An exciting term!Hi there,Although it seems like yesterday that Spring Term started, we're already over halfway through and there are still so many great things to come! Thankfully the days are getting lighter and it makes everything seem a little bit easier. This is a really exciting term for everyone at the Students' Union. Not only are we getting ready to celebrate our fantastic student groups at Society Awards, Colours Ball and Varsity, but SU Elections are also in full swing. This year we have not only more candidates, but more diverse candidates, than ever before running to become the next leaders of the SU. Elections have an impact on every single member of staff, whether you're directly involved, or simply checking out a candidate's poster stuck to the wall. Your contribution to help us promote democracy and encourage students to vote for their future Sabbatical Officer team has a huge impact. While this term hosts so many great events, we also know that a lot of our student staff will soon start worrying about assignments and exam revision. We understand that balancing work with studies can sometimes feel hard, so please remember that we're here to support you. We have a fantastic Advice Centre who will be only too happy to advise you on any academic issues you may experience, so please feel free to make an appointment with our Advisors or come along to one of their drop-ins on any Thursday between 1–4pm. We wish all our student staff the best of luck with your studies, and a massive thank you to all staff for all of your hard work this term. Abi Jesson Sabbatical Officers The next month is packed with a combination of democratic engagement and celebration. In addition to implementing Student Voice Reports, there are exciting pieces of work on our lobbying agenda with Academic Board. We also have recognition events for students coming up with Society Awards and Colours Ball which are great celebrations of achievements. We will also be preparing to head off to NUS National Conference and engaging with students for the SU Elections! Venues We have very exciting news for our wonderful Tech team, as we have bought a second-hand video wall to bring our events to the next level! Assistant Venue Operations Manager (Tech & Events) Joe Dalton will be training you on this. So expect fun shifts coming your way! Next month will also see the return of some big events, like the Holi run followed by the SU event that night, as well as an entirely new set up at Medicine on Monday 2 March for Peaky Blinders Toast. We'll be training new recruits for all positions, so please make sure you help out anyone that needs it and make the new staff feel part of the SU family! Retail We have been conducting interviews for the roles of Supervisor and Duty Manager, so make sure you watch this space to find out who was successful. We will also be conducting interviews for Sale Assistants, so keep an eye out for the staff board as we start to recruit new members. Well done to Supervisors James Casey, Manjot Arora, Chloe Hancock and Dana Justus, who have passed their training and are now taking shifts! Our other Supervisors in training will finish soon and will be taking shifts as soon as they're signed off. Finally, Easter is fast approaching so we've been filling up the store with Easter eggs and promos. Make sure you're aware of where everything goes and let us know if you have any doubts! Student Opportunities With both Society Awards and Colours Ball taking place over the next two Saturdays, we're expecting to be busy answering lots of queries at the Helpdesk. Varsity is also just around the corner, so we are really busy planning ahead of Surrey's return to Egham on Wednesday 25 March. Due to the UCU Industrial Action, footfall at The Helpdesk might be reduced, but we are still here to help! Student Voice We’re completely focused on SU Elections for the foreseeable future! We’ve got the most contested and most diverse elections ever and we’re really excited to see candidates out and about campaigning. Don’t forget to vote from Monday 9 to Wednesday 11 March to have your say on who leads the Union next year! You can check out all the candidates on our SU Elections website. Marketing & Communications With Society Awards, Colours Ball, Elections and Varsity creeping in (to name a few), Marcomms is going through an incredibly busy time of the year. We'll be working a few extra hours in the coming weeks to ensure that we can deliver all projects. Our HouseSearch Assistants are starting to generate a lot more communication across our HouseSearch channels, so expect more queries as awareness increases. HR & Finance We've been really busy for the past week in HR with interviews for new student staff, but they have now ended and we're looking forward to meeting all the new staff members and seeing how they get on in their new jobs! New student staff induction will take place next Thursday 6 and Friday 7 March, and Venues training will take place throughout March, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for more information about this coming soon. Our Finance team is currently working on budgets for next year, so permanent staff should be receiving a confirmation of what has been approved soon! A massive thank you! As a Students' Union, all the work we do is based on five main values: Brave, Student Focused, High Quality, Inclusive and Trustworthy. Every single month we have outstanding staff that work extremely hard, ensuring that these values are represented across all sectors of the Union. Because of this, we introduced Values Rewards - a £5 gift voucher to spend in any of our venues, to say thank you for your hard work. This month, we've given a Values Reward to Content Creator Jake Fenner - a huge congratulations! Thank you for helping us make student life better at Royal Holloway. And finally... A huge shoutout to the Student Opps team, who stayed late last week to handcraft the decorations for Society Awards. That's what we call dedication to an event! We can't wait to see your beautiful flowery paradise on the night. Well done team! |