Louise Goux- Wirth -Vice President Community & Welfare- Student Council Report
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Secured permanent funding for Vice President Community & Welfare post
Launched the Coffee & Drugs campaign at Bower Ashton, in partnership with Bristol Drugs
Project and Health University Group
UWE signed the Time To Change pledge, showing public commitment to challenging mental
health discrimination – Now part of the University top priorities, lead by UWE Human
Resources – UWE is being recognised as a beacon of best practise by both NUS, Time To
Change, and other institutions
UWE Students’ Union taking part in the Access Challenge (accessible music for deaf and
disabled students, hearing loop on 4th floor of the SU)
Elections – Strong diversity of candidates, with members of Islamic, Jewish, LGBT Network
standing for full time and part time positions. Disabled Students Networks won the highest
membership number to vote in the elections.
Halls Rep / Accommodation – Successful both in Market gate and on campus, with regular
student feedback and engagement. Accommodation costs to remain the same for next year.
Student Community Strategy –Championing what good things students do in the local
community, how to be good neighbours. Championing student engagement with
volunteering and the benefit to the local community.
Student Networks – Successful Chinese New Year celebrations evening, Islamic Awareness
Week, Holocaust Memorial Day, LGBT History Month
Better Together Fund – Submitted grant proposals to support Networks activities. Funding
approval for Mature Students Welcome Weekend, Islamic Women in Sport, Malaysian
Cultural Awareness event, Islamic Awareness Week, and NUS LGBT Conference.
NUS Conferences : Sent UWE Students’ Union delegates to NUS LGBT Conference, NUS
International Students’ Conference, NUS Disabled Students Conference, NUS Womens’
Conference
Looking ahead:
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Mental Health Impact report: jointly written with UWE, evaluating 2 years of work on
challenging mental health discrimination
Complete Access Challenge to Silver Award, showing clear inclusivity and accessibility
Moving out campaign, in collaboration with UWE Accommodation
Handover for incoming Vice President Community & Welfare, to ensure a steady
continuation and progression of all the work that has happened within the Community &
Welfare remit.
Nina Gizzie- VP Sports Report - March
Achievements since 13th December
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Sports night – so far has made£6,500 for sports, societies and networks
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Cycle train – 5 trains completed with up to 10 participant’s on each and through and
UWESU and UWE's work on cycling, UWE has won a Travel west award for most cycle
friendly employer this year
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Recipe corner – Developments of cuisine a week each one has had a good uptake.
There is also work on getting these easy recipes published for students in halls supporting
healthy eating
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Wednesday and sport – Working still on receiving feedback from sporting students
on how lectures are being affected by fixtures, from this work on improving transport and
resources for students on blackboard will be in discussion
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Body Beautiful – Feedback and results are still being collated but initial response is
~400 signatures into the activities provided, throughout this month also provided were 3
disability sports to make it more inclusive, on top of that activities were produced at
Glenside with over 15 individuals at each activity every week
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Fit for £4 has been launched at Glenside, yoga and aerobic and tone has been set up
weekly to trial the interest from students. From this it would allow classes t be launched full
time in the new academic year
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Sports Ball has been confirmed and a sale of ~150 tickets so far is a promising start
with interest across the board from all sports
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Varsity – 2 events have passed, Fight night and American football, With one win and
a draw it is a good start. Inspirational friends, our charity this year is made up of one current
and one ex UWE student.
Plans for the Rest of the term
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Committee Training – Work has started to make online resources better for sports
students, to make training more efficient, to make what we provide easier for committee
members
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Glenside Activities – To progress fit for £4 and introduce new classes and get a
survey sent to Glenside students into what they would like to see at their campus in the way
of activities and sports
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Rewrite sports exec – Improvement on the current positions, creating new positions,
writing job descriptions, and putting to sports committee to vote
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Recipe corner – More progression on this throughout my time as vp sports, hoping
to develop sports nutrition pages, adding student recipes, prizes for competitions etc,
something to leave for next years sports executive to continue it
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Forms and Finances – Still working on Improvements to trip forms and finance
procedures to be completed after the work on resources and committee training
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Campuses – continued work on incorporating activities at satellite campuses after
the success of Glenside
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Lydia-Alice Dismore
Societies and Communications Officer 2012/13
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Student Council Report
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This comes around so quickly; I swear its like a million reports every single term!
Hope you all had a delightful Easter break and are ready to be updated on what is going
down in the UWESU world!!!
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Basically, the focus of this term has been on the Societies and Communications
awards, and with problem after problem, it has been rather a challenge! With many
sleepless nights for Annie and the rest of the team, things are starting to fall together and
despite being different from what was initially proposed, it’ll be just as amazing don’t you
worry! With this finally falling into place, I’ve had the delightful task of compiling the
nominations together for our discussions as the Societies & Communications Exec to
who shall be the lucky ones to receive awards (which we will have looked at this morning
hopefully but writing this a week in advance without the ability to predict the future is
treacherous).
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Secondly, I’ve been helping with Sports and Societies night at Syndicate, which
had an impressive number of attendees for Varsity Day the other week from both Sports
and Societies. One of the amazing things about this role, and I’m sure the rest of the
exec will agree, is how many fun and interesting people you get to meet and every time I
work the Sports and Societies night, it never fails to surprise me how many familiar faces
show up and how many more I get the pleasure of meeting 
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Finally, I am working on my handover for this role as the year is nearly coming to
an end and although no one ran to fill my position, I’m sure the amazing Hannah Khan
will be able to persuade an incredible person to come to her aid and I hope to make sure
they find the role as easy and efficient as possible. After running round in March trying to
get everyone to vote, I’d also like to say congratulations to all who were successful on
acquiring the admiration of the student body and securing a place on the exec, and also
congratulations to those who didn’t quite manage it this time. You are all inspirational
people who have a passion to improve the student experience and although it isn’t an
easy task providing a voice for 33,000 very different individuals, it is so so worth it! So
even if you weren’t so lucky, do not let it put you off in the future!!
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Finally, as I stated in the previous meetings, I aim to be a general support for
Annabelle, the Societies, the Student’s Union and it’s members, so please do not
hesitate to contact me if you have any requests, queries or problems for the remainder of
my time in post, but also feel free to say hi in the future too 
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Lots of love,
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Lydia 
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uwesusocsandcommsofficer@gmail.com
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https://www.facebook.com/lydia.uwesu
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Student Council Report; VP Societies and Communications (Annie Turner)
Sports & Societies night:
We are approaching the end of the Spectrum Night for the year and much success has been shown. In total the
societies have gained £976.10 from the Night across the year, which they have previously not been entitled to.
Re-Freshers’ Fair:
The Re-Freshers’ Fair was a great success. The layout was much improved on previous years when there has been
limited space to move about and view the stalls and very limited space for Red Bar customers to sit and eat.
Unfortunately due to the snow we had to move the Sports/Societies/Networks stalls inside but this was fine as there
was plenty of space available and didn’t end up cluttering up the bar. We had 4 UWESU stalls for Sports, Societies,
Networks and RAG & Volunteering. These stalls were equipped with a laptop so people could sign up there and then
to any of the clubs/activities. We had 6 commercial stalls: Dominoes, Za Za Bazar, Oceana, Bristol Marriot Hotels,
Broadmead Medical Centre and O2; and the total profit for the event was £1650. We managed to gain 12 sign-ups
on the day (whilst not a great amount is a 300% improvement on last year) and then followed on to gain 43 sign-ups
that week and 39 the following week. This I saw as a great success because this was the main objective of the event
– to increase our membership numbers.
Socs & Comms Committee (12/3/13):
We had our last Socs & Comms Committee of the year. There was a heavy push on Elections and voting and
promotion of the £50 prize available to the society with the highest percentage of votes. We also had 4 successful
ratifications: Space Exploration, AERO, Future Technology & Design and Western Eye. At the previous Socs & Comms
Committee we also had 3 ratifications which are now heavily underway with setting themselves up. These societies
are: Bright Futures, Feminist and Quidditch.
Societies Soiree:
The contract had to be signed on 7th March and so I left it as late as possible but unfortunately we only managed to
sell 25 tickets, despite the volume of promotion that occurred. Because of this I did not sign the contract and have
consequently had to cancel the event. This means that we still have our £1135 pot and have not lost any money. We
will still be holding the Awards Ceremony and plans are in progress to arrange for an event in Red bar.
Finances:
We have had 3 allocation pots recently. The second term budget allocation was discussed over the Christmas break
between the S&C Exec and distributed at the start of term. We are still awaiting the results from the University from
the Better Together Fund applications. Finally we have had the Societies Extra Fund Applications which is the pot of
money from the Passport last year. These applications were discussed between myself, Lydia (Socs & Comms
Officer), the Socs & Comms Exec, Kirsty and Helen. There are many exciting plans in progress and it was great to be
able to help provide some funds for those new societies to help them get plans underway.
Elections:
We have had a great number of society bods standing as candidates in the elections this year, not only as VP Socs &
Comms but across all of the Presidential positions. Campaigning is heavily underway and has demonstrated much
creativity amongst our students.
Oliver Kirby- Education Officer Student Council Report – 04.04.2013
Politics & International Relations at UWE
As it may not be known to all, following a portfolio review carried out by a working group of the Vice
Chancellor’s office, a recommendation was made for the discontinuation of Politics and International
Relations at UWE, and a consequent closure of its department. Following an intense two and a half
week period since first being notified of this, a multidimensional campaign against the decision had
been taking place by university staff, students, the relevant unions and students and academics from
other universities across the country and indeed across the world. On the 4th of March the decision
was made that the department would not be closed and would be relocated to operate under the
auspices of the Faculty for Health and Life Sciences. The four programmes thus-far offered by the
department will be for the time being streamlined into one, with new courses due to be developed
in sync with the broader academic profile of the faculty. There will be no loss of staff from the
department as a result of this decision.
My personal take on this result is that it is extremely positive, and is attributable to each and every
student who contributed. There are some members of the movement who considered anything
other than a complete reversal of the proposals to be a failed outcome. This is not my view and I do
not believe it is the view of the majority of students involved. The simple truth is that, as clarified by
the Head of the Department Peter Clegg, without the student input the outcome would likely have
been what was initially proposed. That is, an end to the Politics and IR department at UWE. As such I
see the result as very positive, and now will seek to assist in whatever way possible with a smooth
transition of the group as it exists in its tangible form on Facebook etc, given that its current status is
now fulfilled.
Student Rep surveys
As mentioned in the previous report, I am intending to carry out an awareness raising exercise with
members of the student rep system which also has the benefit of attaining useful student insight on
key issues relating to their academic experience as students. This was set back firstly by the student
elections, due to a possible conflict of interests and resources as a candidate in the elections, and
subsequently by the Student Rep/Student-led teaching awards and the organisation etc required for
the awards beforehand. I am hopeful to carry out the surveys in the immediate future.
Role handover to UWESU Education Officer 2013/14
While not anticipating any form of reduction of my role before the academic year is complete I aim
to ensure an effective and detailed handover to Lauren Conen, the Education Officer-elect. As the
position is part time there is a requirement to operate to an extent within the academic calendar
itself as two current students. As a pro-active student representative and enthusiastic and engaging
candidate on the election trail I am confident that Lauren will do a great this coming academic year.