Summer term is over but the work goes on

But in offices around the campus and venues further afield, work goes on.

Since May, we've been on the road, this year taking the Edible Bugs Challenge throughout the UK. An extra date was added when the university was invited to partner charity Medic Malawi and Battlefield Farm Shop to create an African garden for Shrewsbury Food Festival.

I joined the show team at Royal Norfolk Show, where we were blessed with two hot, sunny days and a wealth of visitors of all ages, shapes and sizes, who tried the Bug Challenge.

We then had our summer open day on July 5 – and it was our biggest open day yet, with attendance five per cent up on last year's summer record breaker. Open day led straight into the Harper Adams Experience, when nearly 250 prospective students, aged 16 and 17, spent a day and a night on campus, living like students. Kudos to them all – they really got stuck into everything planned for them.

With HAE wrapped up for another year, the marketing and communications team set off to Manchester for the 2015 Heist Awards.

We were pleased to take silver in the Innovation and Creativity category for our Young Innovator competition, but to top that, we took the big prize of the night: Gold in the Student Voice Award, was voted for by students, who gave feedback on how well their experiences at Harper Adams lived up to the marketing messages directed at them beforehand.

Having witnessed the Bug Challenge in action, I made a point of taking my own family and friends along to Newport Show and am pleased to report that they all had a go. My two-year-old daughter even asked for seconds of mealworms!

And now the shows must go on – Royal Welsh Show this week, followed by the CLA Game Fair, July 31 to August 2. If you see a Harper Adams trailer at an event, please come and say hello!