The staff newsletter of the North-West University (NWU) recently entered the international arena when it scooped an Award of Excellence at the Silver Quill awards ceremony of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Africa Region.

The May 2023 publication edition, life@NWU, received a Silver Quill in the category for publications.

Not long before this joyous occasion, the NWU’s publications also excelled nationally.
Shouts of joy – 18 rounds in total – came from the Corporate Relations and Marketing division delegation of the NWU each time the university’s publications bagged an award at the 2023 Marketing, Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) Excellence Awards.

During this glamorous gala event at Cape Town’s Pigalle Restaurant on 16 November, MACE recognised the achievements of practitioners in marketing, communication and advancement in the higher education sector across South Africa.

One of the evening’s biggest whoops of delight sounded when the NWU received a platinum award for its 2021 Integrated Report  as the winner in the category Design for digital media. This integrated report also earned the NWU two silver awards for writing.

Another ten silver awards were awarded to various editions of the NWU’s staff newsletter , alumni magazine  and research newsletter . These publications also scooped five bronze awards.
The NWU’s corporate publications also shone in this year’s competition organised by the South African Publication Forum. In this contest the NWU competed against big corporate institutions such as Sanlam, Toyota and City of Cape Town. The results of this competition were shared online on 6 November 2023.

In this competition, all the NWU entries were finalists in the categories they entered, with the April 2023 edition  of the staff newsletter, life@NWU, proving it can stand its ground among the big players on the field. The April 2023 edition of this newsletter came third in the category Interactive Digital Publications, close behind Sanlam Connect, which came second, and Nutun Ngage, the category winner.

The awards in these competitions confirm the preliminary feedback of a quality peer evaluation of the Corporate Relations and Marketing division earlier this year. During this evaluation, a panel of communication experts said in their preliminary report that the NWU’s corporate publications were “of a very high standard”.

Hurrah! A jubilant Lebogang Moumakwe, junior online content developer from Corporate Communication, shows off one of the awards he accepted on behalf of the NWU.

 

Evashni Jansen from the NWU web office accepts one of the NWU’s awards from MACE board member Sbongiseni Magwaza.

Another one for the NWU … MACE board member Thembi Tlale hands one of the awards to Karen Tredoux, an NWU faculty liaison officer, during the gala dinner.