And here we are, halfway through May!

This first year in office has whizzed by. I will be doing a little walk down memory lane in the next blog post, so this one will be an actual update.

May started with us throwing a cost-of-living meeting with students who volunteered to discuss what else we could be doing for students. It was a massive success and all I can say is, keep an eye out for what came of it! On the very same day, we had our last SUmmit meeting of the year, in which the committee approved my proposal for new terms of reference for how it works. We will trial it fully at the first SUmmit meeting next academic year, so unfortunately, I can’t say it was a full success just yet.

We also had a council meeting, which is always a fun one. I don’t really think I have much to update on that, except that Amber and I will still be representing you at council for the next year. On that evening, we had our committee training for society committee members for next year. Good turnout, and I enjoyed doing the chair training with David. That very hectic week ended with me working from Dartmouth for the day and going door knocking with the student community partnership people around Oldfield, to help them with their ‘Moving Out’ campaign. I won’t bore you with my bank holiday plans, but I have to say, the officer team might’ve fought a bit over a game of No Mercy Uno.

Speaking of the officer team, last week we tried something that, to the best of my knowledge, hadn’t been done before. We had our first away morning together. That means we hid in a room in the East Building where no one could find us, and we sat to discuss our plans to end the year with a bang. Among these plans is our food security campaign which will be launched very soon and is related to the results from the cost-of-living group I mentioned at the start. More on this very soon, I promise! This campaign has taken most of my time since then, so I don’t have much else to tell you. I was in London yesterday, for a Committee of University Chairs (CUC) event, where I was invited to be a panelist on the session ran by Jim Dickinson from WonkHE. It was a great opportunity to speak in front of some of the most influential people in the higher education sector and explain how students’ lives actually look like.

Finally, a few lines on things coming up. Make sure to check our What’s On page, there are so many things going on during exams to help you cope with the stress. A few of them include bubbles and inflatables, and even therapy dogs! If you haven’t yet, make sure to get your Summer Ball ticket – you don’t want to miss out on one of our biggest events of the year.

Good luck with exams and coursework! Hope to see you on Friday for Weekend Warm Up by the lake. In the meantime, stay hydrated and be kind to one another.

Much love,

Jiji x