An update from your President (Sports & Engagement)

My BUCS Conference 2019 (and my last :( )

On the 9th June, me and the Opportunities Manager and Legend that is, Adam Roche, set-off at an ungodly hour to the University of West England, Bristol for the 2019 BUCS Conference.

If you read my last BUCS blog you will remember the last BUCS Conference, myself and Adam both had World Cup and Southgate fever, so this Conference had to be something quite special to top it.

DAY 1:

We set off to Bristol via train and arrived in time for registration, but more importantly, lunch. Massive thank you to UWE for offering a great food selection yet again, which meant Adam was happy and was able to manage my opportunities.

Now to the good stuff, my first breakout session was about developing a positive culture within sports teams, which focused a lot on welcome events, zero tolerance and drug awareness. This session was taken by Worcester Students’ Union and what they have done within their sports teams to develop a positive culture and therefore improve student experience. I learned a lot from this session and I look forward to creating some similar ideas for us for this year.

After this session, I then met my fellow Sabb equivalents from across the South East region. (oooo Sabb friends.)

The evening activities consisted of a Big BUCS Quiz at the UWE SU, where of course all the questions were sports orientated and I won’t detail where we came in the quiz, but it was all about taking part.

DAY 2:

Day 2 began with an amazing and emotional talk from Clarke and Carrie Carlisle which certainly gave me a completely different perspective on a lot of things. If you don’t know who Clarke Carlisle is, I would strongly recommend looking up about his story.

My breakout sessions on day 2 consisted of a session taken by the Head of Player Support from Manchester City FC, about Enhancing the Performance Environment. This was followed by an interesting session taken by Stonewall about creating inclusive environments for all within sports communities. This was really beneficial for me, as it was encouraging that a lot of the stuff I have been working on is similar to what Stonewall was advising and educating us on. This was also a big policy of mine in my manifesto, so I'm excited to work with Stonewall and other relevant people to improve the inclusivity of Team Christ Church.

In between these sessions, there was a talk from an ex-rugby sevens coach, Ben Ryan who coached England and Fiji. This was by far my favourite talk and I have since gone on to buy his book!

The day 2 evening events consisted of a sport festival tournament, where regions played other regions in different sports. I was put forward for the Teqball, which is basically table tennis with a football, without the paddles. It was very intense and required technical skills, but your girl came up with the goods, won both her games and beat Scotland and the North West!

However, I didn’t take part in netball, because I would have accidentally started kicking the ball and no one wants that.

DAY 3:

Day 3 got off to a slow start but the sessions I attended included The CHANGES program (Challenging Hazing and Negative Group Events in Sport), which was all about how University’s and Union’s can work to improve drinking culture and there may be a chance they can provide us with online training for clubs to complete.

Our final session of the conference was about Initiations and why the University of Derby welcomed change. This was another session that was quite encouraging for me and Adam to see that we too had welcomed change and we were going in the right direction to change drinking culture to being more positive.

Day 3 finished with the BUCS Awards Dinner and let’s just say, it was a great way to network. All in all, I came away from this conference very satisfied and I look forward to implementing a lot of what I learnt from this Conference into my final Sabb year. 

A big thank you to CC Sport and my friends from up the hill, Tom and Emily for providing lots of the conference entertainment, and to Adam for managing my opportunities from start to finish. 

BUCS Conf, you were an absolute blast and its sad I won’t be coming back again, but I’m always here for a good time and not a long time! 

As always, if you have any questions or just want to have a chat email me at chloe@ccsu.co.uk or drop us a little message on my work Facebook: Chloe Woolaway! 

All the love,

Chlo x