As Welfare Officer, Gemma represents the Students' Union in all community engagement and welfare campaigns.
How quickly has this first month in office gone - I think I’ve settled into the role well, working with the officer team as well as the whole SU staff, attended various training events to prep myself for the year ahead. As you can imagine, Fresher's prep is well under way! Things are looking really good and I'm excited to see all the new student enjoying themselves over the 2 weeks of things we have planned. But it’s not all been fun and games - we have had some serious meetings with the university staff regarding the bus fare and car parking charges and how the changes they’ve made will impact students (more on this soon)! As well as this we have been planning our year in campaigns, and also I have been working towards launching the new RAG groups - which I am absolutely buzzing for. To keep up to date more regularly please go give my socials a follow above! I will update this page on a monthly basis so until September - keep well :)
Societies I want to help societies grow by creating more opportunities for them to do so. This would include having monthly taster sessions across different campus’s, encouraging societies to do joint events with others and sports teams to bring people from all different backgrounds and areas together to share interests.
Positive Mental Health Mental health can be spoken about in such a taboo way and can be a touchy subject for some people, I want to work to stop this and help promote the mental health in a positive light and how to look after your mental health at university. This will include a mix of having mental health workshops throughout the year to help students understand their mental health, open drop-in session within each SU shop every week and myself personally going around to all halls of residence to introduce myself to new students and allow them to feel comfortable with me if they need my support.
Course Buddies Work with 2nd and 3rd-year students to introduce the course buddy system, where they become reliable and positive students for the lower years who may be worried or scared about some of the aspects when coming to university. This isn’t just for freshers but would be for each year so no matter what level you are in you feel guided and supported by students who have been in your position and experience the same things you are going through.