First Posting

This is the initial posting to the Hope Diary Blog.

Using the Blog
For the time being I have left the comments facility open to all and everyone. I'll see how it goes and if it causes any problems in the longer term; anonymous postings etc etc., I've activated notifications ie. I'll recieve notification of all new comments added to the Blog. To begin with I simply censure and/or delete any unsavoury comments that find their way into the listing. In the longer term if it gets to be a bigger problem I'll narrow down the commenting to Blog Members only.

The Purpose of the Blog
The purpose of this blog is to record the day to day comings and goings of the Liverpool Hope University Alumni Association, centred upon the Development Team staff (at the moment 6 of us, including volunteers) based here on the campus and whom together manage and promote this aspect of university life (well, in truth, post-university life).

Who am I/are we and what do I/we do?
My name is Ray and I'm at the moment working as the Development Team Information Officer, responsible for day-to-day management of the information that flows into the office appertaining to the university's large (and growing) alumni community. I also manage and provide the management reporting we need from the alumni database. We use this database to underpin and inform our endeavours and getting it and keeping it up-to-date can be quite a task in itself.

On top of this I help look after the alumni web pages and the online web community 'friends@hope' (from which you most likely accessed this blog in the first place).

Myself, I graduated this year (well nearly graduated, the event itself isn't till towards the end of October). I've been in the Development team since about the beginning of June, 2006. I'm still learning the ropes but all in all it's really interesting work. Fingers crossed I'll be around for a while yet.

Keeping the information flowing
Well, hopefully this is just the beginning. The blog is working, at least in a basic format and will allow the membership to post up comments and news in addition to that which they already can/do on the friends site. That said, this should be more immediate. I don't want the Blog to overtake the friends site but inevitably we are bound to get some duplication. It doesn't matter that much just so long as we can keep the information network flowing.