Manifesto

In my first year, before lectures even began, I joined 3 societies I still love today: Tabletop, BUNCS and Sci-Fi. These societies quickly became a big part of my life. I became chair of Tabletop in my second year and kept it until I was elected to my current position on the activities executive 2 years later. What makes the activities area great is how diverse it is and how dedicated the people in it are to what they love, so I will make it even better by:

Focusing on bringing societies to everyone. Postgraduate student participation in the SU is too low. Societies and the SU are seen as undergraduate focused organisations and I want to help change that. By working with the postgraduate officer I resolve to help societies cater towards them better and improve the effectiveness of advertising for them by promoting specifically targeted events. Additionally, I will extend this to helping international students and will support the inclusivity award so that everyone can enjoy the activities area as much as I do.

Reorganising to process documents quicker. One of the struggles that the society committees face is that key documents can take a long time to be processed, sometimes with little confirmation that they are being reviewed. I shall make the forms more accessible and will perform a detailed review of the system to see how it can be sped up. I aim to split the work of the activities office with the executives, who have more time to check and work through any problems before the office finalises the process.

Giving more options for performances. The arts societies face many issues when trying to book rooms in the Edge as it is expensive and they are in competition with many other groups for the space. Resolving this will take time which they can ill afford to lose. I will coordinate with timetabling to make sure that they, and indeed all societies, get the access they need to the lecture rooms on campus.

Listening to your changing needs. Throughout the year many good ideas were brought to my attention in personal discussions. These include moving refresh week to the second week of semester two to give everyone time to settle, and improving coordination between the skills training team and departmental staff to get details of events out efficiently. I will continue these discussions with activities groups so that I can tackle everyone’s concerns.

I am the man to get these things done:

• I am experienced and well versed in the activities area from being a chair and the recreational representative.
• From tutoring first year mathematicians to my time in committees, I am not afraid of responsibility and enjoy the challenge it brings.
• With the recent influx of students, I believe a high quality student experience is more important than it has ever been.
• I take feedback, both critical and positive, very seriously and think it is important for personal and professional development.

Vote Josh for activities!