From key campaigns to unforgettable events, so much as happened this term and there are so many amazing achievements to celebrate.
We thought we’d take this opportunity to highlight some of your Officer Teams’ successes so far this year, so you can see what they’ve achieved for the student community and the progress they’ve made on their manifesto points.
Check out these ‘Officer Wins’…
Joshua Williams, Guild President:
- Launched the first University of Birmingham Care Leaver Open Day.
- Reformed Care Leaver literature to be distributed to students, schools and local authorities.
- Strengthened Birmingham’s Care Leaver offer with West Midlands local authorities.
- Began the process of lobbying both the University and national HE sector in altering its definition of care leavers.
- Reformed One City – the Union between all Birmingham University Student Unions – to become more proactive and engaging of student issues.
- Won compensation for students impacted by New Core payment issues.
- Worked with the PG Officer to launch BHMxBHM for Black History Month.
- Reworked the former democracy review and began student consultation.
- Progressed the democracy review to Trustee Board and established a review group to focus on operations and student consultation.
Millie Gibbins, Welfare and Community Officer:
- Led Support Week at the Guild and the #Behindthemask campaign, to encourage students to speak up if they need wellbeing support.
- Led on the Housing Week campaign to encourage students not to rush into renting private housing.
- Creating a group to review the code of conduct around sexual harassment and the ‘You Report, We Support’ tool.
- Working with the University on reviewing mental health services and delivering the mental health strategy.
Ryan Ginger, Activities and Employability Officer:
- Visited a Society a week, including Marrow and Doctor Who Soc, to celebrate the work they do.
- Recognised the great work of societies and committee members through ‘Society of the Month’ and ‘Spotlight On’.
- Organising an All Groups Meeting (Mega AGM) for Semester 2 to give societies an opportunity to give their feedback and their thoughts on the new Recognition Structure.
- Started to write the first part of the Student Groups policy.
- Introduced Wine Wednesday in Joe’s Bar.
Tobi Adeyemi, Postgraduate Officer:
- Hosted several successful events (with the help of JSV) for postgraduates leading to a significant increase in postgraduate engagement at the Guild, tallying with the university’s data on PG event engagement.
- Created Postgrad Tea and Cake to serve as a consistent form of communication and engagement within the PG community. So far, this has been pretty successful and has attracted a diverse range of students.
- Launched the BHMXBHM Black History Month celebration with Guild President Joshua, and worked with colleagues to deliver a series of black history themed events at the Guild, with the involvement of students and societies.
- Completed the framework of the Postgrad Skills Acquisition Project (PG SAP) to be launched in the next term.
- Got the University on board with creating additional PG spaces and a potential central space.
Jo Park, International Officer:
- Successfully acted as a bridge between students and the University regarding Erasmus grant queries.
- Hosted a Christmas Postcard event with Global Buddies, encouraging international students to send a postcard home.
- Organised the first Global Give it a Go, where Japan Society delivered an Origami workshop.
- Worked with the University to host the biggest International Welcome Reception to date, in the Great Hall.
- Hosted a Homeware (Pots and Pans) Shopping Time event in Welcome Week.
- Involved in International Communications work stream and Students’ Integration work stream with the University.
- Successfully delivered a training session to Student Leaders at Dubai Campus.
Josh Dooler, Sports Officer:
- Organised the Hall Reps’ largest inter-halls sports day to date with over 200 students signing up to over 6 different sports. This event was really successful as it allowed students to find friends and create a campus league team for the rest of the year.
- I have heavily involved the media groups in coverage of student sport this term. This includes the addition of a BUCS page in the sport section of Redbrick and asking Guild TV and Burn Fm to stream and report more showcase events on campus.
- With the help of Amber, our LGBTQ+ Officer and the LGBTQ+ association, I ran an LGBTQ+ ‘Come Out Active’ awareness campaign celebrating the LGBTQ+ community in sport and helping improve inclusivity of sport on our campus. To do this, rainbow laces were worn at the lacrosse event “Uproar” by all of our players, the LGBTQ+ Association handed out flyers about the campaign and student athlete profiles were shared via the Guild’s social media channels to highlight LGBTQ+ sports players at UOB.
Amanda Sefton, Education Officer:
- Collaboratively organised the first ever Commuter Students Welcome Day with Jules Sigh, Commuter Students’ Officer.
- Successful implementation of the New Rep Scheme.
- Developing new Extenuating Circumstance policy to improve consistency.
- Successfully lobbied the University to accept the recommendations from the Student Voice Report and fully commit to working on them. For example issues on BME attainment gap, assessment and feedback, as well as supporting students on a year abroad.
Congrats to your Full-time Officer Team for their progress this term, we can’t wait to see what Terms 2 and 3 will bring!