It has been an absolute honour and a privilege being President (Education and Wellbeing) 2016/17. I have had an amazing year representing all of our students and want to thank everyone who has helped and supported me throughout what has been a very busy year. When I decided I wanted to run to be a sabbatical officer at the beginning of my 3rd year I could never have imagined achieving so much.

Thank you to all the union staff who are a fantastic team who without them I couldn’t have achieved anything this year. But my main thank you has to be to the 2016/17 CCSU sabbatical team. I’m so lucky to have worked with Biba, Nick and David and am so happy to have made friends for life.

Here is just a quick overview of some of my achievements this year:

24 Hour Library

A 24 hour library has always been a critical resource for students during the busy assessment period in the summer term and extended 24 hour opening was one of my main manifesto points. David and I conducted research and wrote a 24 hour library paper which was taken to a number of the university’s senior management team. We secured opening in November and December for the first time as well as extending opening in March, April and May. Student feedback was fantastic and very positive and because of this I have been in conversations ensuring extended opening hours will continue and run efficiency with the change to semesterisation coming from September.

StressLess

After gathering student feedback and working from my manifesto the 24 hour opening was not enough. Students required specific breakaway spaces and stress busting activities to relax and reset. We installed a video booth which was used over 500 times with students telling their peers top revision tips! But to be honest, this just ended up with students dancing, flexing and going crazy.  

Mental Health

Mental health has been a priority of mine throughout this year and I’m happy to have helped make changes both within the union and university. Here are just a few of the projects and changes that have happened;

• Christ Church Student Minds established (also won a national award for best new group!)
• TWO PUPPY DAYS
• Been involved in rewriting the university’s mental health policy and strategy
• Student wellbeing fayre promoting proactive behaviour around mental health
• Proposed a motion for a new mental health officer this was unanimously agreed at Union Council
• Passed new union mental health policy
• Mental Health First Aid training for security
• A number of mental health awareness and fundraising days
• Involved in collaborative work on suicide safer communities project

Nightline

Nightlines are a confidential, anonymous, support service run by students for students.  This year we have been working alongside Kent Union and both universities to set up a Nightline service in Canterbury initially. Students have been pivotal to this initiative being set up and Nightline is going live in Canterbury from January 2018.

Stagger my Deadlines

Myself and David lobbied the Faculty of Education to pilot a change to help students have staggered deadlines. We secured a change to the system which will trial students being able to choose their own deadlines within the three week turnaround procedure. This is being piloted from September with a view to extending this programme across all university faculties where it will work effectively.

Lecture Capture

Lecture Capture is an incredibly successful tool used at other universities. In my manifesto, I wanted CCCU to increase access to online resources with lecture capture being a key part of this. This year we have been involved in writing lecture capture policy and making it happen from September 2017 here at CCCU. The Pilot scheme goes live in September with the view to expanding it university wide in September 2018, making lectures and studying more accessible to all our students.

Drop-In Hubs

I was delighted that I was able to start three new student facing drop-in Hubs which have been introduced to provide support and advice to students.  The Hate Crime Hub (run by Kent Police), relationship drop-in (run by Rising Sun charity) and psycho-sexual drop-ins (run by NHS) have all provided support to students in times of need.

Student Accommodation Champions

2nd, 3rd year and postgraduate students will now have the opportunity to be student accommodation champions where they will support new students moving into our halls.  This paid position is one I’ve been campaigning for throughout the year and will help support students with any issues they may be experiencing.  This will help students settling into halls whilst also being an important signposting mechanism for those who may be struggling with mental health issues.

Housing and ‘Wait to Rent’

Throughout this year, we have been working to educate students about renting (often their first rented accommodation). Within this, we were encouraging students to ‘wait to rent’ until they fully understood the tenancy agreement they were signing up for as part of a ‘ready to rent’ drive.

Home Stamp

I have been Co-chair and member of the Homestamp Board, which is a housing accreditation scheme in Canterbury, driving key governance changes to ensure its efficiency and effectiveness in the future in securing quality and affordable housing in Canterbury for our student body.

Wifi in accommodation

Due to the large amount of complaints received from students regarding ASK4, we gathered initial feedback from students expressing their concerns and support of this change.  We worked together with IT, in particular, Rob Arnold to discuss and resolve these issues.

General Election

At the beginning of June, there was a snap general election called by the government. In the build up, we ran a campaign to register as many students as we could, whether that was in their home constituency or in Canterbury. We estimate that we had a hand in getting about 8000 students involved in democracy with a high percentage opting to vote in Canterbury. On the day, myself and David ran the union mini bus to allow residents to vote and allow them to take part in the democratic process and took a large amount of people to the polls.

Expect Respect

In partnership with the University we established the Expect Respect Campaign which took an integrated approach to combating violence against women and lad culture on our campuses, recognising the need to achieve institutional transformation via individual behaviour change. We ran the Expect Respect roadshow on all three campuses to promote expect respect to all our students and staff.

NUS National Demo

CCSU participated alongside other students’ unions from across the country in the National Demonstration for Free Education in November, organised by the NUS and UCU, to fight against the increasing cost and inaccessibility of higher education.

Union on Tour

Getting out there and talking to all our students has been a key part of our sabbs team success this year. Union on tour and challenge us has been a key dynamic in us running the campaigns that you want us to run.