After a nervous wait, students have been receiving the outcomes of the appeals they made in September. We supported nearly 40 distressed students to appeal major decisions like needing to retake a year, suspend their studies or graduate with a lesser qualification. Sometimes, these appeals are successful; for one 2nd year international student, we helped them overturn the decision to suspend their studies, allowing them to continue in their placement and reassess later. For many, their appeals aren’t successful, but it doesn’t mean we haven’t had an impact. As one student said….
“It’s disappointing, of course, but I feel it’s better to accept the situation rather than continue to pursue something that’s unlikely to change. I appreciate your guidance on this—it’s helped me come to terms with the decision and avoid dragging this out further. I just want to say how incredibly grateful I am for all the time and effort you’ve put into helping me. Even though things didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, your advice and support throughout this process have really meant a lot to me.”
Author: Donna, Advisor
This last month our biggest achievement is the launch of the new look SU Website. This has been a huge job starting over a year ago. The refresh has included a big clean-up of the back end of the website as well as an update on the navigation and the look and feel. Will and Alex have spent hours updating pages and this will continue to be an ongoing job for the team as we gather feedback from staff and students. The start of term has been manic as always, with so many different things to communicate. We have had some of our highest ever performing social posts and Joe has produced a social media report showing from the Freshers’ period which has given us some useful insights. We are currently planning our Christmas market, a Part Time Jobs Fair and already looking ahead to Refresh Week and SU Officer Elections. There are so many events and campaigns over the next few weeks that we will be supporting so it’s definitely not quietening down any time soon. We are currently working on some fun social campaigns for Christmas and Halloween, so if anyone has any ideas, please do let us know!
Author: Helen Webb
It’s been a busy old month for Peer Support as our various schemes are up and running for the 24/25 year. In our first week alone, we had over 700 students attend their 1st Academic PAL session, which runs in 11 courses timetabled weekly and run by our amazing PAL leaders. Similarly in Language PAL, we are able to offer 10 different languages this semester, including newbies such as Bulgarian and Korean which is SUPER exciting. In addition to all the PAL fun, we have also hosted 2 PGT Buddying mixer evenings, added a host of fab new activities for our Exercise for Wellbeing scheme, timetabled a whole semesters’ worth of skills development opportunities for student leaders AND recruitment for DBA Peer Mentors starts in earnest this week.
The Student Leader Hub is also looking busier and busier as students take advantage of the new space which is great to see too. Let’s see what the next few weeks brings.
Author: Sophie Brosnan
Arts
Semester 1 in the Edge is in full swing! From the start of October, we have seen over 1,600 hours of student group activity, over 1,100 hours of individual bookings and over 70 hours of SU departmental activity in the building.
The newly refurbished Digital Studio has been a hit with 90 hours of dedicated photographic and digital art use – compared to just 12 hours last year. It’s a major improvement and great to see the room being used for its purpose.
Freshers’ Week in the Edge received fantastic feedback and students commented on how great the non-alcoholic options were. We had good numbers to the Take a Break (54 attendees) and Feel Good Friday (47 attendees) events, which proved great for relaxed socialising. One student said the Be pART of the ART mural was the “best activity of the whole week,” – they met new friends there on the first day and proceeded to hang out with them for the rest of Freshers’ Week.
Music Tuition and Dance Classes have started, with fantastic sales for ballet. Music tuition has been a bit slow but those who have started have been blowing our tutors away already! We’ve also supported the start of the 24-25 Art Scholarship programme with one applicant sharing how SU Arts led them to apply: “The first painting I ever made was in one of the Take a Break canvas painting sessions […] and it completely changed my outlook on art. I have been on a new creative journey of art discovery over the summer.”
Author: Libby Brown-Turner
Community
Community has been really busy over the past month. Hall rep elections opened during fresher’s week, and we are currently in the voting stage of by-elections. We elected in 34 hall reps in the first round, and we are now looking at a further 30 being elected, slightly more than last year. We have added a specific PG committee of hall reps this year who will hopefully enhance the PG experience in halls and put on PG specific events. Hall reps will be trained over 4 sessions, taking place early November.
In other news, 36 students and 4 officers headed to Thorpe Park on Saturday 19th October, I’ve heard great things (apart from the queue) about the new Hyperia coaster, the UK’s tallest and fastest hyper coaster! Tickets for the Oxford trip on November 16th are nearly sold out, which is great news. Our casual administrators are currently looking at festive trips for early December to get everyone into the Christmas spirit.
Planning is also in place for our first housemate finder event of the year, this will be on November 27th in the Edge. We are looking at ways to make easier for everyone to find potential housemates, matching people based on their courses, interests, and ideal house size, watch this space….
Author: Sarah Williams
Societies
The Societies team has had a busy and exciting few weeks. We’ve had 49 event planners come through in the first three weeks of October, plus 14 Society Membership Fund applications—helping to support a wide range of events and equipment purchases. It’s been great to see societies enjoying Scala, which has proven to be a great venue for their activities. Our membership is now up to 4,223!
After the excitement of Freshers’ Week, we’ve been turning our attention to preparations for the upcoming Masquerade Ball. This year, we’re focusing on getting more students involved, with performances from URB DJs and Big Band. Tickets go on sale on 6th November.
Our Faith and Culture groups have been especially active, too. The Jewish Society recently celebrated Rosh Hashanah in Esther Parkin, and both Bath Indian Society and Bath Hindu Society are getting ready for their Diwali Pujas and Balls. The African and Caribbean Society put on a range of events for Black History Month, including a talk from the SU Bath’s Education Officer 2019/2020, Ruqia Osman. We also brought back the Faith and Cultural Forum, giving these groups a space to voice their concerns and seek support.
We’re also excited to welcome four new student staff members: Emily, Rachel, Megan, and Holly. They’ve been a huge help during this busy time and have settled in really well. Overall, it’s been a lively period for the Societies team, and we’re looking forward to all the upcoming events and plans we have in store.
Author: Hannah Sawyer
Sports
This month saw the launch of our new University Fitness League (UFL) which is not just for students so if you fancy getting involved here is the link, its all free! The UFL creates fitness challenges for participants to take part in, in their own time and their score per challenge is calculated using a unique rating system, putting everyone on a level playing field. Take a look!
After getting through Freshers week and Sports day our focus turned to our first flagship event ‘Rugby @ the Rec’ which was a huge success and saw 6467 spectators as well as 581 in the hospitality boxes. Turns out the new VC loves a drink and social event, but we will let him off as turns out it was his birthday, so I feel we gave him a great party with 7000+ guests!
Some stats for you all, SU sport memberships have reached 5645 so far and we expect that to grow by at least 50% as term continues. Our SU sport fleeces went on sale and flew off the shelves with 1200 purchased so far and a 2nd window opening in a few days for those that missed out.
54 days until Christmas break!
Author: Jo Dixon
Volunteering & Fundraising
Phew! It has been a busy ol’ time in the Volunteering and Fundraising area since our last update!
Rotork Challenge launched with our team offering 3 training sessions and selecting challenges with charity organisations in partnership with the School of Management.
V Team are going at full steam and this month have run a Repair Café, a sewing skills workshop with Share and Repair, and our newest project ‘Dough Bros’ piloted their first session this month (extra thanks to Chris for all his help with this too). The pilot project for this year won sponsorship from the student experience fund of over £900 which means we have a snazzy new gas fired pizza oven (woo hoo) so if any groups want to hire it from V Team for an event send them our way…
RAG have set up the hugely ambitious Race to Paris event which will see 26 pairs of students make their way with no cash from Bath to the Eiffel tower (where Hazel and David will be having a terrible time sitting in the rain waiting. I’m writing this before it happens this weekend while I’ll be taking calls in the lovely cosy office– not at all jealous honest.) Current running total is over £16k for those who made a bet…
Last but not at all least, it was Breast Cancer Awareness month, which has meant Boob Team have been super busy with 10 events, including boob earring making, fundraising at rugby at the rec and a pub quiz raising money for CoppaFeel.
We’re also preparing for Movember and some upcoming Christmassy (sorry!) events. More on this and all our other good-doings next month.
Author: Beckie Upton
The Student Voice Team at the SU Bath has had an incredibly productive and inspiring month, filled with events and initiatives focused on supporting students and fostering inclusion.
In Change and Inclusion, the team hosted a successful Black History Month event featuring Bath alumni and former SU Education Officer Ruqia. She delivered an engaging talk about her experiences as a Black woman in higher education and her views on racism as a public health crisis. The Mature Students Group was also relaunched after years, now with a committee of five—a testament to the staff's commitment to diverse student support. The team held the year’s first International Feedback Forum, sparking meaningful dialogue on issues like housing, transportation, campus dining, and orientation.
In Education, a major highlight was the 'Theory of Change' workshop, where key university stakeholders collaborated on shaping the Academic Representative review. The month also saw impressive results in elections, with us electing 442 Representatives for 2024/25 across UG, PGT and Doctoral. Freshers Week included a valuable Academic Council meeting focused on the Careers and Employability strategy, and the year’s first Doctoral lunch, complete with a fun quiz, created a positive start for Doctoral engagement.
Finally, we bid a heartfelt farewell to Melissa. Her achievements, from establishing the gender expression fund to passionately advocating for student groups, will leave a lasting impact on the SU. Thank you, Melissa!
Written by Ryan Lucas, in collaboration with Chat GPT & the wider Voice Team.
(Fun Fact, Ryan continues to be a waffler – so 200 words could have been used to outline some fascinating discussion from the Theory of Change Workshop).