Candidate for the position of Community Officer
Ben Palmer
About Me
I’m Ben, one of your Community Officer candidates! I am a 20 year-old from Kent, currently in my second year of studying Social Sciences and loving it! I’m deeply interested in a wide range of areas within History and Politics and have been a member of the Politics Society since my first year. I’m also really passionate about the environment and believe that climate change is an issue that we all have to address. One of my proudest achievements was being elected as Head Boy at my secondary school; I thoroughly enjoyed representing my peers and coordinating several events.
I am a big rugby fan! As well as playing for my local club, I also managed to play Freshers’ rugby last year and am currently lucky enough to hold a season-ticket at Bath Rugby (I’m far better at watching it to be honest!).
I have had the time of my life at Bath and really think studying/living here is an amazing experience, so I want to give back to the university by ensuring others feel the same. I loved volunteering as a Freshers’ Week Captain in September because it showed me how fun and rewarding working with the SU is.
Top priorities:
- Getting more of you involved in the SU through hosting open sessions and relaunching online forums.
- Work to stop the council enacting detrimental housing policy by improving our relationship with the local community.
- Develop further awareness for Bath LGBT+ group by providing educational sessions.
- Increase awareness for International Students’ mental health.
Manifesto
I would be honoured to represent all students by utilising my immense positivity and enthusiasm to ensure everyone has the best experience at Bath.
It’s your SU!
- I will ensure that regular students are heard by giving all members ample opportunity to interact with our SU and overall, I want to get more people engaged with the SU.
- Our students are our biggest resource, why not use each other for advice? I want to relaunch the online forum system so students can anomalously seek guidance about all aspects of university life in one convenient place.
- I will hold monthly open sessions for student feedback, I want to listen to what you want. My role is to work for you and I can only do this with your voice.
Housing
- This is an issue every year but it is predicted again that there won’t be enough housing for freshers next year. I will:
- Push the university to stop oversubscribing on admissions – it’s greedy!
- Lobby the council to stop enacting policies that decrease Bath’s student capacity, such as the restriction of sandwich housing.
Volunteering and local community
- I aim to work with our volunteer groups to start a scheme which will involve students delivering educational sessions to pupils from local schools. This will mutually benefit our local community AND student volunteers.
- I want to run a ‘Bath without students’ campaign; which will highlight the benefits of a large student population to Bath’s people. Providing local residents with information about the contributions brought by students will develop a better relationship with the council and perhaps give us more of a bargaining chip.
- We need to increase student support for homeless people in Bath: I want to set up a leave-a-coat/take-a-coat rail.
Support and diversity
I will:
- Work with Bath LGBT+ group to develop awareness as well as provide educational sessions to inform the wider student population about LGBT+ issues.
- Work with the International Students Association to help achieve their goal of increased awareness of international students’ mental health.
- Investigate the viability and provision for the setting up an International Student ‘buddy’ program.
Let’s be more green
- We need to instate life-long principles of sustainability and eco-friendly living to our students.
- I want to be involved in pushing for sustainable and environmental policy at Bath through supporting the Activity officer and the Environment and Sustainability team to reduce waste, consumption and pollution on campus.
- I will increase advertisement and strive to increase participation of Go Green Week.
Communication
- Better signposting- the wide range of services we provide is not advertised well enough. If elected, I will ensure all our services are known to first years through further advertisement in Halls.
- I want to ensure there are no longer out-of-date webpages on BathStudent. So if elected, I will aim to make sure all information is updated, current and available.
My Facebook page: @baldben4community has a more detailed manifesto!!