meet back together again to give support on your professional journey withing the membership bodies.
If you are a Northern Guild graduate and current member and Registered with UKCP then we invite you to the first Annual Meeting of the Northern Guild Alumni on the 22nd September 2022 at 5pm at our Newcastle Centre. For those who live at long distance there are some limited places available to join via zoom.
There will be updates and presentations by our delegates to the three colleges of the UKCP with time for questions and discussion on the changes with the professional bodies. We also aim to support our members with their re-accreditation questions and panel formation as we are aware this can cause problems once you are not longer in regular contact with colleagues.
The Northern Guild team are looking forward to welcoming you. and spending time together.
This is your chance to come together and meet other registrants, do some networking or give us feedback and generate ideas that you may feel we can help you with or that you may want putting forward to UKCP. There will also be opportunities for you to become involved with professional panels or committees.
This meeting can be counted as CPD as are any hours you commit as a contribution to the profession.
And of course, there will be flowers.
