Union Review of the Year
Friday 20 Jun 2008
When I sat down to write a review of the Union’s activities for my year in office my mind tracked back to 1 July 2007. I then decided that this article would be more digestible if I started with the Freshers’ Fair in October. The Fair was our most attended ever with over 6000 students visiting over 340 stalls across the campus. It was the perfect way to start the year and it was great to see so many of you active right from the beginning of the Autumn term.
The Union had some very good news at the end of the autumn term. Just before Christmas we announced that £3.3m had been secured which would allow the Union to upgrade and modernise our facilities for student activities. Since then a lot of the design work has been completed by the architects and building work is due to commence this autumn. The centrepiece of this project will be a new mezzanine second floor in the Union gym to allow for an enlarged Student Activity Centre and a new multi-purpose space on the 3rd floor of the Union Building. This will ensure that future students can enjoy top quality facilities fit for the 21st century and having seen the plans develop I am looking forward to coming back for a visit when it is all finished. Whilst working on this project the concerns of the student body about the Union’s environmental impact have been taken on board. A major theme of this work is energy efficiency and several measures are being introduced that will ensure that our building operates in a sustainable manner.
2007/2008 has been another outstanding year for our Clubs and Societies and we have seen almost a 10% year-on-year increase in the number of memberships taking the total number sold to over 12,000. Around 6,350 students are members of at least one of over 300 clubs and societies, representing a participation rate of over 52%. Whilst official statistics are not available we believe that Imperial College Union currently offers a student activities programme with the largest participation rate and is the most generously funded compared to all other UK universities.
It would almost require me to write a dissertation to do full justice to the achievements of you all this year but here are some of the highlights and headline figures:-
• The student media at Imperial College went from strength to strength with Live!, the student news website of Imperial College being named “Best Student Website” in The Guardian Student Media Awards 2007.
• The Union’s minibuses clocked up over 110,000 miles this year – the equivalent of driving around the planet four and a half times!
• Surgical Society championed the first undergraduate plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery conference which drew in students from across the UK.
• 1407 Imperial Students gave up their time to organise activities for other students by becoming an officer of one or more clubs. The Union gave countless opportunities for students to develop their leadership capabilities and personal skills whilst the student body benefited massively from the efforts of this large number of volunteers.
• The spring term saw the usual plethora of shows and cultural events, with Indian Society’s East Meets West being hosted at the London Palladium for the first time.
• Imperial College Union’s sports teams played in 1003 competitive sports fixtures this year – equivalent to 84 days of continuous playing time.
The Union’s Advice Centre helped hundreds of students with issues such as taking unscrupulous landlords to court, liaising with Transport for London and representing students in academic and disciplinary hearings. Your elected representatives have continued to contribute to College committees to fulfil our goal of ensuring that a student voice is heard at the highest levels of decision making in the College so that policy decisions can be influenced to our benefit. In particular, our work on the student status of writing-up PhD students has resulted in a College policy change which will result in some students saving hundreds of pounds on their Council Tax bill. Academic representatives are often the unsung heroes of Students’ Unions and we as a student body benefit enormously from their hard work and diligence as they go about communicating our concerns to the College.
One of the fundamental principles of Students’ Unions is that they are democratic organisations that are led by the people they serve. This year saw a 40% year-on-year increase in turnout for the sabbatical elections with over 2,300 students voting in the election which saw Jennifer Morgan returned as my successor. The elections for part-time officers have also seen an increased number of candidates and voter turnout compared to last year and it is excellent to see that so many of you have a lot of ideas as to how the Union could be improved for all students at the College.
Throughout this article I have referred to “the Union” but it is not quite clear what I mean by this object. For the purposes of this piece I will define “the Union” in its broadest sense is a collective of all students at Imperial College and without the hard work and dedication of the other sabbaticals, the Union’s full time staff and hundreds of part-time volunteers none of the above achievements would have been realised. It has been a privilege leading and working with such an outstanding group of people this year and I hope that through my efforts I have repaid the trust that the student body placed in me when I was elected. On that note I would like to wish Jen and her team all the very best for next year in their efforts to ensure that the Union continues to evolve to meet the needs of an ever-changing student body.
