Hey everyone,

Since the last blog I have been busy working on challenging decisions, bringing student voices into key decisions and creating opportunities for students to partake in.

• University Challenge
  • We have now successfully selected the university challenge team to represent Essex in next years competition including councils very own Luke. The team are now hard at work practicing to make sure we get as far as we can and hopefully beat UEA.
• Trustee Board
  • The board met for their second meeting of the year to ensure the SU continues to meet all of the requirements we have to maintain. More on the work of the board will be shared in my verbal update to council doing next weeks meeting.
• OFS Meeting
  • I met with the head of the Office for Students alongside some of the student leadership team and some council members to discuss current issues within the higher education sector. At the top of the Agenda was making sure it was clear that students are fed up of feeling disrespected and not getting the appreciation students deserve from government and others when realising the amaount of work that goes in to obtaining a degree.
• Week off 
  • I then finally got to take a week off which was frustrating to not be able to work on issues for a week but helped to reset the batteries and allow me to come back more determined than ever before to deliver what me and my team have promised.
• University meetings
  • I spent lots of time this month meeting with key figures from across the university to discuss issues such as courses, funding and the recruitment of the new vice chancellor. Lots of this work is confidential but I will of course update council as soon as I can.
• Showcase
  • On saturday we held the showcase for The Next Chapter raising over £600 and over 1000 volunteering hours from our amazing students. We were so happy with how it went that we are already preparing the plan for Essex Got Talent and cant wait to share the news with you soon.
• Team makeup
  • Finally I have been working on looking to make necessary changes to the leadership team for next year to ensure financial stability as the paper for council demonstrates. This has been an extremely difficult piece of work to undertake but I have acted in good faith to deliver the best outcome for students.

I hope this gives you a brief overview of my work this month and I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have.