Semester One Update - Ellen O'Dwyer

Monday 09-12-2019 - 13:28
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It’s the final two weeks of Semester One! Want to know what your elected Executive Committee have got up to this semester? Every day they will be posting their updates as we countdown to Christmas! Finishing off the updates are our full time Sabbatical Officers, starting with Ellen, your Vice President, Activities...

 

Happy final week of Semester 1!!!

I cannot believe I have almost completed 6 months as your Vice President, Activities and it has been an absolute pleasure. Without doubt this is the craziest job and I know I speak for us 3 Sabbs when I say we wouldn’t change it for anything. We are so lucky to constantly be surrounded by enthusiastic, passionate, and lovely students, as well as a wonderful and supportive Student Union team.

The past 6 months have been a whirlwind of long hours, emotions, and most importantly, FUN! As I’m sure you can imagine there have been many ups and a couple of downs which unfortunately, you can never prepare for. When you’re representing almost 8,000 students every day it is inevitable that we will never be able to please everybody and that is the sad reality of the job. All we can do is try our best and make sure at the end of every day we have done something to support, represent, and celebrate our students. I can safely say that every day of this job I have made maximum effort to make sure the voices of our students are heard as widely as possible.

I hope you have all kept up to date with our monthly updates on our social media, but for this post I wanted to share my personal highlights so far (in no particular order)…

  • Improving our support for underrepresented student groups. We now have an International, Afro-Caribbean, Islamic, Mature and Part-time, LGBTQPIA+, Commuting, and Action for Refugee Representational Students Networks. These Networks are fully supported by myself and our new part time Representational Networks Assistant, Jakaya.  We are also in the process of starting up a Disabled Student Network. 

 

  • Successfully ensured that the Activities Zone has more of a focus on student wellbeing. Being a student, sports person, or member of a society or network, it is easy to get carried away with always having to be ‘performance ready’. There is so much pressure on students to always be better, work harder, and achieve new goals – understandably this can have a negative effect on student wellbeing.  We now have over 30 trained Wellbeing Reps across our teams, societies, and networks – this is a dedicated committee position which is focused on listening to its members and signposting them to the correct help and support. We have amended the Activities Bye-Law to strongly encourage committees include this role.

 

  • New kit supplier – As Vice President, Activities Elect I was part of the panel to choose a new kit supplier. Despite some expected teething problems with changing supplier and kitting out around 50 sports teams in a matter of months, it has been so exciting seeing all the plans and designs come to life around campus, and on the field.

 

  • Introduced Team Takeover and Society in the Spotlight. The engagement and feedback for these social media campaigns has been great and I am super excited to continue them in the new year.

 

  • We have had lots of successful Raising and Giving (RAG) events and we have added lots of new charities to our approved RAG list which Winchester Student Union are extremely proud to support.

 

  • We have secured the safety bus EVERY week since Week 0 (!!!) thanks to our incredible volunteer(s). Working every BOP possible has been an insight and an interesting experience to say the least. It has been super fun getting to see all our students dress up, celebrate, and have a great time every week. And despite the challenges working BOP provides - it has also been great to work along side our wonderful Venue Team to make sure all our students have a safe and enjoyable night every week.

 

  • THIS GIRL CAN – I am so pleased I chose to run this campaign again this year. It was so great to have SO many teams and societies so passionate and enthusiastic about getting female identifying students active and celebrating when they do. Personal favourites of the week include seeing all the excitement on social media from students, running/driving around Winchester all day every day trying to visit and film as much as possible for the campaign video, and having a go at Judo and Trampolining!!

 

Still to come next semester from the Activities Zone (get excited!!!)…

  • Refreshers Fayre
  • Winton Weekend
  • Brand new celebrating success initiatives
  • RAG Rebrand
  • RAG Week
  • Time to Talk
  • Boys Do Cry
  • Rainbow Laces
  • VARSITY 2020
  • Cities Tour to Amsterdam
  • Sports Tour to Croatia
  • Colours Awards
  • Brand New – Societies and Network Party/Awards

 

Sending a HUGE thank you to all our students for making this job so enjoyable. I love getting to see and chat to so many of you every day.

I am wishing you all a safe and relaxing Christmas break, and hope you come back feeling refreshed and ready for 2020(!!!). All of us at Winchester Student Union are SO excited for the new year and all the exciting events, opportunities, and activities we have planned for you.

Christmas is a tough time for a lot of people – please remember it is okay not to feel okay all the time (even at Christmas!), take care of yourselves always.

Thanks for reading!!! And, Happy New Year!!

Ellen x

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