Posted on Wed 05 Jul 2023 at 16:07 by
Amber Snary Before we start, I have to confess that this blogpost is not going to touch that much on the Beatles. I adore ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, and ‘Hey Jude’ is always great to hear at the end of Summer Ball, but overall, I cannot resist a pun.
With two weeks of handover, and one week of independent work, June has been positively hectic. We have toured around the SU, met our trustees, worked all through Open Days (including featuring in a TikTok!), thrown axes for team-building, and had a rather emotional BBQ. Seeing all last year’s officers tearfully leave (sorry for dobbing you in here gang) made me realise how much time they have spent here, at the same desks at us, working on their passions the same way we will be - and seeing that it is way to early to have an existential crisis, I’ll leave that thought with you.
As for our first week alone, we kickstarted it with the ever enigmatic Jim Dickinson from Wonkhe. Jim was brilliant – he got us all to update each other with our backstories, and used them to help us feel more confident in our points and arguments. My brain was positively melted by the end of the day, but it was totally worth it!
On Tuesday and Wednesday, me and David attended the EUAC sustainability conference on campus. We got to learn all about how equity and justice fits into sustainability, and how we can work collaboratively to implement this across the whole University. It was endlessly interesting, and if I can pass anything onto you it would be two things. Firstly, a nugget of wisdom from Robin Landman of the Black Leadership Group – it is always better to focus on what we can add, rather than what we remove. Secondly, networking still evades me as a concept, but if you can do anything, feel free to nerd out about things local to those you are talking to. I found great joy and connection in talking to those from Leicester and De Montfort about the Trinity House herb garden, which my mother would always refer to as “our little secret garden” when I ran errands in town with her as a child. If you are ever around that area, I definitely recommend checking it out – the whole area is full of local history and folklore, and though the weather is not the sunniest as I write this, it will still smell gorgeous.
We ended the week with a call from past president Eve on Thursday, and another from Francesco on Friday, with our photoshoot sandwiched in the middle. Photoshoots are always so strange, but when a BeReal popped up in the middle of it all, we all posed without thought, leading the photographer to use one of our phones in a shot, and me saying I felt like a penguin receiving enrichment (a little blue, alternatively known as fairy, penguin in case you are curious).
So ! That has been an amazingly busy week, and we don’t even currently have any students on campus – wish me luck !
Plain links
Open Day TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@uniofbath/video/7245247452159200539?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7251539190356444698
Wonkhe
https://wonkhe.com/
David’s Profile (Activities Officer)
https://www.thesubath.com/suofficers/activities/
Robin Landman Profile on Black Leadership Group
https://blackleadershipgroup.com/about-us/executive-team/
Trinity House herb garden
https://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/news/2020/july/dmu-at-150-the-story-of-the-trinity-house-herb-garden.aspx