Thursday 06-09-2018 - 14:45

"Where has the time gone! Tomorrow is 7 September and in just under a week I’ll be welcoming society committee members back at their training day!

I’m so excited to see you all, from those of you I was on the council with last year to everyone attending for the first time! I already have a great feeling about all the things you guys have planned for the upcoming year! My last post was 3 August and I just cannot believe how fast the time has gone from then to now. We have crammed a lot of training into this month and now we’re all itching for you guys to come back! We also said goodbye to Christina, Engagement Manager who was moving on from us at MMU to work for Middlesex SU - I hope her new team know how lucky they are to have her!

We also had visitors from Hull Student’s Union, their sabbs came to have a look around and chat with us about how we do things here. It was also a great opportunity for us to hear about what they were also up to and I got the chance to learn about all the benefits to being a part of RaG; so if any of you out there have an interest in Raising and Giving please email me and let me know! As a team we have decided on three campaigns to run this year and thanks to all of Molly, our Campaigns Coordinator's help we are starting to form plans on how to deliver them to all the students at MMU.  As an added bonus we got to spend the day on the beautiful Crewe campus while we planned. I’m sure you’re all eager to hear what campaigns we’ll be running as a team this year but I’ll have to keep you in suspense about that for a little while longer! I also spoke to Andy Harmon, your Wellbeing officer, and Molly about how we can continue the work of the ‘It’s OK’ campaign. Once we have that fleshed out more and some key events decided on you’ll have to keep an eye out for how to get involved with them!

As well as planning campaigns, I started to look at planning tours for the Manchester societies and Crewe students. In order to do that I met with the lovely people at Outgoing, the tour company we’ve used the past couple of years for our Amsterdam trips. From the feedback I received from society members, while they loved the trip, some wanted more variety or to explore a new destination. I took this feedback along with me to my meeting and they are putting together plans with all their destinations which they will present to you all at one of the upcoming council meetings — so if you’d like to hear about this opportunity make sure you’re there! One of the other options they gave me was a tour to Berlin for the Christmas markets, giving me the chance to double the tour's potential this year! I recently received all the information on it from Outgoing and once I’ve gone through it all I’ll make sure to send it out to you as soon as I can, so keep an eye on those emails and Facebook posts!

As it's time for Welcome week in just under two weeks, I’m starting to get really hyper about everything that’s going to happen, especially our Student Takeover event! This is set to take place on 21 September and will showcase some amazing students, giving them the chance to perform on a stage in front of their peers — be it a sport, society or an individual this event truly encompasses the pride we have as a union in our students!

So that’s it for me this time around, it’s not long until I see you guys again! Committees — I hope you’re ready for next week, we have plenty of treats lined up for you, and I’m not just on about the pizza!