Warwick SU Annual Report 2013 - 2014 by Warwick SU

WARWICK SU ANNUAL REPORT 2013-2014

contents Intro Chief Executive’s statement Mission Statement and Values Governance Structure Financial Breakdown for 2013-14

OUR STRATEGIC PRIoRITIES: Representing Students and Campaigning to Achieve Change PROMOTING A STRONG AND VIBRANT UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SUPPORTING AND INFORMING STUDENTS ABOUT ISSUES AFFECTING THEIR LIVES OUR YEAR IN NUMBERS: 2013-14 TRANSFORMING STUDENTS’ LIVES AND ENHANCING EMPLOYABILITY DELIVERING A STRONG, EFFECTIVE AND SUSTAINABLE ORGANISATION Thanks

Intro: Warwick Students’ Union is a registered charity which exists to provide services to the student body at Warwick, with the aim of enhancing their education in its broadest sense. We do this primarily through the provision of Clubs & Societies, Welfare services, Academic assistance, Campaigning support, Food & Drink facilities and Entertainments. All the income generated by our commercial services (such as food and beverage outlets, nightclub and external businesses) is directly reinvested back into services which benefit students. We had another busy and successful year in 2013-2014, with numerous big wins for students, lots of student events and activities and various new developments across our operation. We’ve used the key themes from our Strategic Plan to show you what we’ve been doing, how we’ve been doing it, and how these activities benefit the people who matter most – you, our members.

Chief Executive’s statement “Putting students at the heart of everything we do, officers, volunteers and staff work extremely hard every day to ensure that student life is as enjoyable, worry-free and enriching as we can. This annual report is an opportunity to reflect on all that has been achieved by students and staff alike in the past year. Reading the report is a humbling experience; so much has been delivered, so much effort expended and so many experiences created. 2013-14 saw the Union have a positive impact on our community in so many ways: we bore witness to the birth of Sports Allies, the launch of the Warwick Enterprise partnership, successful campaigns on the terms and conditions of PGs who teach and the recording of lectures, plus continued outstanding achievement by clubs and societies celebrated in the Sports Awards and Societies Awards ceremonies. Student wellbeing concentrates our minds on a daily basis. Our Feel Good campaign, housing day, work with the local community and University support services have impacted positively on students’ welfare this year and we are, of course, proud of the efforts of all those involved; notwithstanding this, it is clear that students have more worries than ever and we are doing everything we can to alleviate these concerns and help make students’ lives at Warwick as enjoyable as we can. As Chief Executive, it is my job to manage this charity in such a way that it delivers on the needs of our 23,000 members. It’s no small task and we are rightly self-critical - nevertheless, there is no doubt that we achieved an inordinate amount last year, and without the commitment and dedication of student campaigners, club and society executive committees, Students’ Union officers, course representatives, volunteers, staff and Trustees, student life at the University of Warwick would be the worse for it.”

Jacqui Clements Warwick SU Chief Executive

Mission Statement and Values OUR MISSION…

“WARWICK STUDENTS’ UNION - CREATING A BETTER EXPERIENCE FOR STUDENTS AT WARWICK.” Warwick SU Mission Statement. INFORMATIVE

OUR VALUES…

We are supportive, knowledgeable, responsive and useful.

DEMOCRATIC We are student-led, member-focused and representative.

ENRICHING We help students develop, we nurture their aspirations.

INDEPENDENT We are the independent voice of Warwick students.

ACCESSIBLE We are diverse, welcoming, tolerant and inclusive.

ETHICAL

FUN

We are fair, principled, transparent and environmentally sound.

We are friendly, vibrant and entertaining.

Governance Structure SABBATICAL OFFICERS 2013-14

BEN SUNDELL President

ERIN DAVIES Education Officer

COSMO MARCH Democracy & Development Officer

LUCY GILL Postgraduate Officer

CAT TURHAN Welfare & Campaign Officer

ANT SCOTT Societies Officer

ZOË BUCKLAND Sports Officer

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

JACQUI CLEMENTS

SENIOR DIRECTORS

DAVID DEDMAN Membership Services Director

STEVE RUSSELL Commercial Operations Director

TRACEY GRANT Finance Director

KATE DOLAN Human Resources Director

JACKIE HARTE Marketing Director

2013-14 INCOME ANALYSIS Investing in the Student Experience

Income University Grant £2,531,800 33.9% Other Commercial Income

£1,237,855

16.6%

This is IT (MSL) and consultancy (SUSW)

Food & Beverage £2,544,193 34.0% Venues & Ents £1,014,849 13.6% Societies & Sports Club Memberships

£130,419

1.7%

Interest Receivable & Miscellaneous

£20,073

0.3%

This is not clubs and societies’ own funds

TOTAL £7,479,189 100.0%

INCOME

SPENT 2% 0%

14%

34%

Other Commercial Income Food & Beverage

Costs of our Commercial actvity

University Grant

17%

37%

34% 16%

Venues & Ents

20%

Costs of our Venue & Ents activity Student Societies & Sports Clubs Membership Services for Students

Societies & Sports Club Memberships

Representation & Affiliations

Interest Receivable & Miscellaneous

Governance costs

HOW WE SPENT OUR MONEY Costs of our Commercial actvity

£707,569

9.9%

Costs of our Food & Beverage activity

£2,624,278

36.5%

Costs of our Venue & Ents activity

£1,457,486

20.3%

Student Societies & Sports Clubs

£1,207,055

16.8%

Membership Services for Students

£680,248

9.5%

Representation & Affiliations

£458,853

6.4%

Governance costs £46,278 0.6%

TOTAL

Costs of our Food & Beverage activity

10%

£7,181,767 100.0%

OUR STRATEGIC PRIoRITIES

12345

Representing Students and Campaigning to Achieve Change This year saw the long-awaited realisation of our efforts to challenge the issue of students not being able to heat up their own food on campus, with microwaves and hot water facilities finally being introduced in Term 2. As one of President Ben Sundell’s top manifesto priorities, we were delighted to announce their availability to students in the Rootes Restaurant Area from 8am-9pm, Monday to Sunday. We also sent a joint letter with the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education to encourage all departments to make these facilities available in their common rooms.

Our Rate Your Landlord survey also provided an invaluable service to students engaged in the househunting process by compiling anecdotal evidence from current tenants on the effectiveness of their property’s management, thus hopefully helping to prevent or reduce what can be a major source of disruption, inconvenience or stress for students living off-campus

In Term 1, the International Students Association (ISA) at Warwick SU led a campaign against the proposed introduction of NHS charges for students from overseas. Hosted

by guest speaker Daniel Stevens, the launch event aimed to raise awareness of the proposals for healthcare charges, which we consider to be discriminatory, counter-intuitive and impractical.

This year we successfully lobbied the University to review the 17 point marking scale from the start of the next academic year, ensuring a standardised level of marking across all departments. We also successfully pushed to increase academic technologies for students, ensuring that lecture-capture software is installed in every centrally timetabled room.

Our Hungry For Feedback campaign had a direct impact on the University’s scores in both the Student Barometer and International Student Barometer surveys – as a result of our pressure to improve the level and quality of feedback students receive on assessed work, student satisfaction in this area has increased to 82.7%

PRESIDENT

Ben Sundell “I just wanted to write

in to thank the team

for the microwave and hot water facilities

this year. Just found out about them and I

am extremely grateful and appreciative of the team’s efforts.

I’m certain many other

students feel the same.

Thank you for your hard work!”

- Student testimonal

Led by Education Officer Erin Davies, we also helped to secure extra study areas for students during Term 3, in centrally timetabled rooms, Westwood campus and spaces in the Rootes Restaurant and IATL.

Our Fees Working Group compiled a detailed paper asking the University for fixed international fees across all years of a student’s course, as well as capping fee-levels for postgraduate students in line with inflation – thus ensuring that fees are linked to quality, rather than prestige. Our critical Monash Report led to a new education strategy for the University’s overseas Alliance, which takes into account improved welfare & support services for students studying abroad and places a greater focus on e-learning to benefit the entire student community. We hosted Campaigns Conventions in Terms 1 & 2 to provide social, training and networking opportunities for students looking to get more involved in areas they are passionate about. We also hosted an Education Convention and the Warwick Universities Summit - a one-day conference on current issues in Higher Education. The SU published voter registration information for the European and Local Elections in Term 3 and the Police & Crime Commissioner Election over the summer holidays. We also took our Help Us Help You campaign ‘on tour’ in Term 2, with Sabbatical Officers and staff members hosting weekly mobile feedback sessions in different locations across campus and beyond. In the area of Environmental campaigns, we helped facilitate student-run initiatives such as the Student Switch-Off campaign and the Fossil-Free proposals, which aim to put pressure on the University to divest and diversify in their fuel and energy resources.

We also helped to negotiate a discount for Warwick Alumni on postgraduate fees for those looking to continue their studies here. The Warwick Taught Masters Scholarship scheme covered up to £7,050 towards tuition fees and was accompanied by a non-repayable bursary of £4000. The Union worked closely with the University to ensure that this cash reached those students who need it the most.

We supported the expansion of the PG Hub’s PhD Funding Mentoring Scheme to all University departments, helping to encourage candidates into PhD study. Following pressure from the SU, access to the PG Hub was granted to Medical Students, while we successfully pushed for the Merit mark for Masters courses to be standardised to 60 – bringing Warwick into line with the rest of the Higher Education sector and ensuring that our graduates aren’t placed at a disadvantage.

Perhaps our most notable PG-related campaign centred around the issue of fair pay for postgraduate students who teach. Following the collection of case studies and sustained pressure from Lucy Gill in a series of blog posts which gained national coverage in Times Higher Education, the Registrar hosted an open meeting for PGs who teach to discuss the issue, which was attended by 40+ students and represented the first time that the University had acknowledged the problem. 5 departments will now trial standardised recruitment procedures, while new University policy is to be introduced outlining how PGs who teach should be employed – this will include better training, mentoring, transparency of information on pay, recruitment methods and availability of opportunities, standardised job descriptions and proposals for preparation-time pay.

A better deal for postgraduate students Spearheaded by Postgraduate Officer Lucy Gill, the Students’ Union had a hugely successful year in the area of postgraduate representation. We helped secure 77 scholarships for postgraduate students from widening participation backgrounds – originally this was proposed to be just 50, but we pushed the University to find more money to continue this vital work.

POSTGRADUATE

OFFICER

Lucy Gill

In addition, our PG Office Space survey garnered over 150 responses from students to be used to improve access for postgraduates who teach, while we secured a discounted car parking rate for postgraduate teachers with the ability to pay monthly to further spread the cost. Lucy and the Student Advice Centre team also supported a number of students with disputes over holiday allocation and pay, as well as sitting on the panel of the WATEPGRs, which celebrate postgraduate teachers at Warwick.

PROMOTING A STRONG AND VIBRANT UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY

At Warwick SU, we aim to ensure that every student has the opportunity to take part in fun, community-building activities all year round – whether they’re starting University as a Fresher or returning as an existing member of the Warwick family. In addition to our programme of regular events such as Pop!, Skool Dayz, Crash, the Summer Party, Graduation Ball and Sports Ball, this year saw us introduce a series of new events including regular Coffee House Sessions (a nationally-curated touring acoustic showcase which featured future breakthrough artists Hudson Taylor), Curiositea Clothes Swap, jewellery-making workshops, Curiositea Cinema Club and a pumpkin-carving Halloween promotion at The Dirty Duck. In keeping with the ethos of regular events like Club Cardio, Un-Plucked, Quackstar Karaoke and the Cleverducks Pub Quiz, many of these retain a social focus which does not revolve around the consumption of alcohol. We also hosted special one-off events for the Super Bowl, Eurovision, the 2014 World Cup and the Chortle Student Comedy Awards, as well as providing advice, information and socialising opportunities for students staying on campus over the Christmas Vacation.

During 2013-14, Warwick SU helped to facilitate 230 student-run events on campus and beyond. In addition to large-scale events such as RAG Week, these individual activities cater to the overwhelming diversity of our student community and incorporate everything from One World Week to the Zombie Run, from Battle of the Bands to Good Food Society’s Cooking Classes. This year’s Societies Officer, Ant Scott, also set up Inter-Society Forums, in which groups of Presidents from similar societies could meet up and collaborate to deliver a range of different events for their members, including joint society balls. We are proud to help with the planning and organisation of various studentrun forums, society balls and other large-scale events for the benefit of the wider student community – prominent examples this year included the Warwick Economics Summit, TEDx Warwick, Warwick International Development Summit (WIDS), the Emerging Markets Forum, Warwick Student Arts Festival (WSAF) and One World Week. Once again, the achievements of our societies were celebrated

at our annual Societies Awards in Term 3, which saw showcase performances from Music Theatre Warwick (MTW), Big Band, and EQHO and Salsa Dancing societies.

Sports Officer Zoë Buckland introduced a regular Sportsperson of the Week award to celebrate students’ achievements throughout the year, as well as running a Mini Sports Fair in Term 2 for anyone who missed out during Freshers and overseeing the successful return of It’s a Knockout in Term 3. The SU also supported the enhanced Warwick Sport programme, including the Intra-Mural Leagues, Warwick Active events such as the Zombie Run (a huge success with over 240 participants) and the Hall Sports programme, which is bringing students together to create a greater community spirit on campus. Sport Allies, an exciting new initiative set up by students at Warwick, aims to promote inclusion and challenge homophobia in schools and universities, and has grown out of the international success of the “Warwick Rowers” calendar project. In Week 5 of Term 2, the SU held Sport Allies Week to help provide a visible platform for their aims and incorporate the LGTBUA+ community in an area which has previously be seen as exclusionary to some.

The Discover Disabled Sport day in Term 3 was also successful, with over 50 people taking part across 3 sessions. The Wheelchair Basketball Academy who ran one of these sessions entered a competition the following week to win £50,000 of funding towards an inclusivity project – the students who came along to Discover Disabled Sport really got behind this, and their votes in the competition ensured that this funding was ultimately secured to help hold wheelchair basketball taster sessions in local schools and Universities. Ensuring that we remain a Union for all students remains one of our highest priorities, and this year we took significant steps to addressing the isolation of postgraduate students by helping to build community and getting them involved in the Union. Following a detailed pre-arrivals communications plan which included information to all incoming PGs on the Postgraduate Officer, the Union and our Advice Centre’s services, we held a number of Postgraduate Association events, including a screening of The PhD Movie in Curiositea which 40 international PG students attended. At the start of Term 1 we hosted RExFest to 300 postgraduates, as well as mounting two successful ‘Welcome Drinks’ events which packed out The Terrace Bar. In addition to other PG-centred events such as The Graduate Bar opening, regular Skills Sessions, Politics Society Question Time, a Tour to Kenilworth with Real Ale and Advice Centre drop-ins, we co-ran welcome events in January and May in conjunction with the PG Hub & Graduate School – these were attended by 100 students and 70 students respectively.

THE

G R A D U AT E

The SU is pleased to announce that, following sustained efforts in this area, we have secured an Induction Programme for postgrads for the first time, which will be in place for the forthcoming academic year. Around 1500 students will be arriving on campus to take part in the programme, which current postgraduates can also join in with. Furthermore, we fully developed our plans for a PG social space in the Union, which opened in September 2014. In addition, wider awareness-raising events were held in conjunction with the Liberation community here at Warwick – prominent examples included Disability Awareness Week in Term 2 (which tied in with our awardwinning campaign on behalf of disabled students and incorporated the Discover Disabled Sport sessions) and Women’s Week, in which Warwick SU honoured female achievements throughout history and provided a chance to reflect on contemporary gender politics through slam poetry, music, film screenings and theatre.

SUPPORTING AND INFORMING STUDENTS ABOUT ISSUES AFFECTING THEIR LIVES

Community One of the SU’s major initiatives this year was our involvement with the Community Safety Partnership, an organisation which provides welfare support and safety measures for local residents during nights out. Our support of the Street Marshals Scheme in Leamington Spa proved particularly effective in helping to protect student welfare, with volunteers helping to walk people home at night, diffuse escalating situations, giving out welfare cards with useful information and providing a reassuring presence on the streets. The launch event in Term 1 was particularly successful, and was run in conjunction with the local Police to provide alcohol awareness advice and attended by members of the Sabbatical Officer and staff team to provide familiar faces. In Term 3, our Advice Centre team published their annual Moving Out Guides for students, which contained a wealth of information for students on such issues as housing deposits, returning to a property and community tidiness. This tied in with the return of our Leave Leam Tidy and Keep Cov Clean campaigns, which aim to encourage positive community relations by giving students helpful advice on noise reduction, waste disposal and recycling facilities in the local area. Sabbatical Officers and staff representatives also attended numerous local Community Forums throughout the year to respond to any concerns raised and provide a voice for students in discussions relating to the local area.

Housing Our annual Housing Day at the end of Term 1 saw over 1000 students come along to get advice on a range of accommodation issues, including house-hunting, letting agency fees, problem resolution and advice about the different local areas. This year also saw the return of our ‘Housing Horrors’ and ‘Community Snapshots’ photo competition, where students were encouraged to send in pictures of where they live to help guide other students in their accommodation choices. In the opening weeks of Term 1, we also held various support sessions for incoming postgraduate students who were affected by a Housing Crisis on campus. In addition to the Postgraduate Officer’s weekly surgeries in The Mighty Duck, 7 daily drop-in sessions were organised where 100 students received advice on how to find a house, meet potential housemates and gain more information about the local area and contracts. In total, we supported over 200 students who were left without accommodation at the start of term – as a result of these issues, we co-authored a paper containing anecdotal case studies which led to the Reservation Fee being renamed as the Application Fee, improvements to Warwick Accommodation website and securing 170 extra rooms for postgraduate students both on and off-campus. The housing pages continue to be the most-visited area of the Advice Centre’s website, and we are proud to be able to support students in all aspects of this key area of concern.

“I had a problem with Warwick Accommodation and was getting nowhere... then a knight in shining armour came to my rescue. THANK YOU SO MUCH! The Warwick SU Welfare team were able to quickly and effectively deal with my concern and within hours of emailing them had resolved the issue.” Student testimony –

Wellbeing Alongside our annual Feel Good campaign, which aims to improve students’ productivity during the stresses of exam season, this year we also ran a Mental Health Awareness Day in conjunction with student societies and local support services. Focusing on the fundamentals of maintaining good daily mental health, we teamed up with Warwick Mind Aware , Psychology Society, Warwick Meditation, the Aerobics club, Warwick LINKS, Photography Society, Warwick Glee, Codpiece Warwick, World@Warwick, Warwick Allotment Society and Animal Ethics Society, together with partners from the University mental health team, IAPT, the counselling service and the Chaplaincy to bring students a day of activities and information to improve their wellbeing. We also ran 3 free GUM Clinics per term in the SU – enabling over 340 students to get tested for sexually-transmitted infections in a convenient and confidential environment – and continued our What If… campaign, which encourages responsible drinking by advising students on issues connected to alcohol consumption.

Money In addition to our continued work supporting students with individual monetary claims (which saw us reclaim a total of £109,874 throughout the year), Term 2 saw us support and publicise National Student Money Week, in which we informed students about the various sources of advice available on campus and beyond in a bid to encourage our members to think constructively about their finances and improve their financial capability. This advice ranged from information on government student funding and money management and budgeting to debt, credit and benefits, together with the publication of an online budget calculator resource.

FEEL GOOD

TWENTYFOUR

number of women elected as Sabbatical Officers, constituting a female majority. NUMBER OF YEARS UNDEFEATED IN VARSITY FOLLOWING ANOTHER TOURNAMENT VICTORY!

10 NUMBER OF STUDENT F O R U M S

PLANNED

11 P e r c e n t

OUR YEAR IN NUMBERS: 2013-14

thirty-two n u m b er o f stu d ent ba lls h osted

50% AMOUNT THAT PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTSTAFF LIAISON COMMITTEE (SSLC) REPS GOT THE UNIVERSITY TO INCREASE FINAL-YEAR CONTACT TIME BY LAST YEAR.

101

100%

NUMBER OF STUDENT TOURS ORGANISED.

GUM

increase in number of Postgraduate students nominated for Student Council.

NUMBER OF VISITING SPEAKERS

WELCOMED BY SOCIETIES 700+ NUMBER OF SCHOOL PUPILS VISITED AS PART OF THE WARWICK INSPIRE SCHEME.

STUDENTS SEEN AT GUM CLINICS IN TERMS 1 & 2

2061

voter turnout for the Autumn Elections. This was better than our KPI of 1900 and 261 more votes than last year’s figure of 1800, marking a 15% increase.

3,974

340 – NUMBER OF

decrease in volume of waste produced by Warwick SU following implementation of enhanced recycling procedures.

THE NUMBER OF CLUB AND SOCIETY MONEY REQUESTS PROCESSED BY

109,874 Amount saved for students in Advice Centre casework (including one individual settlement of £ 25,000!)

7024 NUMBER OF STUDENT ENQUIRIES HANDLED BY THE ADVICE CENTRE

FINANCE IN 2013-14

£191,700

Amount of Society s p o n s o r s h i p b ro u g h t i n t h i s ye a r

12%

18 number of candidates increase

in number of students

signing up for Societies Federation memberships

24%

for Sabbatical positions in Officer Elections 2014.

in Term 1.

51 TOTAL NUMBER OF ITEMS ON THE XANANAS MENU FOLLOWING EXPANSION OF THEIR RANGE.

TOTAL STUDENT POPULATION VOTER TURNOUT IN OFFICER ELECTIONS (5524 INDIVIDUAL VOTES)

63% 54% Increase in number of Postgraduate students joining clubs and societies.

246 number of SSLC Reps trained 255 - THE NUMBER OF

1800

number of students who sat on Society Executive Committees (Execs) last year, helping to make Societies at Warwick the best they can be.

STUDENT SOCIETIES AT THE SU

10,949

number of individual students involved in one or more society.

£215,298.86

AMOUNT OF MONEY RAISED BY STUDENTS FO R C H A R I T Y I N 2 0 1 3 - 1 4

increase in student Minibus and Van Hire since last academic year.

number of students employed by Warwick SU

300

£2000 amount Freshers print costs were reduced by in Term 1 12,500 APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF FACEBOOK ‘LIKES’ OF WARWICK SU’S PAGE BY THE END OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR

354,127 NUMBER OF INDIVIDUAL VISITORS TO THE SU WEBSITE

24,577

Average number of baguettes sold each term in The Bread Oven

5,688,526 TOTAL NUMBER OF WEBSITE HITS THIS YEAR

4 TRANSFORMING STUDENTS’ LIVES AND ENHANCING EMPLOYABILITY

A selection of notable society achievements during the year included the following:

Student clubs and societies continue to engage their members in a wide range of fun and useful activities which change lives, enhance communities and come to define the University experience for many. Once again, we celebrated these achievements at sell-out Societies Awards and Sports Ball events in Term 3.

The Boar received the ‘Student Publication of the Year’ Award from Ones to Watch. Judge Lucy Sherriff of Huffington Post Students, said: “The Boar stood out as a winner for the amount of thought and effort put into producing exclusive content – including FOIs – as well as breaking news. Its content is intuitive and is really tailored towards a student audience.”

Nightline won the ‘Nightline of the Year’ Award at the charity’s national conference. Charity Development Manager Mags Godderidge said: “The awards ceremony recognises the exceptional dedication, commitment and success of our specially trained student volunteers who selflessly give their time to offer through-thenight support to other students. We are incredibly proud of all of them and their achievements”.

Warwick students picked up an impressive number of awards at the National Student Drama Festival, including trophies for Creative Risk, Ensemble Performance, Playwriting, Directing, Drama Criticism and Acting. Various individual Warwick students were shortlisted for NUS Awards, with Sport Allies and Emily Muir from Warwick Volunteers being nominated for the ‘Equality & Diversity’ and ‘Student of the Year’ Awards respectively.

Working closely with the Societies Officer and Sports Officer, our Membership Services team continued to expand the services and support we provide to members of Society Executive Committees. In addition to the inaugural Exec Handover Day in Term 2 (which saw over 400 students attending and led to a separate session the following term for Sports Clubs), we organised a series of Employability Workshops designed to help students help articulate to Graduate Employers how being on the Exec of a sports club or society has developed their employability or strengthened various skills that are valuable in the workplace. Warwick Rowing and Warwick Finance Society also delivered presentations at the launch of the Warwick Enterprise Partnership on how clubs and societies helped them develop their enterprise skills.

ial

Warwick Lacrosse broke a Guinness World Record for the longest marathon spent playing Lacrosse.

-S

tud

t en

For the first time, Duty of Care training was made available online in a video test format, which made these sessions more accessible than the previous model of a one-hour lecture in Term 1. This meant that over 290 students have now completed the training (compared to just 109 the year before), covering 196 clubs and societies.

“As the Festival Coordinator for the Warwick Student Arts Festival, I work with a team of students to organise, schedule and run a campus-wide event. Every day I'm surrounded by people brimming with ideas and creativity and I help to mould that. In June, when WSAF takes place and the hard work of our team pays off, everyone will have enhanced their transferable skills and hopefully learnt more about what they plan to do in the future. This all feeds into academic studies as well: improved time management, organisation and creative thinking to name a few skills improved by this extracurricular work.” - Emily Dunford, 2nd year English and Theatre undergraduate. This year, the Students’ Union employed a total of 300 students at any one time in a wide variety of roles in our outlets, bars, nightclub, Reception and membership support services, together with offering a range of volunteering opportunities in the SU Advice Centre and further supporting Warwick Volunteers. Through programmes like Warwick Inspire and Love Community, we offer students the chance to give something back to the local area, in turn enhancing their employability and transferrable skills while further developing them as individuals.

“As a s Warwic tudent, wor kin k month SU over the g for past experie s has been a fanta six nce in stic with m terms of c onnect y Union the ins ing and lea a r n n d in outs o charity f how g o p e th ra day ba sis. I h tes on a day e op t Entert ainmen e to go into o th ts gradua tion, so industry af e ter th been a n incre is degree, ha dibly be s opport n e f ic unity f or me ial - Molly !” M cIntyr e, stud (Enter tainme ent staff m e nts As sistant mber )

Careers Our Marketing and Student Activities teams also worked with the University’s Careers & Skills department and various external companies to promote graduate and work experience opportunities for students. A selection of the events and companies hosted this year include:

DELIVERING A STRONG, EFFECTIVE AND SUSTAINABLE ORGANISATION Student clubs and societies continue to engage their members in a wide range of fun and useful activities which change lives, enhance communities and come to define the University experience for many. Once again, we celebrated these achievements at sell-out Societies Awards and Sports Ball events in Term 3.

“Warwick SU really should be commended for such a fantastic result in the NUS Green Impact Awards, and fully deserves its Gold. It’s great to work with such a committed team of people at this organisation, who consistently work so hard to ensure that we are more sustainable and eco-friendly in our building, and together as a student body.” – Ben Sundell, SU President

In addition to displaying statistics, information and data on the SU’s environmental impact on our website, we were also proactive in pushing the Fossil Free Fuels motion following its passing by student vote at ASM in Term 2. This was subsequently raised in University committee, while Democracy & Development Officer Cosmo March helped to arrange further meetings with University Finance Management. Ultimately, a petition and supporting letter was presented to University Registrar Ken Sloan by Sabbatical Officers and representatives of People & Planet society.

Cosmo March Democracy & Development Officer

Students and Officers further demonstrated their commitment to local environmental issues by taking part in a Canal Clean-Up operation in Leamington Spa as part of the SU’s Love Community programme. This is vital work which we are proud to be a part of, since it not only helps to improve the local area for the better, but also enhances the perception of students within it.

community Following the hard work of SU Campaigns Coordinator Jack Mason and Disabled Students Officer Sam Fry, we were proud to be named winners of the NUS Disabled Students’ Campaign of the Year Award 2014. The prize normally recognises one outstanding campaign - however, Mr Fry said that it was the vast quantity of initiatives that led to Warwick’s success, including the establishment of Warwick Enable (a new society which creates a support network for disabled students, their friends and enablers), Disability Awareness Week and Discover Disabled Sport, alongside campaigns for the Two Tick Scheme, disabled access on buses, awareness on ATOS and University campus accessibility.

“Issues affectin disabled s g tuden are now mo ts talked abo re ut and the SU is doing a much bette r j at address ob ing issues tha t affect dis abled students.”

Sam Fry SU Disabled Students Officer

This year, we moved our annual student Book Sale to an online facility, enabling students to buy and sell used textbooks through the SU website. This is linked to a wider system whereby students can now purchase books for their course centrally from a variety of sources – either new or used. The main advantage of this is that students can now sell at their own convenience all year round, while also reducing the amount of administrative activity needed to support a physical book sale, eradicating the problem of unclaimed textbooks and responding to students’ feedback regarding queues and accessibility at a stand-alone book sale.

Following a number of challenges in this area throughout the year, the SU updated its Equal Opportunies Policy, as well as reviewing our ByLaws and practices to ensure that we are properly supporting each of our members. We undertook the following steps to re-affirm our race equality practices and strengthen our Equality & Diversity policies:

The Societies Strategy Review was an extensive piece of work in which many members of staff, Societies Committee, society execs and Sabbatical Officers were consulted in a bid to review our current service provision and make recommendations for improvements. As a result of this research, we recruited a third Societies Co-ordinator to expand the capacity in this department, and will be giving out more grants to societies through the budget application process.

1. Provided training and guidance for societies

We also undertook a number of measures behind the scenes to improve our services for students, often dealing with new legal developments such as Auto-Enrolment for staff pensions. These included:

and clubs on dealing with incidents of discrimination and conflict.

All club and society execs undertook revised mandatory Equality & Diversity training and were reminded of their responsibilities under By-Laws 11 & 12.

3. Developed a Social Media Policy reflecting issues of Equality & Diversity.

4. Continued our Equality and Diversity Training for all staff, with the aid of the Institute of Diversity.

5. Revised the Equal Opportunities By-Law to ensure that it is up to date. This was done in consultation with relevant societies to ensure that these revisions are meaningful and relevant to member needs.

1. Further developing our subsidiary businesses to diversify income sources beyond those supplied by our members, thus enabling us to continually deliver services for them to the best of our ability.

2. In recognition of the cost of living issue for many students, offering a range of new cheaper food and drink offers at The Dirty Duck, as well as introducing ‘Cheep Cheep Sarnies’ in The Bread Oven for students on a budget.

3. Taking steps to make charity collections easier

6. Developed a new Equality and Diversity

for students.

strategy and explored the feasibility of working with “Investors in Diversity” to become an accredited organisation.

4. Increasing our training spend and staff numbers

Following an inspection, we were pleased to be reaccredited as employers by Investors in People. The final report yielded particularly positive feedback from the student staff the Assessor met with, who mentioned how well we managed their recruitment processes, assessment stages, induction, training and probationary period. The report also highlighted how flexible we are as an organisation and how well we treat staff.

to better support our members in all their various activities.

5. Undertaking a Reward Review for all staff members.

6. Revising our Complaints Procedure for all customers.

7. Carrying out our annual member research survey, Help Us Help You.

8. Achieving all key financial indicators (stock takes, waste, till differences, reserves and debtor management), and giving regular feedback on our finances to University Council.

9. Achieving 5-Star Hygiene Ratings in all outlets.

The Sabbs 13/14

ERIN DAVIES Education Ofﬁcer

r AN CAT TURH ampaigns Ofﬁce &C Welfare

BEN SUNDELL Warwick Su President

ZOË BUC KL Sports O AND fﬁcer

COSMO MA RCH Democracy & Developme nt Ofﬁcer

TT ANT SCO Ofﬁcer Societies

We would like to thank all the staff, officers and students who contributed to another successful year here at Warwick Students’ Union – we couldn’t have done it without you!

LUCY G ILL Postgra dua

te Ofﬁc