Summer 2014 Your summer update on what your Community team have been up to! Community Officer - this month we’ve had to say good bye to Frankie, Community Officer 2013/14. We’d like to say a massive thanks to everything he’s done this year. We’re very excited to introduce George, the Community Officer for 2014/15 - he’s looking forward to an exciting year, and if you want to get in touch with him you can email him on G.A.Bradley@leeds.ac.uk Leave Leeds Tidy - We held 8 collection days over June and July in Hyde Park and Headingley to help students donate unwanted items to two local charities; St Vincent’s and Emmaus, as well as collection points in University of Leeds Halls of Residence. This year we have also worked with The Real Junk Food Project, Kaba-PC and STAR Bikes. The Real Junk Food Project - We were lucky enough to have food provided by TRJDP at the summer staff meeting, which was the largest amount of people they’ve catered for. They also worked with the Leave Leeds Tidy Project and ran a BBQ outside the Hyde Park Picture House as part of the collection days. Trinity Placement Students - We were also lucky enough to have two Trinity University placement students working with us in the Community department throughout June. Both students were able to take part in a variety of activities and tasks as part of the community team, and were able to develop their skills, and learn some new ones. We received very positive feedback from both students, and hopefully will see more Trinity students taking up placements with LUU in the future. Impact Event - We held out summer Impact event on the 18th June at LUU. This was our opportunity to meet with local residents and stakeholders to showcase the work we’ve done this year and to gather feedback from them. Some of the biggest successes highlighted this year were:
353 community volunteers have given 8,418 hours and have run 291 events . Launched of the Halls Volunteering Project and the Green Exchange We hosted a Councillor Q and A with councillors from Hyde Park and Woodhouse, Headingley, Kirkstall and Weetwood wards, and Hilary Benn met students to talk about his priorities this year. We run the Leave Leeds Tidy project to help students reuse and recycle unwanted stuff when they move house. Over the past 5 years we have helped divert over 70 tonnes of stuff from Landfill. Love Leeds Charity Shop will be holding a free shop on Saturday 26th July at the Little London Community Centre. For more information about this, go to our Facebook or Twitter page. “LoveLeedsCharityShop” or @LUUCharityShop
Taste Testing & Cost of Living Workshop - Student advice will be running a workshop around the differences between branded and non-branded products and will be offering general advice on living cheaply: Monday 14th July, 2pm in Room 5 (Level 2 of the union building) Bardon Grange will be running sessions throughout the summer both at their Oxley location, and on campus at the Sustainability Garden. Sustainability Garden Sessions: Thursdays 1pm - 6pm Upcoming jobs include: sowing more salad seeds, finishing the hedge, tying up the peas and beans. Wear appropriate clothing; we provided tools and tea and biscuits. The Sustainable Garden is situated on Chancellors Court, next to the Roger Stevens Building on campus. Bardon Grange Sessions: Wednesdays 2:30pm - 5:30pm Whether gardeners extraordinaire or trowel fearing beginners, come along and get stuck in at our drop-in food growing session. Some of the activities planned for this month are: sowing salad and getting our pond back in action. Please wear appropriate clothing; we provided tools, and tea and biscuits. For directions go to www.luu.org.uk/community/bardongrange Check out the website www.luu.org.uk/community/bardongrange or the Facebook page “BardonGrangeProject”
Community Tip of the month:
With graduations around the corner lots of you will be thinking about what to do next - we’ve created a series of FAQs that covers everything from money and housing to what to do with your free time in Leeds. Check out www.luu.org.uk/community/graduatelife for more information! If you have any questions about anything mentioned here or would like to find out more go to www.luu.org.uk/community or pop into the Opportunities Office on level 2 of the union!