Your Student Life President's Highlights
This year has been an interesting one, coming from 2 years of COVID-19, and losing many loved ones along the way, I can certainly say that my year as YOUR Student Life President has been an honour. Being able to fight and lobby for every single one of you is certainly a passion of mine that I will continue to pursue. Although we all go through tough times, I can confidently say that I fought all the way to the end and did not give up on my passions of supporting our beautiful and diverse community of students. It was a tough year, especially being understaffed and down to 3 Sabbatical Officers and James Turnbull, our fine CEO, managed to keep everything and everyone together through a tough period of the year. I can’t stress enough the help and support we received during the last semester from our amazing new staff members who continue to transition our SU to a more diverse, cohesive, vibrant, strong, and operational student union.
Some of my proudest achievements this year are:
- Secured £50,000 from the University to supports our Red List quarantine students with scholarships and hotel quarantine costs
- Hosted a successful Black-Tie Gala, in partnership with the UK:ME society, for Black History Month
- Facilitated Wobble Week alongside the Widening Participation team
- Planned the creation of our new Study Hub
- Selected a student friendly HelpDesk, as the SU representative
- Helped with the rebranding and re-strategising of the SU into a diverse and inclusive space
- Hosted the first-ever Inter-Faith Week at St Mary’s with the help of the interfaith network
- Raised over £3050.00 for Movember (Campaign), Ukraine Crisis (DEC), and Ramadan Unity Fast - which was donated to “The Orphans Project”
- Hosted an Anti-spiking campaign alongside the Education president and Sports President
- Hosted a Sexual Safety Awareness Week campaign
- Lobbied and managed to bring back SU Graduation Speeches
- Hosted and brought back Society Awards after 3 years of absence
- Co-hosted Engagement Awards 2022 at the exchange for the first time to highlight our talented, helpful, and overall amazing students
- Started our new SMUsic Society, and still lobbying to secure a music room and bring back our traditional "Monday Night Karaoke"
- Major success in going from 18 to 31 active societies (With our new Middle Eastern and North African society (MENA), and Asian society) Hitting our targeted demographics that we lack, creating safe spaces for students.
I look for forward to seeing all the work the next Student Life President, Caitlin Finn, continues to do throuhout the year!
