Merry Christmas one and all! I hope we have all had a wonderful semester and are looking forward to a Christmas break, even if it may just be a stressful revision period for many of us. It has been an amazing semester for sport, with over 6000 of you buying sport memberships, which is a new record for the end of semester 1! All of our 53 clubs have seen plenty of engagement, representing our university both at home and around the country. I want to use this blog to recognise some of the excellence that our sport clubs have produced this semester.
Like every year, Movember has been a massive success for many of our sports. Leading the way again was the Rugby Union club, raising a whooping £17,509 alongside a length 60-hour cycle and the glorious victory in the Battle for Bath. Their efforts will never not go unnoticed, and I am sure they will continue this fabulous work on next year. Rugby was not the only club however, and we have to give special shout outs to Cricket, who raised over £4000, and Athletics, who raised just shy of £3000, as they have both rocketed into our top 5 most raised this year. Alongside the magnificent work of Hockey and BUBC, who complete our top five most raised- and every other single club, every single team and every single individual, we raised over £50,000 for Movember, and I could not be any prouder of the sporting community we have here at Bath. For more on our Movember success, see Movember Round-Up.
Let’s talk about those clubs which have gone above and beyond. The first shoutout will go to the Golf club, who have crushed their membership target this year, and are well on their way to becoming one of our biggest clubs here at Bath. They have provided countless hours of coaching and training to all their members and have expanded their offer to ensure all of them get an amazing experience.
Hockey have launched their own disability accessible sessions alongside DAG, allowing for a wider and more inclusive sporting community, giving more people the opportunity deserved to get involved in sport. Thank you to everyone who got involved with the set up of these sessions- they really do go a long way.
Badminton have kindly picked up running sessions for postgraduates again, so a big thank you to them- it is very appreciated within the PG community. Thank you to Football for also running postgraduate sessions as well, we hope that these initiatives will continue to grow and expand in the future as we are always improving the Bath Active calendar.
I would also like to give a few mentions to the chairs of clubs that have really excelled this semester- Calla Spires of Rowing, Louisa Jones of Lacrosse, Charlotte Gregory of Golf, Christian Moody of Hockey and (of course) John Taylor of Rugby. You have all been incredible, valuable assets to your clubs, and working alongside you has made my job so much easier.
The previous message extends to all chairs, all committees and all clubs- the SU wouldn’t be able to run without you guys. I have loved every second of this role and cannot wait to see what semester 2 has in store for us.
Olivia, over and out x