Monday 06-08-2018 - 09:30

Since the last blog post I made, so much has happened! From being dressed as an owl to campaigning to winning an election all over again. Variety certainly is the spice of being a sabb!

I kicked off the week with training on how to be a trustee; this is actually where being dressed as an owl comes into it. We learnt about our place on the board and how what we do on it will affect students during their time at university. This included an ‘in flight’ briefing on how to conduct yourself when at meeting. We also had to learn about the finances of the board and find a creative way of teaching it back. My group decided to put me in MMU’s blue owl mascot costume and have the ‘finance owl’ teach us all! The costume was very hot and smelled kind of funny…

As soon as our trustee training was over I had to make my way down to Hertfordshire for NUS Lead and Change conference. Fortunately I wasn’t alone as Andy our VP Cheshire was going to the conference too. It was an amazing couple of days and I was a part of team Dynamo which comprised of other Sabbs from across the country. I met so many people and made some lasting friendships, I was sad to leave after all the fun I’d had while there but alas I had something more important to do… my own graduation!

Graduation was standard with the hand shaking, hundreds of photos and failed attempts at hat throwing! After that, it was back to it on the Friday with speech writing training with James Coe, one of our trustees. It was a really useful session and helped to boost my confidence around how to write and deliver engaging speeches. Once that wrapped up, it was a quick lunch break where we learnt that Amie had knocked a glass of wine on someone at the chancellor’s meal the previous night! Then onto the first trustee board of the year. Again starting strong as I launched my pen into the air, landed it in a glass and covered one of our other trustees in water. Brilliant. Once we all finished laughing about it the meeting went well, although in future I think we need to bring protective equipment along to prevent myself, Amie and Lucy from causing further damage! It’s safe to say I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Oh wait; it was Comic Con!

After what was a very eventful and mixed week it was nice to come back fresh on Monday and get ready for the National Societies Awards hosting votes to open. All of us were primed and ready for the voting to open…only to find out that due to technical issues there was a delay on it. This gave us time to do other things, which for me included meeting up with two other first year sabbs from the University of Manchester, Lizzy and Shamima. It was amazing to chat and find out how they were getting on and find out what they were going to get up to this year. By the time I got back to the SU everyone was buzzing around promoting our NSA bid video and making sure that everybody knew who they would be contacting first when the voting opened! It was such a rush and took me back to the nervous excitement we all had when campaigning for our own election! As soon as we got confirmation that voting was live I didn’t stop. The only words pouring from my mouth for the next 48 hours were ‘have you voted?’ and ‘vote for us!’- it paid off! We are the hosts for the 2019 National Society Awards!!

After that high I got to spend a day on the beautiful Crewe campus and got the opportunity to chat and catch up with all the staff there, as well as putting forward some of my ideas for how I can help Crewe societies next year - all of which are super exciting. This brings me nicely to today, I literally just said goodbye to Jill Wells, our Volunteer and Societies Manager. She’s been working here since I began and was someone I went to see a lot when I first started on committee. Whilst I know what an amazing team that we have left it was really sad to see her go! And all tears aside, I know she is going to be amazing in her new job! So that’s it for this week - as you can see a lot has been happening! I’m so excited for everyone to come back in September - not long now!