During the recent decommissioning of the last TV Studio and Edit Suite, I was asked to be involved with any potential archival retention. This was to preserve any videotapes or recordings that were not archived and may have slipped through the net when the entire videotape collection was put into archival storage in 2024.
Something that I had been aware of for some time was the fact that a number of Postgraduate and also Commemoration Day events were not on YouTube. From October 2010 onwards, these events were live-streamed and therefore retained automatically on the Imperial YouTube channel. The production of DVDs for purchase ceased at this time. So there was a timeline from the very first recording in 2002 until 2010 when these events were only viewable by those graduates who had purchased a DVD, or prior to that, in 2003 (only), a VHS tape. I took early retirement in December 2010 and therefore lost any involvement in graduation archiving from then onwards. With the recent retirement of my only remaining video production colleague Martin Sayers, I am now taking a hard look at what needs to be corrected with any missing ceremonies on Imperial’s YouTube channel.
Fortunately, I was recently able to sort through all of the unsold DVDs from this period. I was delighted to discover the ceremonies from 2007 to 2010 that are not currently on YouTube. They will all be made available, very soon.
Although Imperial launched its YouTube channel in 2008, these ceremonies continued to be distributed only on DVD until 2010. As a result, from 2002 to 2010 we never produced complete full-length versions of these events on videotape, instead creating them only on DVD (or VHS) both in sectional form. I am now converting the DVDs into complete videos and adding YouTube chapter (or index) markers to make it easier to locate individual sections (not people).
Currently available are PG Awards (AM & PM) and Commemoration Day (AM & PM) from 2007 (morning sessions are shown below in the two examples). Visit the Imperial YouTube channel for the afternoon ceremonies. Stay tuned for the remaining missing years from 2008–2010 and also 2003, for which I need to locate the master tapes in the archives. This process takes time as I sort, prepare, and upload them onto YouTube.
Colin Grimshaw August 2026