Hi everyone, sorry for the late blog, I have been fighting some illness recently but I wanted to get this up as quickly as possible. Below i am going to talk through a few of the things I have been working on since last council.

VC recruitment

I have been continuing the work to find the bnext vice chancellor of the university and as I will go into more detail about in council, the search has been unsuccessful. As a result this work has now become identifying the apropriate member of staff in the university to be an interim VC for the next 12 months whilst the process begins again to find the permanant replacement.

Big plan refining

As part of our end of term 2 review, me and the team have reviewed the remaining objectives of the big plan and in particular what is feesible with the remaining time. We will present these decisions in council but the general theme is to focus on one key area under every project to ensure that we do achieve the big change students need rather than spreading ourselves too thin for the remaining time and failing to deliver any more change.

Academic framework

The consultations lead by Joe on the academic framework have been providing valuable insight into what students do and do not like about the first version of the new model. I have been discussing these in length with the university at high level meetings including senate, council, and policy and resource committee to ensure that student voice is steering the way through this difficult period.

Derby day

=We had an amazing derby day this year with praise from hundreds of students and staff including UEA on the standard of event that we provided. Unfortunately it wasnt to be with us losing 8 matches on penalties and needing just 1 more point across the day to be champions but the atmosphere was electric and now we are more hungry than ever to end the hiatus and bring home the trophy next time out.

EGT

I have been working closely with Nifemi and the volunteering exec to put on this years essex got talent. The show is amazing and if you do not have tickets for saturday yet i would certainly advise getting them. We are raising for 2 amazing charities in doctors without borders and open road . A special thank you to nifemi who has done a lot of the heavy lifting to make this show a success this year.

What Uni

I am incredibly pleased to say that we have now received our ranking from the What uni awards. These awards are voted for simply by students giving us a 5-1 star ranking and I am pleased to say we received 87% 4 or 5 star ratings, with 0% 1 star and 1% 2 star ratings. This has given us a position of 7th in England (the 6th year running we have been in the top 10) and saw us sneak back into the top 10 in 10th for all Universities across the UK.

Graduations

I spent a week giving speaches at graduation ceremonies for our spring graduation. Across the week I had the absolute pleasure of speaking in 12 ceremonies and clapping as over 3000 students crossed the stage to receive their award. Admittedly sitting on the podium for 18 hours in one week was tiring but there are worse problems to have.

Clingoe house opening

I attended the opening of the institute of public health and wellbeing on our colchester campus, taking the opportunity to talk to politicans and candidates about the importance of listening to the students and not writing them off. I advocated for the importance of adressing key issues such as lighting and cost of living and have agreed with them to attempt to establish direct dialogue between the union and themselves to ensure a more direct opportunity to raise student concerns.

Half marathon volunteering

I had the opportunity to lead the Vteam volunteers helping to run the waterstation for the colchester half marathon and it was an absolute success. The comments we received were exceptional and the marathon raised over 50K for charity. Somehow I have even been dubbed Lord waterstation.

SU election

Finally, I helped to promote the leadership election and ensure students were taking the time to cast their votes to decide who should be the next leaders of the union. A huge congraultations to all the winners and especially Lily-May who will take over from 1st June and will be a hundred times better than me I am sure.

Sorry for such a long update and I look forward to answering any of the questions you may have.