“So you get the Summer off, right?” 

I hear this question all the time! Time to quash that rumour... 

Over the Summer, your officers are hard at work (or if you’re David in Prague, hardly working. That was a cheap shot that needed a feature, he’s taking his legal days off and I’m actually coming back from two weeks off in Spain myself). During what we call ‘the quiet period’, but isn’t, since our jobs never are, we make the most of time in terms of planning ahead and, most excitingly, deciding on our top 10 for the year.  

What does your day-to-day look like over the Summer, I hear you ask. 

Great question! I’ll give you a quick rundown of my week this week, so you get some perspective.  

On Monday and Tuesday, the days were full of meetings. I had a call with an external app developer who’s working on a safety app for students across the UK. Though that’s not SU or uni specific, this is relevant, as part of our job is representing students in any kind of context, and, as you might guess, any opportunity to keep students safe is one we should take. I also had a call with a lecturer about an upcoming art exhibition in which he wants student involvement, so I’m helping him out with that as well. Officers got together to come up with a statement for the riots around the country (as I’m sure you saw on our website and Instagram just today). We’re setting up a new people and engagement subcommittee of our board, which will look after organisational culture, so we had a meeting about that as well. I then had my one-on-one with David to check in; and ended the day with a meeting with my board vice-chair, Rebecca, to just make a few decisions about our board of trustees (shoutout to Rebecca because she’s fab!). 

Today’s quieter morning allowed me to catch up on emails and my to do list. I then had my one-on-one with Benji, to find out all about the world of community. I worked on a presentation I’m giving to Unison (the employees’ union at the uni which isn’t for academics) about student housing. We’re trying to link up and work on some stuff together. More on that as it comes. I then had a meeting with Beki, our board secretar and SU governance admin, to discuss the board meeting in September as well as the away day (also in September). I jumped on a quick call with Cassie, our student experience pro-vice-chancellor to discuss a bid for the student experience development fund (it was approved, but I can’t give more context on this yet!). I also had a meeting with Charlie Slack and Ryan Bird, just talking about some future projects we have for the union (I love those meetings). I then had my one-on-one with Zuber, and now I’m writing this! 

As you can see, only these three days at a glance show that even during the quiet period, we’re all doing lots to prepare for your arrival/return in September. That means we’re all checking emails and happy to help with anything. So do reach out! In the meantime, stay tanned and be kind to one another.  

Much love,  

Jiji x