REDS AWARDS 2023

Around 80 students, staff and alumni gathered in Goldney Hall for the annual REDS Awards on Wednesday 14 June, to honour athletes and teams competing at the top of their game

This year, six students won a Bristol RED, including Phoebe Murray, rugby Scholar and Bristol Bears Women Centre, and Martin Nguyen, a powerlifter who took Bronze at the World Bench Pressing Championships in South Africa, in June

Read the University's full press release here including details on all of the award winners.

With student teams now taking a well-earned rest from competition, all efforts turn to reflecting on the 2022/23 season; understanding what went well, what could be better, and how we can take this information and build on the success of this year.

Alongside some tremendously exciting administrative process improvements, part of the division’s Climate Action Group’s work has been a review of travel related to BUCS, consisting predominantly of travel to away fixtures. With 92 teams and 1000s of studentathletes competing in weekly home and away fixtures, the miles soon rack up, and we are looking at ways of increasing public transport use to curb the environmental effects of our programme, without reducing the amount of competitors As the largest (by area)* BUCS competitive region, transport continues to be a complex puzzle that we are looking to solve as part of the University’s ongoing pledge to reducing the climate effect of operations

*(to visit our three outermost-competing institutions and return to Coombe Dingle by road would take roughly 15 hours!)

We are now looking forward to introducing the newest cohort of student leaders to the intricacies (and fun) of BUCS competition throughout pre-season, particularly on the annual Club Captains' Day, this year taking place in our very own Pavilion on 13 September. This event offers student leaders the chance to meet the staff they will be working with for the next academic year, take on plenty of important information, and hopefully depart with the ability to recite BUCS Regulation 11.2 on demand.

As ever, the excitement and anticipation for another season builds – a great summer of sport; Wimbledon, the FIFA Women’s World Cup, and the Ashes (probably not the Men’s, accurate at time of writing) are a perfect warm-up for what we have in store once our student-athletes descend on Coombe Dingle for Pre-season 23/24.