Impact Report 2014
40% MORE
185,471 HITS ON UWSU.COM (SINCE ITS AUGUST RE-LAUNCH)
2013 250 TRAINED 3 1st SOCIETIES
THAN IN
COURSE REPS
STUDENTS’ UNION TO CREATE A BUZZFEED QUIZ
WELFARE CASES
96
204
SNAPCHATS SENT TO STUDENTS
15
STUDENT BAR
STAFF EMPLOYED
11000 PINTS SMOKE TV VIEWS
190 22 NATIONAL STUDENT RADIO AWARD NOMINATIONS FRESHERS’
FORTNIGHT
EVENTS
SOLD 154,314
152
FANS TRAINED SMOKE RADIO CREW MEMBERS
156
SMOKE TV CREW RECEIVED MEMBERS
£10,000 IN BIG
LOTTERY FUNDING
2
IMPACT REPORT 2014
SOCIETY SIGN-UPS DURING FRESHERS
6,610
Contents
Message from the President
P2
Important statistics
P3
Message from the President
P4
Matrix
P5
It is easy to forget sometimes the importance of the wider university experience as students become focused on their academic studies. It is also easy to think that because UWSU doesn’t have a big flashy building with lots of venues and facilities that we aren’t doing lots of things to help our students.
Societies
P6
Undercroft Bar & Events
P7
Refreshers Fair & Retail
P8
Student Media
P9
Website & Going that extra mile
P10
Regent & Harrow President
P11
Great Start project
P12 -13
Sport
P14
Marylebone & Cavendish President
P15
Welfare
At UWSU we are constantly striving to engage with all our members, make them feel part of a community, support them in their academic ambitions and ensure we are able to continue to improve and deliver as an organisation. This report outlines how we did that last year. Whilst we are always striving to do better I am proud that we can share how we are reaching out and touching the lives of many of our members.
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Measuring our success Breadth and Depth - How do we compare? We have identified some of our key activities over the course of the report and plotted them on a breadth and depth matrix. The further right along the graph the more students our work has impact and the further up the graph the deeper that impact.
Life Changing
(Complete course, get job, meet partner)
Major Improvement
to course and quality or life whilst studying.
Positive Impact
(On life as a student)
96 welfare cases
ÂŁ50k prize for student entrepreneurs
Employed ?? student staff
Increased opportunities and better support for student volunteers
Mind your Mates training
Gave out ?? awards at the awards ball
Just Say It Survey influences SU strategy
Freshers week and welcome events
FANS and Great Start
Advice Service at site of study
Increase in Societies activity
Welfare Team launch
Diversity month events
Course based societies supporting students
Increase in sporting activity
Enabling course reps to make changes on course
SSA lead activity
SSA lead events
Good Service
(Students get a well delivered service)
NUS extra card sales
(Listening to students and helping them)
Some students
0-100 students around the university
IMPACT REPORT 2014
Better food service and event at Undercroft
Improved Comms about our activities
Course Rep training
22 candidates for elections
Listening & Helping
4
Better deals and offers at the shops
A department
A department or 101-500 student throughout the university
An entire school
or similar numbers throughout the university
A year group / campus
or similar numbers throughout the university
All students
Societies Societies are important to us at UWSU as they are about creating and supporting communities for you to be part of as well as being great places for students to demonstrate leadership and many other vital employability skills. Our societies went from strength to strength in 2014! Not only did they increase by quantity (the year ended with 91 registered societies up from 65 the previous year) but many of our societies organised quality events. The Debating Society hosted 30 teams from around the country in their ‘Westminster Open’ competition, whilst the WestMUN Society had their first international conference attracting 18 participating universities and institutions! Our Centre for Performing Arts enjoyed another year of success - the Drama Society headed to Edinburgh Fringe Festival with their adaptation of Alice In Wonderland, whilst the Choral Society performed at the University’s 175th anniversary celebrations at Westminster Abbey. The Business Society also organised their fantastic ‘Speak Out’ event at the House of Commons, just one of their many achievements that led to them winning the ‘Society of the Year’ award at the UWSU Awards 2014.
311
6,610
BOOKINGS
FRESHERS
ROOM
SIGN-UPS
IN
40%
MORE
SOCIETIES THAN
2013
2.6 TIMES MORE
ACADEMIC SOCIETIES
Collaboration Our societies are continuing to work together to meet new students and increase their respective memberships. • Last year the Anime Society worked with the Film Society to hold their first Harrow Campus event, doubling their membership to 400+. • The Comedy and Student Minds Societies held a stand-up comedy night with Comedian Dave Chawner sharing his experiences of an eating disorder. • The societies within the Centre of Performing Arts put on a spectacular sell-out 20s themed variety show.
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Undercroft
Events
Having a community space on a residential campus is important to UWSU. Our bar is not about profit or even about selling drinks. It is about providing social space for our members to come together and share their university experience. We continue to work hard to improve the Undercroft bar, with not just a new paint-job and new furniture, but a pizza oven! Since we launched our new food menu in September we have served over 2000 fresh hot meals, including pizzas, chips and wraps. (With gluten free options
Our events are about providing a safe space for our members to come together and enjoy/celebrate being a Westminster student. The events team have headed in a total new direction over the last year, spoiling students with boat parties, Freshers’ Finales, secret parties, Thorpe Park trips, and trips abroad, the list goes on! Lots of event companies that target students are solely in the business to make as much profit as possible, whereas our mission was set to prevent financial loss at the cost to students. We have come on leaps and bounds in terms of financial control of all of our events, with one of our biggest successes being September’s Freshers’ Finale in September 2014, headlined by Wretch 32, where he performed his single ‘6 Words’ live for the first time. We have a committed student team working on the delivery of events, from throwing ideas onto the drawing board, working on booking the acts and venues to working closely with full time staff on tight budget control.
D
G FRES H
22
E
’ F O R T NI G H
IMPACT REPORT 2014
IN R U
RS
6
D L O S UT O
• 200 BLOCK PASSES • 500 BAR CRAWL TICKETS • 900 FRESHERS’ FINALE TICKETS EV ENTS
The bar employs over 15 student staff every year, and aid them with their career progression through continuous training in customer service and skills based training behind the bar. All staff also get involved in event management of the bar, working on health and safety along with risk assessments.
T!
available!)
Four fantastic Freshers’Fairs “Every year they pull it out of the bag and get bigger and better - we’re very much looking forward to 2015’s Freshers’ Fair!” Ace Card (one of our regular stallholders)
• 4 FAIRS OVER 4 SITES • ATTENDED BY 50 EXTERNALS (INC. 15 CHARITIES) • 5000 GOODY BAGS HANDED OUT • 35 STUDENTS EMPLOYED TO WORK DURING FAIRS • 9000 FREE BOTTLES OF VITAMIN WATER GIVEN OUT
The UWSU shops students wanted, so we delivered... • LOWER MINIMUM ON CARD PAYMENTS (£2) • UP TO £30 CASH-BACK ON DEBIT CARDS • NEW BRANDED CLOTHING RANGE • NOW STOCKING A RANGE OF IPHONE LEADS AND PLUGS • PLUS: 5 ‘VERY GOOD’ SCORES ON THE DOORS FROM BRENT FOOD SAFETY AND HYGIENE ACT 1990
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Smoke Radio
Making waves in 2014
Smoke Radio is not just about playing music for students it is about a sense of identity and community and more importantly it provides vital employability skills for those people who get involved.
• • • • • • •
This year has been incredibly successful for Smoke Radio. The continued commitment and enthusiasm of their volunteers is reflected in their excellent output and engagement with students both online and on air. This year they have worked hard to become an integrated part of student life at Westminster. Smoke Radio now broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week with daytime, specialist music, and speech programming. They are often the first to report on news events that are important to students and hold both the Students’ Union and University to account.
Smoke TV Stats Smoke TV have enjoyed another year of success! More minutes of content have been watched than ever, with coverage of student protests being picked up by 37 international news organisations. It’s no surprise then that crew numbers surged, and with plans in place for an executive board in 2015, watch this space!
154,314 VIEWS 14.2% MORE MINUTES WATCHED (THAN 2013) 152 CREW MEMBERS (116 IN 2013)
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IMPACT REPORT 2014
Cavendish Campus Studio launched. Started a monthly ‘society takeover’. Launched weekend programming. Foreign language programming. Took part in BBC 6Music’s ‘University Challenged’. Brought home 3 national Student Radio Award nominations. Took 50 students to the national SRA Conference.
First class coverage • • • • • • • •
International Women’s Day National Student Pride UWSU Elections Coffee House Sessions SRA Training Day MAD-fest Varsity Freshers’ Fortnight
A NEW WEBSITE, A NEW WEB TEAM, AND SOME GREAT NEW STATS! Our web and social media presence is the only place where all Westminster students can ‘be together’ and it is important that we continue to invest and grow what we do on those platforms. In August 2014, we launched a brand new uwsu.com just in time for A Level results day. Thousands of views quickly followed, making uwsu.com a great attraction for advertising. We also launched our Snapchat account, which we used to tease clues to the location of our Secret Party event. This led to 6581 views on uwsu.com on the day we were teasing clues, a 432% increase on the daily average for that period. We also became the first Students’ Union in the UK to create a Buzzfeed quiz!
• 185,471 WEBSITE VIEWS (SINCE AUGUST) • 28,931 WEBSITE USERS • 26% INCREASE IN INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS • BUZZFEED QUIZ COMPLETED 1,371 TIMES • 204 SNAPS SENT ON SNAPCHAT • 36% INCREASE IN TWITTER FOLLOWERS • 24% INCREASE IN FACEBOOK FOLLOWER
GOING THE EXTRA MILE TO PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS IN 2014
GIVE IT A GO! - Founded our ‘GIVE IT A GO’ scheme, offering a new running club in partnership with GoodGym. UWSU TO THE DAM! - Sold out our Amsterdam trip. (With a massive demand for extra places which we managed to obtain.) WESTMINSTER START-UP! - An exciting opportunity for students to receive up to £50,000 backing for their business. WESTMINSTER FILM FORUM! - The inaugural WFF gave our many talented filmmakers the chance to showcase their skills.
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10
Muaz Mahmoud
Rianne Gordon
VP OF REGENT AND LTS
VP OF HARROW
I’d like to say that my best quality in this job is organizing events that cater to the wide-ranged student population. In 2014 I organised the first ever Culture Festival that Westminster has ever seen. It was a joyful event where students AND staff came down, had a laugh, filled there stomachs and learned something new about another culture. I couldn’t of done it without my amazing new diverse group of volunteering students - my Site Student Association (SSA). Other exciting events we organised was the two Open Mic events, attracting all sorts of talents to Regent Street from all campuses. We also did the Syria Debate which proved to be controversy at its best! An Eid Party was organised too to cater to the thousands of Muslim students across campus. On a more academic level, the campaign of more one-on-one visits with dissertation advisers has been achieved, as well as the massive campaign to achieve Recorded Lectures across the entire SSH Faculty. In terms of facilities for students, the lockers seem to be a main attraction on campus as you’ll rarely find an empty one - this calls for an expansion! Water fountains have successfully been installed on the upper second, third and fourth floors. Last but I hope not least, we have a new Games Room in Wells Street situated at B.03 with a new pool table coming soon!
This year has been very busy for me and the SSA Harrow team. Kick starting the term with a successful Freshers’ social media competition encouraging students to post up their Freshers’ Fortnight journey using #SoHarrowItHurts (check it out on Instagram), two events: Beach Party and Harroween, two campaigns: housing and sexual assault awareness and regular collaborations with the Smoke Radio team by way of a monthly ‘takeover’ on their airwaves. It certainly was a great start for the team; we are still seeing the fruits of our labour in an enhanced campus community in Harrow. I have been leading on the recruitment of our first Green Impact Champion. This Champion will be applying pressure on the Union to make positive changes to help us to greenify. I have been meeting with Sabbatical Officers at other Unions to share best practice and to discuss how we can work collectively on issues our institutions both face. This has proven to be really useful as it means that UWSU is part of the national conversation about things affecting the wider student movement. No longer are we a completely internally thinking Union! I have also attended various training days/sessions facilitated by NUS to become a more effective Sabb for the Students of Westminster, being able to resolve issues and appease concerns with greater efficiency and confidence. I am developing as a Sabb as it will mean I am a greater representative of my constituency.
IMPACT REPORT 2014
THE GREAT START PROJECT UWSU identified that welcoming our new students is vital to their success. In 2012 it worked with the university to create the Great Start project. The most visible part of that project is FANS (Friends of Arriving New Students). UWSU recruits, selects and trains a team of FANS each year to greet each new student and give them the warm, personal, welcome they deserve when arriving at the University of Westminster. From getting students up to speed with Blackboard, to helping them plan their social life, for the past 3 years FANS have been crucial to easing students into this exciting new chapter in their lives.
100%
OF NEW STUDENTS
ASSIGNED A FAN “FANS was a great opportunity to not only help new student into their f irst uni experience but a great opportunity to meet other uni students” “Thank you for creating the ‘FANS’. I had a great experience.”
190 FANS TRAINED! 40 STUDENTS LOOKED AFTER PER FAN RE-
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IMPACT REPORT 2014
UWSU Sports Getting involved in sports is good for the body and mind but research also shows it is good for your degree and your employability. Being part of the sporting community not only allows you to enjoy your chosen sport but instantly engage with a support network for many other areas of your student life. 2014 was yet another phenomenal year for UWSU’s famous Dragons! From the Men’s Badminton club win their league in their first year of competing (without losing a single match, may we add), to the Futsal team heading to Sweden to learn from the great Stockholm Futsal club, UWSU’s sports teams have continued to do us proud. The Futsal team wasn’t the only one to go international.
• 1200 SPORTS CLUB MEMBERS REGISTERED • 12 PLACES WERE MOVED UP THE BUCS LEAGUE TABLE • 30 SPORTS CLUBS REGISTERED • THERE WAS A 200% INCREASE IN INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION ENTRIES • A RECORD 5 CLUBS WON THEIR RESPECTIVE LEAGUE TITLES
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Usman Mahmood
Jayesh Gohil
VP OF CAVENDISH
VP OF MARYLEBONE
Semester one has been a great start for me in my new role! A variety of changes are taking place from improving campus facilities, boosting employability, great awareness of course reps and creating more course based societies than before. We have pushed to make the Students’ Union wider reaching through a variety of campaigns and events. The first campaign was around Black history month which took on three events. Overall, I received a great response for my first campaign. Social media interaction was great at the event, which supported the diverse range of students within the university. Strong support of course reps through forums has allowed students to have a greater awareness of the Students’ Union and what they do. It has meant students feel more supported by attending course rep forums and meetings. I have worked strongly with the library to offer students initiatives that support through their academic work. I have been able to carry out workshops as planned through the ‘Get The Digital Edge’ program, whereby I delivered three workshops across the campuses to show the benefits of an effective Linkedin profile. I’ve pushed for a greater focus on employability through setting up ‘Career Links’, a brand that focuses on improving the employability for students. Our first event took place with the support of the Accounting and Management Society and Law Society. The event gained great feedback and received a good turnout!
The 2014/15 academic year has been already been busy to say the least! At the start of the year, one of my goals was to bring lockers onto campus which at the start of 2015 has happened; a big win for the students at Marylebone. Another one of my goals for the year was to improve the quality and number of laptops available to borrow from the library on campus. Again 2015 started brightly as 200 new laptops were bought and placed equally on each campus so that students have up to date machines they can borrow from the library to complete their work with. Something the Director of Learning and Teaching, and myself have worked on this year is bringing a set of Professional Principles into action. The Professional Principles has 8 different factors, to be Responsible, Respectful, Clear, Punctual, Engaged, Informed, Prepared, & Developing. A poster of the principles has been plastered across the Marylebone site, and promo events that took place last seminar. Student Pride is taking place again honourably at the University of Westminster from Feb 27th - March 1st 2015. It should be another massive event for Westminster and a great opportunity for the Students’ Union to get involved. Another major point that popped up during last semester was the fact that feedback wasn’t taken in by tutors quick enough to make amendments during the year. So I got together with a tutor from WBS who created ‘Real Time Feedback’ and practiced it on her MA students. It worked very well so after talking to the Student Engagement lead in WBS, we will be taking this to UG level too and piloting it in one of the larger courses available. This way students can express their thoughts and feelings much more regularly to the benefit of the tutor.
IMPACT REPORT 2014
In the past year we have found resource to be able to deliver a Welfare service at each campus putting independent support and guidance in a place where you study. But as well as providing you with one to one support the team also look at how we can pro-actively make university life better for you. UWSU’s Welfare department celebrated huge success in October, as it was awarded £10,000 in funding to prevent suicide and bullying with the ‘Mind Your Mates’ sessions. Extra good news came when the London Evening Standard covered the story on page two, no less! The sessions aimed to reinvent the focus of mental health onto education and training, by explaining to staff and students how to intervene and offer support. UWSU Welfare Manager Ade Banjoko said “By highlighting the issue of suicide prevention we are making it possible for people to talk about a subject that we tend to avoid talking about”.
HOT OFF THE PRESS: UWSU WIN £10K LOTTERY STUDENT FEEDBACK: “Very helpful. I feel like suicide is less of a ‘don’t go there’ subject” STAFF FEEDBACK: “I realised I am a resilient person, however I still have my ‘down’ moments and I think I know better how to deal with these now”
WELFARE 250 COURSE REPS TRAINED 250 MIND YOUR MATES SESSIONS PROVIDED EACH CAMPUS NOW HAS IT’S OWN ADVISOR 96 WELFARE CASES TAKEN ON (SINCE SEPT)
ANOTHER YEAR OF SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGNS: In October, Harrow VP Rianne launched her housing campaign. It’s now feeding into a wider, pan-London campaign to begin to tackle the common challenges students face with housing whilst studying. In November, we launched our Sexual Assault Awareness campaign. It aimed to tackle common myths and to empower students to report behaviour which is prohibited.
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Regent Street Campus 309 Regent Street London W1B 2HW Telephone: 020 7911 5000 ext (65454) Marylebone Campus 35 Marylebone Road London NW1 5LS Telephone: 020 7911 5000 ext (65070) Harrow Campus Watford Road Northwick Park Harrow HA1 3TP Telephone: 020 7911 5000 ext (68197) Cavendish Campus 115 New Cavendish Street London W1W 6XH Telephone: 020 7911 5000 ext (67059) Little Titchfield Street Campus 4-12 & 16 Little Tichfield Street London W1W 7BY Telephone: 020 7911 5000 ext (65454) Wells Street Campus 32-38 Wells Street London W1T 3UW Telephone: 020 7911 5000 ext (65454) Email: uwsuadmin@westminster.ac.uk
@westminstersu
Web: www.uwsu.com