Add first issue of 2026

Author: RealOrangeOne

.spelling

@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ leauge
 lilafisch
 Markt
 mjml
+Nikitin
 ODROID
 Olly
 Perriman

SR2026/2025-10-22-srawn-01.md

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+The Student Robotics (Almost) Weekly Newsletter is a (roughly) fortnightly newsletter which summarises the goings‐on across Student Robotics. **Emboldened** items are ones for which additional help has been requested.
+
+## Kickstart
+
+30 teams from around the UK and Europe are registered and ready for the competition to be [kickstarted](https://studentrobotics.org/events/sr2026/kickstart/) on Saturday November 8th at the University of Southampton.
+
+Kickstart is the event which kicks off a competition year. The structure of the competition and the game rules will be announced and of course any questions you have will be answered.
+
+If you're around, it's a great way to learn about the upcoming competition, and get involved in organising it. If you're around, please come along!
+
+## Get involved
+
+There's loads of ways to help with SR2026, taking as much or as little time as you can give.
+
+- The physical competition needs a small army of volunteers to run in numerous technical and non technical roles. We'll open sign ups for volunteering at the event as soon as we can confirm the venue
+- Throughout the year there's lots of preparation to do for the competition and other events, with tasks big & small where any help is welcome. The [Areas](#areas) format from previous years is still here. To help with any of these, be sure to join our Weekly Forum (Wednesdays at 19:30)
+- We're on the look out for mentors, who would regularly attend a teams' meetings (either virtually on in person) and assist them. We'll be opening up expressions of interest shortly after kickstart
+- We'll be running Tech Days and in person events which will need people to help run. We're aiming to be running around one a month, and will be announcing dates and locations at kickstart.
+
+Keep an eye on your inboxes for information about these opportunities as details are announced!
+
+### Areas
+
+Running Student Robotics is no small feat so to help spread the load we've allocated ["area owners"](https://studentrobotics.org/runbook/programme/area-owners/), each responsible for their own part of the competition.
+
+This year, the charity has reorganised around these areas, rather than having both Areas and Committees. There's now just a single committee, with Area Owners. Things are still transitioning, but the aim is to improve efficiency and momentum.
+
+This year there are the following areas:
+
+- Livestream & Production: Anton Nikitin
+- Volunteer Coordination: Alex Colville
+- Kit Maintenance
+- Area Logistics: Will Barber
+- Game: Alistair Lynn
+- Team Support
+- Marketing: James Seden Smith
+- Fundraising: Holly Holder
+- Infrastructure: Jake Howard
+
+If you want to help out throughout the year, the Weekly Forum is the best place to start - Wednesdays at 19:30. Here, area owners give updates on how their areas are progressing, ask for help, and generally push the competition forwards. If you're interested in helping out with a specific area, feel free to reach out to an area owner directly instead. **No prior experience is necessary**, just a can do attitude!
+
+## Subscribe to SR(A)WN
+
+You can keep up with SR(A)WN online:
+
+- Join the `#srawn` channel on [Slack](https://app.slack.com/client/T0EEPF1LH/C01GBT8NMSN) _recommended_
+- Join the `srawn` mailing list on [Google Groups](https://groups.google.com/g/srawn)
+- Read historical issues on the [SR(A)WN Archive](https://studentrobotics.org/srawn)
+- Subscribe to the [SR(A)WN RSS Feed](https://studentrobotics.org/srawn/rss.xml)