Label chatted to Abby Reynolds your current Societies Section Chair who hopes to be re-elected!
What are the main points of your manifesto?
- I want to revitalise give it a go because it gives students who wouldn’t otherwise find a society, could see it front and centre. It’s a way of giving them a platform and letting them engage with new students, bringing more activity to the union.
- I want to make the refreshers bazaar bigger and better as many wanted to get involved but we just didn’t have the space for them.
- I also want to introduce adopt a society which is something that runs really successfully at other students unions. What it means is that we can give added sustainability to groups who before didn’t get a committee. In the previous year we get a lot of applications asking can I restart that society. I think it be really good to advertise the fact that the union keeps the funds in the assets so I could just pick up where they left off.
What experience do you have that makes you suitable for the role?
I’m re-running for the position so if elected it means that over the summer, I can hit the ground running. Last year it was a lot of finding my feet and trying to figure out who to go to for things and ask for help but now we could work on some bigger projects that we wanted to do. I’ve also been on the societies committee for three years, so I’ve run events and everything. I’ve been a chair for two years and I’ve worked with an organization who provide sponsorship for societies across the country, so I’ve got a lot of societies experience.
What do you think joining a society adds to the uni experience?
I know a lot of students probably find it the same it was a way of finding friends if you can’t find them in halls it was a way of having a common interest with someone from the get-go. It means you basically skipped the ice breaker phase because you already have something common with them. It also helps development as there’s a lot of skills that you learn through leading groups on providing events so whether you’re working in teams or helping to put finances in order, not only do you find great mates but you also get to develop yourself and your soft skills.
What is it that you didn’t achieve this year that you want to in the next?
My manifesto points are things that either myself as someone on the team has raised but we just haven’t had the time to plan them. Going into another year means that I can carry on the momentum of what we’ve been doing already and achieve more and do more projects. For example, refreshers bazaar was one of them, by the time we were kind of thinking should we do it in a bigger venue it’s already too late to start planning. For adopt a society, that’s going to be predominantly online and obviously we’ve had a bit of a shaky transition into the new website, so next year it will mean that we can look at more online projects that just can’t be feasible this year. I think it’ll be a better climate next year once we have all the procedure in place online to basically just get on with it straight away.
If you were biscuit, what biscuit would you be?
I really like the Fox’s crunchy creams – they’re just the mixture of sweet and crunchy so it’s like a good mixture between plain crunchy biscuit and a sweet biscuit!
