19 days til’ Christmas! And with this, my last blog post of 2023.

The update begins with a shoutout to Latin American Society and Salsa society. These two groups invited me to teach a Merengue (Dominican dance style) class a couple of weeks ago in their joint social. It was a lot of fun and I got to embarrass myself publicly yet again. I encourage you to go to either of the societies’ Instagram to see the videos (I apologise, my dancing is not representative of my Latin American roots). I then had the first of a series of development meetings for members of the media groups committees. It is a great opportunity for us to look at how we’re empowering our student leaders to develop their skills as well as a longer-term plan for their clubs and groups. As you might assume, media groups are specifically important to look at, as digital communication is so important these days (I felt old as I wrote that, sorry).

The rest of my week was consumed by university council events. We had a dinner on the Wednesday night which Amber and I attended – it's always great to see the council members react to people dressed in their SCORE outfits as they walk around campus. All morning that Thursday was spent in a council meeting. I then spent my afternoon in a meeting about the last stage of VC recruitment (yes, we’re finally reaching the point where I stop mentioning this! Read on to find out how it ended). That week ended with us drafting a letter to parliament on the quality of student housing in Bath – more on that soon.

We had our first SUmmit meeting! It was very insightful and a great chance for our new SUmmit members to understand how they can engage and influence what the SU does to represent students. It ended with a lovely dinner and networking event in the Tub (which we all know is my favourite spot on campus). Two full days of that week were spent in the final assessment of the VC candidates (big shoutout to the students that were part of the event and helped us out), and my Thursday was quite a bizarre day because of it. I spent the day in the Woodlands, doing one-hour long interviews in a panel that included HRH the duke of Edinburgh (who is, as you might know, our university’s chancellor). Unfortunately, I can’t give details on how the decision went, but I will let you all know as soon as it’s public knowledge!

Finally, our Friday was spent decorating the Christmas tree in the SU and making final preparations for the myriad of events we have going on in the build-up to Christmas. You might’ve seen Hanna and I with our little table of Christmas treats collecting feedback through ‘Naughty and Nice’ lists this past Monday, playing Christmas music and eating way too much.

In the next few days, you can catch me and most of the officers in Masquerade ball, either of the Snowballs, the dance winter showcase or roaming the Christmas market on Saturday with other SU officers from across the South-West, who we have invited down. Come to any of these events to say hi!

In case I don’t see you beforehand, have a lovely Christmas break, stay warm, and be kind to one another!

Much love,

Jiji x