Tuesday 03-07-2018 - 14:54

Last week, we said goodbye to our Full-Time officer team for 2017-18. Before they went we asked them to pick out their top three highlights from their year in office. Here’s what they had to say…

President Josh Woolf:

• Securing £200,000 for accessibility audit and repairs to campus and working with students and the union's Students with Disabilities Officers to highlight key issues.
• Protecting the Sugarhouse from an accommodation development that would not have been properly sound proofed. This involved working with representatives from the university and multiple city councillors. 
• Making myself visible and accountable to students, both through planned events like the Big Summer Meet-up, Pop-Up Union, and Sugarhouse Welfare Stall and by making time for the issues that students have highlighted to me personally.

VP (Union Development) Qas Younis:

• Looking at the way we support our JCR execs, and revamping their training which will only develop further over the next year! 
• Getting the chance to get involved in something completely outside my remit and work on Islamophobia Awareness Month. In particular the Prayer in the Square event we held. (November) 
• Working with all the great staff, the President and city councillors in fighting for the Sugarhouse.

VP (Activities) Ben Francis:

• Roses: our teams have had an absolutely fantastic year with several league winners as well as conference cup and individual successes. This all culminated in the biggest Lancaster win and first on a Saturday! The event couldn’t have gone any better.
• Sports Review: this has been one of my main focuses this year and I have worked hard to always make sure student interest is heard at the heart of the ongoing sports review.
• College sport: I have worked alongside staff to support the college teams and officers for example with the competitions. I have also ran the Carter Shield this year to make sure that continued. We have also been able to keep the recreational leagues running this year.

VP (Education) Hannah Laycock:

• The improvements to the Student Academic Rep System - with the help of the union’s Education & Support team and the Reps themselves this year we’ve worked really hard to make the Rep community more like an actual community. This was done through more in-depth Rep Training days, Academic Rep hoodies and some really productive Faculty Forums that proved our Reps weren’t afraid to tackle difficult topics, and push back when they felt the university wasn’t listening to them
• Pushing back on the university - This is a bit of a general one but at multiple points this year I’ve developed the confidence to push back on the university, as well as working with them to achieve the best results for students. In particular in relation to Joint Honours, Part One, and the university’s previously vague response to the Student Written Submission. I also worked very closely with staff in relation to the industrial action, which was a huge learning curve for me!
• Lastly, the Student Education Conference was a huge achievement for me (with thanks to the FTOs, Reps and staff!). We had a speaker from NUS, and tackled some really big and difficult topics in HE. We also had a small Free Speech debate to close, which saw some healthy disagreements amongst our students being productively explored!

VP (Campaigns & Communications) Laura Wilkinson:

• Mind Fest 1 & 2 events, held as part of the mental health campaign ‘Grow Our Minds’, were really successful and helped students to relax during stressful periods 
• I provided mental health first aid training to colleges and sports clubs/societies 
• The ‘Pay More Get Less’ campaign pushed the university to make sure they are considering the cost of living in everything they do  

VP (Welfare & Community) Sofia Akel:

My biggest achievements during my year were: 

• Creating and project managing the first full Black History Month. This year I worked hard to represent BME students and to give them a voice on campus. We've witnessed an increase in BME engagement as a result and I hope that this is something that continues with more diversity in the SU! 
• I am also proud of the work done to launch Sport Our Minds, which is a mental welfare in sport initiative, tackling the stigma on men's mental health and providing better welfare support for sports teams! 
• Lastly I am very happy with the work done on accessibility on campus, this year through working with our students with disabilities officer we were able to work with the uni on making retrospective changes to campus buildings that have huge inaccessibility problems! With the aim of going above and beyond the British Standards of Accessibility for the first time.  

Thank you to everyone who supported me this year, I really appreciate it and wish you all the best in the future. It's been real, peace out!