Following on from the questions to candidates event on Tuesday I have been giving all of the students that would like to take on the role of Sport Officer a bit of a grilling on Facebook. Some of you will have seen these questions already however I thought it made sense to put all their answers in one place. Take a read of this, look at the manfestos and make sure you vote before 10pm tonight!

Ed Dunkley

Related to your manifesto; your top 4 priorities are all things that either already happen or The SU and University have every intention of implementing in the very near future. For example the gym has introduced, (and plans for it to continue at the start of next year), monthly direct debits which are very similarly priced to the effective price of the year-long memberships and part of the justification for the new gym included the need to make it more inclusive and accessible for all.

Given that this is the case, why did you pick these things as your top priorities as opposed to other areas that may be more in need of the dedication of an Officers time?

Hi Will, thanks for your question - it's a really good one! While the Sport Department has introduced a a monthly payment option for semester 2 it works out a lot more expensive than an up-front semester 2 membership and much more than a yearly membership. What I want to do is ensure that this direct debit payment option is no more expensive than paying up front in the long run. Don't think of it as a new feature, but simply a different way to pay your gym membership. Similarly, I can obviously not take credit for how the Sports Department have chosen to lay out the new gym, but what I can - and will, if elected - do is make sure that students can make the most of the gym's increased inclusivity, through the sessions mentioned in my manifesto. This includes working with student services and groups like Enable to work out what our students want and need, fighting for value and advertising them effectively. 

I want to prioritise these things for several reasons. Firstly I want to make sure the new payment option and sessions are ready to go for new student arrivals. Secondly, these issues affect the greatest number of people out of everything on my manifesto. And thirdly I believe these policies are very achievable - prioritisation will lead to early achievement leaving me free to dedicate my time to the other areas you allude to the rest of the year. 

Details on those direct debit costs https://www.teambath.com/sport/student/our-student-offer/

Thanks for your answer. To follow up, the current total cost for the direct debit option works out at an extra £2.50 per month for off-peak and £5 per month for peak memberships. This figure has been estimated to mitigate the risk of students cancelling their direct debits before they have paid all installments should they sign up for the year. (It is difficult to chase someone to pay to complete a contract that they stop paying for, even if they agree at the start of the year) This could also cause significant stress to students being chased for money, if as in hustings you stated that they would need to be committed to pay the whole amount at the start of the year.

What would your suggestion be to make up this lost income for the Sport Dept by reducing the cost or what area would you remove funding from to balance the books?

Hi Will, the current cost of a monthly membership for Semester 2 is £39 which, when stretched out over a year is far more expensive than the £279 annual membership currently offered. While I appreciate the monthly payment would be less for a year-longmembership, I will fight so students dont have to pay a penny more. That is the crux of this policy - what's offered currently is not good enough. Of course, the financial implications for the Sports Department need to be taken into account, but I believe that we should be prioritising students and indeed the Sports Department are willing to be challenged over this. Students may (in this hustings I believe I said may - or at least intended to) have to commit to the year long payment but this is no different to the current situation where the pay the same amount just up front. And of course I would not remove the option to pay up front if students are worried about being chased up later in the year. 

In terms of funding, this would require in depth financial discussion with the sports department, but there are several options available without having to pull the funding from elsewhere - being committing to pay as stated, or a charge for prematurely cancelling the contract for example. While this isn't ideal, what is crucial to remember is that there's no disadvantage over paying £279 up front. A student may have to just let their contract run, but they lose no more money than they would do after an up front payment

Apologies I should have been more clear about 'effective cost'. Although this is not the case for every student. The majority that take a year long membership will use from October to May, a total of 8 months. With the current model this would mean that someone choosing to pay for the year by direct debit would pay £312 and have the option to cancel anytime rather than £279 upfront.

Hi Will, that's fair enough, I thought that may have been the case, but, as you've pointed out, students would pay around £30 more - a cost I argue is unnecessary. Also, many students use their gym membership outside of term time, either staying behind for a few weeks, coming down to uni early for the next academic year or with placements and jobs in Bath. These students too should benefit from increased value.

You have said that you want to further prioritise student bookings in the STV. The University Sport Dept already give The SU free access to over half a million £ of free facilities per year, how do you suggest that the gap to be bridged between the lost revenue by even further prioritising student bookings over externals who pay?

I'm aware of the fantastic deal we as students currently get, but from speaking with senior staff in the Sports Department, they are still willing to be challenged over this. It's also about making more effective use of training time. If there's a sports club that doesn't get good attendance at one of their sessions, I want to introduce a system where they can try and find a mutually beneficial swap with another club or external booking

Moving away from your manifesto briefly: at the end of Questions to Officers there was the hypothetical question of which sport you would remove priority funding from if you had to. You chose to not answer the question.

In the job that you are standing to be elected for it is not always possible to avoid making tough (and potentially unpopular) decisions, so, given more opportunity to think, what sport would you remove from the list of priority sports in the Sport Dept and why?

I appreciate the fact that you would prefer a "proper" answer to this question but I am afraid my answer from hustings will not change, and I will not be pushed to name a specific sport. Whilst I understand that a Sport Officer must at times make difficult and unpopular decisions, it is also imperative that they do not make rash ones. Given the magnitude of this theoretical decision, it would require far longer than a few days to make as well as information I do not have access to as a candidate. I do not want to make a rushed, uniformed decision and risk offending a club unnecessarily.

Last question from me. You have mentioned that you will work with teams to provide more and better coaching to student clubs. Currently the model for this is for the SU to provide funding for clubs to source coaching, but it is the club’s responsibility to find the individuals capable of delivering to those student groups. What would you do differently to improve that model?

 I don't see anything wrong with the clubs being responsible for sourcing their own coaches. Indeed, if elected, I would hope to sit down with specific clubs (and the new Club Development Officer) to find what would work best for them, as this would surely vary on a case by case basis. What the SU can do however is provide more support in this regard. For example, whilst there are funds used to subsidise coaching qualifications, I want to fund as many of these as possible entirely, as currently it is unfair on students from poor economic backgrounds who may not be able to cover the remainder of the course cost.

Andy Galloway

You have said that you want to make sport related wellbeing services more accessible. With student wellbeing at the top of the list of priorities for all students, what access do you envisage for sport members have that they don’t have currently?

Hi Will, thanks for the question. I think the main issue that I would focus on would initially be awareness. As a student population, I don’t believe that we have great awareness of the mental health issues that affect athletes, or the services that are available for athletes to access. There are a wealth of services available but I don’t believe that all committees are currently in a position to signpost students to services that they may benefit from. I would work with Student Services and Mind to raise awareness of these issues and create an environment where people are okay to talk about them. Through effective training of the Welfare and Inclusivity Officers which I have worked to secure as core members of committees as of next year, I believe we can reach a stage where issues can be brought up with confidence that they can be dealt in an effective manner.

Thanks for your answer Andy. As a follow up, you have identified that there is currently a culture where students don't feel confident to bring up issues and you would seek to tackle that. What do you think the major barrier to that culture being created is and how would you seek to address it in conjunction with the groups you have identified?

I think a major barrier to people talking about mental health is the stigma that people feel is associated with it. I think only to make it accepted by everyone to talk about mental health issues is to start the conversation. For example, Nottingham have a scheme called ‘Welfare In Sport’ and they ran a campaign called ‘when did I last cry?’. This involves people writing on a board and holding it up for a photo. These kind of campaigns are vital to get people talking about the issues and I would consult the groups I mentioned to find out what similar campaigns have been run in the past, what was worked and what hasn’t. Once this culture is established, the Welfare and Inclusivity Officers on both club committees and the exec will be vital, tiered contacts for people wanting to address mental health issues, which is why effective training is so important.

You have promised to ‘track’ the usage of facilities, presumably this is to collect data on the number of bookings that are made against the number that are used, with the end goal of redistributing space more efficiently. Firstly how do you propose going about doing this across the multitude of facilities that we have? Secondly at what point would you remove access to a booking for a club that has failed to utilise it?

My first idea is to implement an incentive (e.g. prioritised future uptake of available sessions) for clubs to report when a session is not going to be used, so that it can be given to another club that needs an extra one. This reporting could be done via social media or with a simple Google Form. Another, more ‘out of the box’ idea could be to install card scanners at facilities so that a member of a club must scan to show that a session is being used. This, however, would only really be possible at indoor venues, would introduce a large cost and I would need to demonstrate that there is the need there. This would also only be useful if there is an issue of consistently unused sessions. So initially I would also ask facilities staff to casually monitor session usage and if something is booked but not being used, report it, in order to assess the problem.

If it came to the point that a session was consistently not being used, I would speak to the club to understand why this is. There are many reasons this may be, but if it is a case of a club not requiring a session then I would look to give this session to another group in the club, or if that is not required either, another club altogether. However, I think that this monitoring and reporting serves more to provide last minute solutions to unused bookings, as I don’t believe there is a massive problem with consistently unused bookings.

You have promised to implement the BUCS UNIversal gym membership. With our gym already at capacity and limited knowledge of how the new gym will alleviate that, why do you want to open it up to more students who do not study at the University of Bath??

The main benefit of the BUCS UNIversal gym membership is the fact that students who live near a participating university outside of term time can use their gym when home for holidays. This means that the only major increase in use would be when the gym is not very busy anyway. Another increase in use would be on Wednesdays if athletes wanted to use the gym prior to a fixture. These benefits would of course apply both ways, with Bath students who live near Surrey, Southampton, or any of 51 other participating gyms, being able to use them when away from university or prior to fixtures. A full list of participating universities can be found here: https://www.bucs.org.uk/page.asp?section=20012...

The benefits of this system are far reaching, in terms of both convenience and cost. At the moment, students generally have to join a gym for a month or two when away from Bath, which adds to the cost of the £279 they’ve potentially already paid. This scheme mean there wouldn’t have to be a decision made by some students as to whether to buy membership at home or miss out on training.

A major barrier would be a potential loss of income, as students who go to other universities but purchase membership at the STV over the summer make up a significant portion of income. To cover this, one option would be a supplementary fee added to BUCS UNIversal gym memberships, however, this would still reduce the annual cost for students paying separately for a gym over the festive and summer periods.

On the plus side, more people using the gym outside of term times would potentially mean greater income for the Sports Cafe, which I would imagine is not as popular during these periods.

Analysis would have to be done regarding all these factors and what effect the new gym will have on how busy the gym is. 

https://www.bucs.org.uk/page.asp?section=20012&sectionTitle=Find+your+nearest+UNIversal+Gym 

Lastly, you have stated that you want to move Score ticket sales away from Monday mornings at 8am, this was discussed in the General meeting at the start of the year and was decided against in a vote of the clubs. As an event that is technically under the Presidents remit why do you feel that this is important enough to go against student feedback as the Sport Officer candidate??

The time of SCORE ticket sales currently affects students and coaches running sessions on Monday mornings. I understand that the student voice is extremely important, however, I don’t believe SCORE ticket sales should be interrupting training. The vote in the GM involved asking representatives of clubs if they want to move the sale time, keep it the same, or if they don’t care. The results were:

Keep it the same - 9
Move it to 9am - 9
Don’t care - 24

I don’t believe that the ‘not bothered’ option should have been included (of course clubs may abstain from voting if they choose) as this clearly skewed the vote. If moving the sale would mean training sessions can flow as effectively as possible, whilst maximising facility time and 24 clubs ‘don’t care’ then I would prefer the sale be moved. My first action would be to survey clubs again, asking the question as a simple yes or no, but also get feedback from coaches running sessions to gauge the impact the current sale has.

Jake Pitchers

It is (at least I think it is) clear to most students your manifesto is, if not a joke, at least very tongue in cheek so I’m not going to question you on how you would go about getting rid of all team sports…

My first questions is related to participation for under represented groups. Transgender students often find it difficult to participate in sport at University due to both the perceived and very real barriers that they face. What would you do as an Officer to support these students at either a local or National level?

Hey will, tbh the best thing to do is to work with them to identify the barriers they're facing, as I've never faced the barriers they've had to deal with.
Papa
Xoxoxox
P.s there will be no national level for ANYONE when I'm in charge and we enter JUCS (Jakes university Championship of Sports)
P.p.s there will also be two microwaves per student when I'm in charge

Thanks for your answer and you are certainly right that working with the groups that face barriers is vital. I was wondering more how you would go about working with them though? What actions you would take to ensure you or The SU can represent their voice or enable them to represent their own.

I didn't hear back from Jake on this one.

Last question from me. With your manifesto there are obviously a lot of controversial ideas and statements in there. As Sport Officer you would have 1:1 meetings with the Director and Deputy Director of Sport. What would your first topic of conversation be?

Wow what an excellent question! We would engage in small talk and pleasantries topics would include but not be limited to:
•The weather
• our opinions on local sports teams, what a season !
•Any shared hobbies we may have, I hope they like gardening!
• Our respective plans for the weekend 
•why I'm worth the £468000 a year salary I've requested

Hope this makes you a happy will 

Well that's it hope you found that an interesting read. The link to vote is here you have until 10pm to do so!