1 – QUICK FACTS & FIGURES 2 – WHO ARE WE? 3 – YUSU’S CEO
CONTENTS
20 – VOLUNTEERING PROJECTS 21 – STUDENT SAFETY 22 – WELL-BEING
4 – STUDENT VOICE
12 – YUSU DEVELOPS
23 – WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO
5 – STUDENT VOICE: VOTING
13 – GIVE IT A GO
24 – COMMUNITY & WELLBEING
6 – STUDENT VOICE: SABBS
14 – STARS WINNERS
25 – MARKETING & COMMS
7 – STUDENT VOICE CONT.
15 – YUMAS WINNERS
26 – YUSU FOOD & DRINK SPOTS
8 – EXCELLENCE AWARDS
16 – LOVEYORK AWARDS
27 – FINANCIAL UPDATES
9 – ACTIVITIES & OPPS
17 – YORK SPORT & ROSES
28 – LOOKING AHEAD
10 – ATTENTION ON ACTIVITIES
18 – YORK SPORT & ROSES CONT.
29 – LOOKING AHEAD CONT.
11 – SOCIETY SUBSCRIPTIONS
19 – OUR COMMUNITY: RAG
SUMMER BALL TICKETS SOLD
OVER
£2000 RAISED FOR BEAT AND STUDENT MINDS
89%
£1650
ELECTION VOTER TURNOUT
NOMINATIONS SUBMITTED FOR EXCELLENCE AWARDS
369
OF STUDENTS ARE PROUD TO ATTEND U OY! 1
FOR ‘BEST BAR NONE’ IN OUR YUSU VENUES AWARDED
3500
31%
SPENT ON ACTIVITIES ACCESS GRANTS
100%
QUICK FACTS AND FIGURES
*Please note some figures have been rounded to the nearest whole number
WHO ARE WE ? 74% students agree that YUSU is run for, with and by students and is focused on the needs of students. Welcome! We’re YUSU, a charity affiliated with the NUS, who are run for, with and by you, the student body. Comprised of staff, Sabbatical Officers, student-staff and hundreds of Academic Representatives across every University department, we aim to support you throughout your studies and make sure you love your time at York! How can we help you? In term 2, you will have the opportunity to fill out The Big Student Survey. You can tell us how you feel about YUSU, which will inform what we do in the future!
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2018/19 was an exciting year for YUSU in many ways. We opened 3 new venues which have performed well in their first year, allowing us to release some capital to invest in them for the future. We have paid out our largest ever amount of grant funds in a single year, investing over £175,000 of funding into sports clubs, societies, student media, volunteering projects, liberation groups and fundraising activities which help students develop, influence and make new friends.
YUSU’s
CEO
BEN VULLIAMY
We organised home Roses, Europe’s largest inter-sport varsity tournament, and saw wider and more positive community engagement with the tournament than ever. Our student sports teams and athletes responded well and York won Roses yet again. We secured a record election turnout and generated a more diverse student sabbatical and part time officer team than in previous years, with far stronger female representation from our officers for the future. We have worked closely with the University on recruiting a new Vice Chancellor, with student focus groups contributing to the process, elected officers on recruitment panels and briefings with candidates and recruitment consultants. This shifts our institutional relationship and allows us to start to evolve a stronger culture of student engagement by the union and the University.
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But we must also acknowledge that it was a challenging year in a variety of respects. Democracy and politics is an increasingly combative space. Trust in government, charities and public bodies is at an all-time low across the country and the Western world. Generating a consensus in and around policy debates is increasingly complex. The value-for-money agenda is pushing us to generate more income from our trading activity while paying higher salaries, ensuring better standards and reducing the cost to our students. The absence of a fit-forpurpose student centre building on campus is increasingly evident as our student population grows and they look for the spaces and facilities that can enable their lifestyles and relationships to flourish. We recognise that we don’t have the resources that many of our benchmark students unions do, particularly in regards to physical space. While that is frustrating for the union’s members, it does contribute to a sense of enterprise and creativity which we should try to harness. Despite our lack of resources in comparison to comparator institutions, our students want to engage in our student groups, want us to deliver bigger and harder hitting campaigns, want us to develop better venues, provide more student jobs and distribute more grant funding and we must do our best to meet that expectation.
STUDENT VOICE 430 nominations and 2027 votes for Course Rep elections. (the highest number of online votes YUSU has ever received!) 30 Department Reps. 343 Course Reps. 57% of students believe that YUSU effectively represents them. First female University Challenge team member in 5 years! 4
Here at YUSU, we feel strongly about your right to vote - whether that is nationally, locally or within your Students’ Union. We use a Single Transferable Voting system, which enables students to rank their candidates, meaning that the elected Officers are more representative of the voters’ preferences.
The 2017/18 elections were a new record, with a 30% voter turnout, but this year we beat it! We saw a record voting turnout of 6,140 votes for our new officers - that’s 31% of students at the University of York!
STUDENT VOICE
For every vote cast, YUSU and the University donated 50p to charity! 25p went to YUSU RAG Charities (World Child Cancer, Action Against Hunger and local charity Snappy), and 25p went to the Equal Access Scholarship fund for asylum seekers.
V TING 5
STEPH HAYLE
FINN JUDGE
JAMES DURCAN
JAMES HARE
ZAC SHEPPARD
COMMUNITY & WELLBEING OFFICER
ACTIVITIES OFFICER
YUSU PRESIDENT
ACADEMIC OFFICER
YORK SPORT PRESIDENT
2018/19
STUDENT VOICE SABBS 6
An important part of representation here at YUSU are our elected Officers. That’s our Sabbs, Part-time Officers and Academic Reps, who all work incredibly hard alongside staff to represent the student body across different areas of the Union. With this in mind, our Student Voice team ran a week-long campaign designed to support students from liberation backgrounds to run for positions of power, both within the University and outside of it. This campaign also raised awareness of the barriers faced by these students to a wider demographic and began those conversations of support and solidarity!
One of our most prominent projects run in the 2018/19 academic year revolved around our Working Class Officers. In partnership with our Student Voice team, the Working Class Officers and members of the Working Class Students’ Network have been using participatory action research to reflect on their experiences of university, identify issues that affect them and explore ways to address them. An article published in ‘WonkHE’ by our own Student Voice and Insight Manager, Nick Glover explored this topic further. He highlights that in York, like other Student Unions’ with liberation Officers for BAME, LGBTQ, Women’s and Non-Binary, and Disabled students, there are always debates about the validity of “identity politics” bubbling away in different ways. The debate around the introduction of Working Class Officers was no different, with questions over whether this would break down divisions or in fact worsen them. Last year we saw the election of our first Working Class Part Time Officers, joining the ranks of Manchester SU and LSE SU, with Connor Drake and Sean Price-Regan assuming the positions. We received £5000 in Widening Participation funding from the University to help build a Working Class Students’ Network and commissioned a community researcher to work with the officers on a participatory action research (PAR) project, with the broad aim of creating a space for exploring, sharing and collecting working class student stories. Our Part Time Officers wanted to start the conversation about working class experiences. “A conference we called “York Has Class” was a key success for the network. And for YUSU, this work has also opened up deeper questions about what WP looks like in an SU context – how can we critically address, champion and support the participation of underrepresented students in sports, student media, and student politics”.
Nick Glover, Student and Insight Manager, ‘Should SUs elect a Working Class Officer?’, wonkhe.com
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STUDENT VOICE
RESULTS Teacher of the Year
EXCELLENCE
Winner: Peter O’Brien (Chemistry) Highly Commended: Phil Lightfoot (Physics)
AWARDS 3 6 9
PhD Research Supervisor of the Year Winner: Penny Spikins (Archaeology) Highly Commended: Claire Chambers (English)
N O M I N AT I O N S
Unsung Hero of the Year
The Excellence Awards enable students to celebrate the work of staff across the University of York who have a positive impact on their academic experience. Entirely student-led, the Awards recognise the teachers and staff who are making an outstanding contribution to students’ lives.
Winner: Jenny Smith (Cookies) Highly Commended: Jay-Jay Luckmann, Steve Foster, Andrew Hunter, Matt Brannan (Technician Team, TFTV)
Here are just a few of our winners...
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Promoting Equality and Diversity Winner: Sara De Jong (Politics) Highly Commended: Edward Robson (SPSW)
Supporting Accessibility Winner: Walter Van Opstal (Space & Accommodation, Directorate of Estates & Campus Services) Highly Commended: Mariana Lopez (TFTV)
Championing Careers Winner: Amanda Barnes (Biology) Highly Commended: Fabien Baugard (Management)
65% of students participated in YUSU sport club or society! We think Student Opportunities at York offer something for everyone and are a really great way to make friends, learn new skills and gain new experience.
ACTIVITIES OPPORTUNITIES
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100 lower-income students received a subsidy from our Access Grant! In order to ensure cost is not a barrier to participation we developed our Access Grant to widen participation from students from low income backgrounds in our opportunities.
University isn’t just about your degree and getting involved in activities outside of studying certainly shouldn’t just be for those who can afford it. Our Activities Officer for the 2018/19 academic year, Finn Judge, gained a major win for YUSU in introducing and advocating for Activities Access Grants. aimed to make it easier for students from lowerincome backgrounds to have the same access to societies and other opportunities as everyone else. First year students with a household income of under £35,000 per year could apply for up to £20 of funding to cover the cost of joining one or more YUSU student groups. An amazing £1650 was spent on these grants and student group membership fees were subsidised for 100 lower-income students! Watch this space for future funding!
ATTENTION ON
Beneficiaries of the Activities Access Grants:
[It has] taken another financial burden off the cards… The grant allows you to have some fun without worrying where the funds will come from.
ACTIVITIES
The best thing my Activities Access Grant has enabled me to do is feel part of a lovely group of people.
Societies, clubs, media groups and volunteering projects enable our students to find like-minded groups and friends, feel included and represented and have fun! We have over 200 diverse student groups, meaning that everyone has the chance to find something they love!
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The subscription fee you pay to join a society goes directly to your society! Some Students’ Unions keep a percentage of that money, but not us! Every penny goes straight back to your society and helps your committee to run the group throughout the year.
Slam Society
Here are just some of our amazing societies and what they’ve been doing...
The York Anti-Trafficking Society
The Bangladesh Society
Winners of ‘Society of the Term’ and the first society to win all 4 STAR awards! Inclusivity, Development, Engagement and Outreach.
The Bangladesh Society ran an International Mother Language Day event “to explore and understand minority languages to preserve the beauty of this diversity of languages through fostering peace, tolerance and respect for others”. Hanging a banner, they asked people to write ‘I love my language and respect yours’ in their mother tongue.
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This year our Slam Society attended the Slam of the North poetry competition, in which they competed against Leeds, Leeds Beckett, Sheffield and Durham. Even though they were the smallest and newest edition, they placed second! Since competing, two of the York contestants have been contacted about paid poetry work as a result of performing at Slam of the North!
YUSU Develops is an amazing scheme which enables our students to develop their skills, gain experience and meet new people on a range of courses and workshops including: Workshops offered to prospective candidates for the YUSU Elections, to help develop their political debating skills and public engagement abilities. Online training modules, including topics such as Health and Safety and Equality and Diversity, which was a great boon for students running committees. While the British Sign Language Course started as a Give it a Go scheme, it is now a central part of YUSU Develops. 289 students took part in the British Sign Language courses this year!
Amazing! Thank you so much please put on more for sign language!
Thank you very much for helping me throughout these months. If there’s an opportunity again, I would love to continue these workshops next year!
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YUSU
DEVELOPS 89%
OF STUDENTS AGREED THAT THE ELECTIONS WORKSHOPS POSITIVELY CONTRIBUTED TO THEIR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
ONLINE TRAINING MODULES ACCESSED OVER
2,600 TIMES 100%
SATISFACTION RATE WITH OUR BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE COURSES
OVER
40
GIVE IT A GO SESSIONS IN ONE TERM
Over 40 GIAG sessions in one term! Predominantly student-led, our Give it a Go scheme enables our students to try out something new with one of our student groups, clubs and societies, without having to commit for a full year. So if you fancy dipping a toe, Give it a Go!
It’s been really fulfilling. It’s built up my confidence so much - I’ve gone from being shy to helping others who are shy feel more confident.
Our Give it a Go Activators are central to Give it A Go. Assisting with sessions, running events and presenting new Give it a Go ideas, the scheme couldn’t run without them!
It gave me a push; I finally did things I’d always wanted to do. 13
It’s been incredibly rewarding; it’s one of the biggest points in my CV.
Society Event of the Year York Dances for Coming Relief
RAG Champion Islamic Society
RESULTS
New Society of the Year
International Society of the Year African Caribbean Society
STARs
Music and Performance Society of the Year Folk Society
Gardening Society
Academic and Educational Society of the Year
Special Interest Society of the Year
WINNERS
Group Fitness Society
Art History Society
Arts and Cultural Society of the Year
Treasurer of the Year Rachel Tracey Baking Society
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Slam Society
0
1
8
/
1
9
Secretary of the Year Faith Society of the Year Christian Union
Games and Fandom Society of the Year PokĂŠmon Society
Laurence Gill Social Self-Improvement Society
Chair of the Year Clark Brydon Music Society
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The STARs awards were created in 2017/18 to recognise the amazing achievements of our societies and the positive impact that they have on student lives. It’s important that we celebrate all the amazing things going on! This year, we had an amazing 76 nominations - more than double last year!
YUMAs 2
0
1
8
/
1
Best Entertainment Piece
York Student Television
University Radio York The SRA Chart Show
Best Newcomer
Best Feature
Highly Commended: Patrick Walker, Nouse Winner: Andrew Waddle, York Student Television
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Joseph Silke, Nouse
Best Initiative
Nouse Collaboration with BBC Radio York
Best Branding and Design The Lemon Press
Best Event
Nouse and Chay Quinn Student Publication Association National Conference 2019
Best Contribution to Sport
Highly Commended: Maddie Thornham, Nouse
Best Interview
Winner: Jacob Dicker, University Radio York
Naomi Gildert, University Radio York
Presenter of the Year
Most Improved Media Group
Winner: York Student Television
Hannah Sackville-Bryant, University Radio York
Best Comment Piece
Writer of the Year
Saskia Starrit, Nouse
Andy Young, Nouse
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Outstanding Achievement Award
Best Photographer
Murray Deaves, Circulation
Highly Commended: Patrick Hook-Willers and George Cook, Nouse
Highly Commended: Adam Birtles, York Student Television
Miles Dunnett YUSU v York Vision
Jodie Sheehan: A Shoot with a Lute (Laura Stratford Interview)
Best Contribution to News
Outstanding Behind-theScenes Contribution
HARD Magazine
Media Group of the Year York Student Television
RESULTS
WINNERS
Best Online Presence
Academic Rep Baylee Williams
Sport Contribution To Roses Kate Thorncroft
Campaign
Fossil Free York
LOVE YORK
Media
Chay Quinn
Student Wellbeing Aneeska Sohal
Society
Latin American Society
Diversity
Vanessa Sefa
AWARDS
Best Event
Entrepreneurship
Legally Blonde by CHMS
Thin Ice
Committee YSTV
Fundraising Islamic Society
Outstanding Leadership
Volunteering
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Short
PCP Community First Responders
College Sport Derwent Netball
Contribution To Roses
–
0
1
9
–
Student Life Aneeska Sohal
Like how our Excellence Awards celebrate the university’s amazing staff, these awards celebrate our outstanding students. The 2019 awards focused on the community work which those students had engaged with, between the University and the city.
City Of York Openminds
Rose Anne Evans
RESULTS
2
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YORK SPORT AND ROSES
So you may have heard that we were the victors of this year’s Roses contest! Roses is a historic contest between the two roses of the North: the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York. With a rivalry dating back hundreds of years to the Wars of the Roses, this sporting contest pitches the two universities against each other in hundreds of fixtures. Opened by Game of Thrones and The Full Monty actor Mark Addy, our two universities collaborated to promote important issues around invisible illnesses, with the actor discussing his own mental health. The student body chose to partner with Beat and Student Minds, supporting people with eating disorders and students with their mental health respectively.
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With over 2,500 student participants, 130 fixtures, 50+ sports, a fireworks display, a mindfulness space, a film screening and event footfall of 6,000 over the weekend, Roses is the biggest platform for both Unions to engage students, the local community and raise awareness of the positive link between sport and mental health. In the lead-up to Roses, York students (including ambassadors from the charities) bravely profiled their experiences of mental health and eating disorders via the Union’s channels. The partners created a joint fundraising campaign, which surpassed its original donation target, raising over £2000!
The best crowds I have ever seen at College Varsity
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ZAC SHEPPARD YORK SPORT PRESIDENT
403
STUDENTS TRAINED VOLUNTEERS TRAVELLED TO DURHAM AT ROSES FOR VARSITY THE FIRST YEAR ROSES OPENED AND CLOSED WITH WOMEN’S FIXTURES, WITH YORK WINNING BOTH! 18
BESPOKE ROSES L AGER, CREATED BY BREW YORK! 10P OF EVERY LAGER SOLD WENT TO OUR CHARITY PARTNERS
TOTAL HOURS VOLUNTEERED AT ROSES:
427
YORK SPORT AND ROSES
Meet Sam, our RAG officer: RAG is the student- led fundraising organisation based in the University of York Students’ Union. Becoming a part-time officer was born out of my own passion and experience of being involved with RAG in my third year of university. It allowed me to develop new found confidence in my ability as well as the opportunity to network with various charities and develop my own portfolio of skills. Being a part-time officer has changed my university experience for the better and I would encourage anyone, given the chance, to go for it!
With the best and brightest of YUSU’s staff, this year’s RAG Committee has managed to put together a line-up of stellar events to raise money for our three key beneficiaries: Snappy, Beat and SASH. We’ve got everything from a football 5’Aside tournament, to an abseil down Central Hall for students to throw themselves (both figuratively and literally) into during Week 5.
‘Very Good’ Green impact status!
RAG’s Sustainability Efforts
Our Community team is a relatively new but vital element in YUSU’s growing charity. They help to build bridges between us, the student body, and the wider community, in fundraising, volunteering and promoting student-led projects.
Sustainability is an ever-growing issue and we want to do our bit, so our Raising and Giving scheme took part in the Big Green Clean! Working in collaboration with our new volunteering project Fill Bellies Not Bins, we collected 10 crates/bags of non-perishable items including tinned food, pastas, cereals, sauces and condiments and donated them to YourCafe.
6% 3% £53,512.90 £121,365.70 23 students took part in a YUSU volunteering project!
took part in YUSU Raising and Giving!
raised for the Future Sense Foundation with Challenges Abroad! total raised by RAG, including colleges, networks, 19 college and University sports teams, 5 volunteering projects and 13 societies! eco bricks donated to Bootham School, saving an estimated mass of 4,462 grams of plastic from the biosphere!
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Our volunteering projects are great ways for students to get involved with something they’re passionate about, meet new people and enhance their skill set. We love to hear feedback from students about their experiences to inspire others!
MUSIC EDUCATION GROUP The Music Education Group is a volunteer project here at the University of York, providing musicbased workshops in schools, care homes, mental health institutions and hospitals. It aims to bring music to areas of the community in which it may be lacking or is underfunded.
I have loved my time doing MEG, not only does it show you the power of music on members of the local community, it helps you love music even more! MEG has been such a huge influence during my university time that it has convinced me to train to be a primary teacher next year. Please get involved!
THEATRE IN SCHOOLS We started Theatre in Schools to give children the opportunity to express themselves in a way not offered by the curriculum. Through creating their own performances they explore fantastical and historical worlds, but also explore their own identities, dreams and passions. Theatre in Schools is one of many exciting projects run and supported by YUSU Volunteering, which aims to impact the local community in a positive way. Students volunteer to go to local primary schools to run drama sessions as an after school activity to help build their confidence and teamwork skills- as well as being great fun!
My daughter was really inspired in the drama sessions and has spoken about it since. I think she learned a lot. I thought the sessions were educational and fun - Parent of Family Network attendee
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What’s the best thing about your volunteer project?
YUSU is brimming with students who want to make a positive impact on their student community. For some, that is in looking out for their peers and their personal safety.
Nightline
Other than being in a great team, I’d say the training you receive. When I was there I trained in first aid, homelessness awareness, river safety, de-escalation and loads more - all for free. The buzz you get after helping a vulnerable person travel home safely is also amazing – I found it so rewarding and came out of every shift feeling like I’d really made a difference.
Nightline is a confidential service offered to students at York and York St John, which is run by students and aims to be open every night in termtime from 8pm- 8am. We work in a similar way to the Samaritans. We are an ‘active listening’ service which means we can chat with and support students by being a friendly voice, but we aren’t trained counsellors so we don’t ever offer advice or signpost students to other services.
- Hannah Greenwood
NightSafe NightSafe is a student-led volunteering project. These student volunteers receive comprehensive training and patrol the streets during YUSU club nights in York to make sure York students are safe and hydrated. So next time you’re out, look out for them and let them know what a great job they’re doing!
STUDENT SAFETY 21
Our Advice and Support team is an essential part of YUSU. While university is a great experience for so many people, for others it isn’t always plain sailing. ASC provide independent and confidential support and guidance on academic, pastoral and welfare issues for when you need a bit of help. “Without help from ASC I don’t think I would have carried on with my studies”. “The support I received made a big difference, and they were willing to go above and beyond when I needed someone the most”.
100% of people asked felt that the information, advice and support they received made a difference. 75% of people asked felt the advice that they received from ASC enabled them to better manage their studies. 98% strongly agreed that the staff at the Advice & Support Centre were friendly and approachable.
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During Sexual Violence Awareness Week, we collaborated with the GSA and the University to deliver our Shine A Light campaign to raise awareness of this important issue. The campaign saw a conference, workshops and panel discussions around sexual violence and a ‘light up the night’ march around campus. Following this campaign, a proposal for a Sexual Violence Liaison Officer role at the University was approved and the Officer is now in post, which was a huge win for YUSU. YUSU and the GSA continue to work closely with local support services and the University to help improve reporting processes and access to support for students.
Study Smart Week, held in November, was led by staff within the Student Support and Representation directorate, our Sabbs and the GSA. It focused on providing resources, workshops and fairs for students, with tips on good academic practice and how to manage workload and wellbeing. Working with GSA, we are continuing to run Family Network events aimed at both staff and students with children, to have fun and take part in activities run by student societies and clubs.
Alongside annual awareness events, ASC, working collaboratively with the University, are continuing development and promotion of drop-in sessions on campus. These include local services, such as bi-weekly drop-in sessions by the Samaritans, regular sexual health drop-ins and testing by local sexual health providers.
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Received over 2000 votes and got re-elected Won back £16,800 after Circuit Laundry failure Named as a UN Women’s Campaign University Champion
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I’m Steph (Effy) Hayle and I’m the Community and Wellbeing Officer for The University of York Students’ Union. My role involves overseeing our liberation groups, running the Liberation and Welfare committee, uniting Colleges and Networks together for key campaigns and advising students on a whole host of issues from physical and mental health, to finances and housing. Over the last year I’ve run some pretty successful campaigns, all designed to support students and the wider York Community. From #BUStice, which was talked about in the local press and on the BBC, to #RentRant, which received national recognition and an article in The Guardian, the Community and Wellbeing Officer’s job is to make York accessible, open, and engaging to people from all walks of life.
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
91.12%
Our Marketing and Communications team make sure the student body knows exactly what’s going on in YUSU, whether that’s events and campaigns or updates from the SU. We send out newsletters, run surveys across the year and organise big events such as Comedy Night, Viking Raid and Freshers’ Festival, making sure you have the best time!
96.39%
of students were VERY SATISFIED with Freshers’ Fair
12.9K
FOLLOWERS
4,916
FOLLOWERS 25
of students were VERY SATISFIED with YUSU Comedy Night
18,552 LIKES 19,159 FOLLOWERS
YUSU 100% Club for Best Bar None! We now run 6 different venues on campus, having taken over D Bar and the Vanbrugh Arms in 2018. All with their own menu and unique atmosphere, our venues are great places to chill out, socialise or grab a bite in between lectures! While we aim to make our outlets great places to hang out, we are also aiming to be as sustainable as we can be. Did you know that:
The UK throws away 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups every year!
FOOD + DRINK SPOTS
Over the last academic year YUSU In term 2, YUSU and the University collaborated on the YorCup scheme, venues provided: which was launched in January 2019. Since then more than 72,000 single-use • Employment opportunities for more than 150 student staff, giving them cups have been saved and over £22,500 over 35,000 paid hours of work. has been raised through the Latte Levy We also secured a better deal for which has been used to invest back into student employees by paying them sustainable campaigns on campus. the National Living Wage for all staff The scheme, along with a number of irrelevant of their age. other sustainable initiatives, helped YUSU Commercial Services gain Green Impact • Hosted more than 300 student-led events that helped raise both funds Excellence. and profile of more than 100 different YUSU student groups. Our licensed venues were recognised for running safe, attractive and inclusive social spaces with their first Gold award • Served a total of 486,984 drinks, served more than 62,000 individual food orders in the national Best Bar None scheme. and made 74,465 coffees! • Through our preferred payment and loyalty scheme, Yoyo Wallet, we gave back over £28,000 in points-related prizes to more than 6,500 customers.
Less than 1% of coffee cups are recycled! Stats courtesy of The Independent
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AN UPDATE ON
FINANCE In addition, YUSU acted as custodian of funds and supported clubs, societies, media groups, fundraising and volunteering groups to
£ 1,569,002
In the 2018/19 academic year YUSU had an income of £3,785,371 with an expenditure of £3,731,916. Here’s where our money came from: BLOCK YUSU EVENTS AND GRANT MARKETING
33% 2%
OTHER GRANTS AND FUNDING
18% 47%
COMMERCIAL SERVICES
Here’s what we spent that money on:
47% 15% 5%
8% STUDENT OPPORTUNITIES 13% WELLBEING AND 11% COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL SERVICES
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REPRESENTATION AND DEMOCRACY YUSU EVENTS AND MARKETING CENTRAL RESOURCES
While we try to achieve all of our goals and fulfil our purpose, there’s always going to be room for improvement and things which you feel we haven’t done. As we aim to be transparent, we want to address those things to you and explain the hows and whys.
Communicating effectively and Digital investment
Growing demands on Representation, Advice and Support regarding student to student disputes
ne of the lowest scores in our annual student survey (Big Student O Survey) is attributed to the satisfaction of YUSU communications. The qualitative data showed that our members would like more tailored communications from the Union, that spoke to their unique interests and hobbies.
Over the period YUSU has seen a continued increase in the number and complexity of conduct matters arising, particularly in relation to student opportunities and activities. This is not an area which the organisation has dedicated specific resource to historically but increasing amounts of staff and officer time has been spent mediating, investigating and managing grievances within student groups largely relating to inappropriate conduct or unreasonable behaviour, often towards other students.
Fortunately we have invested into a new digital platform which will dramatically improve the tools available to be able to provide tailored, high quality communication and engagement, tools that weren’t at our disposal previously. In this new platform, we will be able to send specific interest emails to pre-subscribed mailing lists that students can easily opt-in and out of. However, the full migration to this new platform will take time over the course of the year as we look to use it to enhance not just our communication but also our elections, online retailing, event promotions, support policy processes, improve business intelligence, migrate our till systems and ticketing and lots more. Over the coming year we are prioritising core functionalities to be tested and integrated. We have invested in a new Communications Manager role within the marketing team who will be developing a new communications plan to take advantage of our growing digital potential.
LOOKING AHEAD CHALLENGES
This trend has had a knock on impact for planned activity and sometimes significant numbers of students have been impacted. The profile of some of these issues, in a number of areas student conduct cases have reached national media, underlines the added reputational impact and importance of ensuring procedures are in line with good practice on complaint handling. Processes have been reviewed and positive changes continue to be implemented to the way that student conduct complaints are dealt with to enable risks to be better managed and more adequate resourcing for a growing area.
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Venues purchasing and a struggling commercial estate
Investing so much more than money
USU venues continued to operate during a year of political and Y economic uncertainty. Ongoing risks with both product costs and supply routes prevented the commercial team from planning menus and prices with longer term confidence. We have sought reassurance and protection from our supply partners and made a number of changes to our product range in order to mitigate, where possible, any potential impact.
Balancing our limited resources is not always an easy task. We love nothing more than investing in brave, innovative and often wildly creative student initiatives and we will continue to challenge ourselves to do just that. That said, given the uncertainty of the current financial and political climate and the ever-present potential of an unstable withdrawal from the EU, balanced against the opportunities that might present themselves to invest in improved student facilities, new digital technologies and to maintain a good level of investment in developing the team who are here to support you, we often ask our Trustees to make tough decisions about how we spend our resources. Last year we invested in new technology, improvements to our venues, IT expertise and set a small amount aside to top-up our financial reserves to make sure we are wellplaced to weather whatever challenges the coming years bring. Our focus for the coming year will be on securing financial stability in an unstable climate, stretching ourselves to invest in innovative solutions to better the services we provide to our students, and working with the University to provide improved student facilities that are fit not just for now, but for the students of the future.
The NUS buying consortium, of which YUSU is part of, made a number of significant changes to supply relationships which in turn improved the access to products in some areas of our trading services and reduced the range in others. Some of our most popular lines became unavailable which was offset by a growth in trend leading products being listed. We continue to struggle to provide for an ever changing and growing set of demands from our student and staff populous. The size and scope of the YUSU commercial estate puts significant business pressure on us. Unlike many other Unions who occupy and run a single, purpose built, fit for purpose Union building YUSU have inherited a dispersed estate which was not designed for the purposes we now use them. This results in very high overheads, lease commitments to the University above that many other unions pay for purpose built facilities and leaves us with periods of business interruption as the estate infrastructure struggles to meet the demands of a modern day campus.
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