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The 2013/14 academic year has been one of much success for the Students’ Union: we’ve achieved so many amazing things, and we’d like to tell you about them.
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Impact Report
Contents
23
Welcome
About the Students’ Union
A message from the CEO
Who’s who
Finance: the money stuff
Connecting with you
Listening to you
Empowering you
Investing in...
Generating opportunities
Your voice
Supporting and campaigning
Events
Contact Us
3
4
5
6
9
10
11
13
14
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2013-14 Impact ReportWelcome to our
Welcome!
This report is a way to celebrate our achievements, let you know what we’ve been up to, and explain more how we’re making a positive contribution to the lives of our students.
2013-14 was a pivotal year for AberSU, the first operating under the new strategic plan, following a year of great change.
As an Officer team, we would like to thank students for their continued support and input, because without them, we
couldn’t have achieved as much as we have.
We hope you enjoy reading about our achievements this year!
About the Students’ UnionAll students studying at Aberystwyth University are automatically members of Aberystwyth
University Students’ Union (AberSU).
We’re here to make sure students have the best experience possible at University.
We’re led by elected students, supported by 20 permanent staff and a team of student staff who run the day-to-day activities
and services of the Union.
We are a not-for profit charity with a mission to represent, support and develop our students to enhance
their time at university and enable them to achieve their full potential as graduates. We are an independent organisation, but we do work in
close partnership with the University.
We are an independent voice that represents 10,000 students, and our Student Officers listen to the problems students face and campaign for
changes on University, local and national levels. We make sure students get their voices heard: whether it be on aspects of their course or on university issues, through our
network of Academic Representatives and General Meetings.
AberSU provides quality information and support through our Advice Centre, whether academic, welfare or financial, for students who may
find themselves needing extra support while at University. We also encourage participation all year round - we have over 100 sports
clubs and societies.
Open all year round, the building offers a sociable and relaxing space to study, unwind or actively participate in activities.
We house bars, including fresh Starbucks coffee and Stone Willy’s food, along with a student shop. Into the evening, the entertainments team organise a full programme of entertainment, ranging from comedy to
movie nights.
not-forprofit
run by students
for students
Our vision: to create an exceptional student experience, a legacy
A message from the CEOThe past year has been one of consolidation as we began to bed in our new staffing structure and implement
our 3-year strategic plan that was driven by student input undertaken in early 2013. It is pleasing to see a number of positive outcomes already coming from this work.
We have doubled our number of Student Advisors to enable the delivery of a faster response across a wider range of concerns for our members. We have also invested in extra staffing resources to allow us to fully review and overhaul our current democratic structures, some of which have become obsolete and are no longer fit for purpose.
Meanwhile, we have held successful full-time Officer elections with increased turnout and massively reduced levels of complaints compared to 2012/3.
Our range and quality of activities, especially sports clubs and societies, have reached new heights this year with extremely high levels of participation, and the delivery of several real quality events including Superteams, Varsity and a
Rugby 7s weekend that is the envy of much larger and better financed institutions.
We have recognised members’ increasing concerns with their employability once they leave Aber, by working on several initiatives both independently and with the University, around volunteering and the recording of student participation levels. The levels of student staff
employed by us have increased significantly with the development of the SU catering offers, and we have developed our own in house staff transferable skills programme with robust
records of training and experience.
Investment in our marketing and communications function has led to a radically improved dialogue between the Union and its members. We now run regular student surveys both
general and very specific, and huge effort is put into making sure marketing channels are relevant and constantly updated with current information.
Commercially we have been very busy improving our daytime catering offers and have opened a new bakery and healthy ‘sub’ style eatery to supplement our existing Starbucks and Stone Willy’s facilities. We have also launched a delivery service
for pizzas and other hot food, the first of its kind in a UK university. These enhanced services have transformed the SU building from a relative ghost town, to a thriving
daytime venue where members eat, meet and relax in large numbers every day. This has the added benefit of allowing us to further engage with members in the building
and to employ even more student staff.
A further £50k increase in block grant funding from the university has been negotiated for 2014/5 in addition to the £50k increase this year, helping us to put the SU back on a more secure financial
footing after years of decline.
Of course none of this would have been possible without the support of our student members and the sterling work done behind the scenes by a team of dedicated staff.
workingwith youfor you
John Glasby
“I am confident in our ability to deliver further positive outcomes for our mem-bers in the future”
Who’s who in the Union?Each year, the student body elects a team of five full-time Officers to lead the Union. They play a crucial role in Union policy setting and University decision
making structures all so they can do their best to represent the 10,000 students that elected them.
There is a new team every year, but your Student Officers this year have been...
Ioan Rhys Evans
President
GraceBurton
Education Officer
LauraDickens
Welfare Officer
LivPrewett
Activities Officer
[email protected] President &Welsh Affairs Officer
Students also elect a team of part-time Officers, liberationOfficers and section Officers. You can find out more about these at
www.abersu.co.uk/yourunion/studentofficers
we won officer team of the
year at the NUS Wales
Awards 2014!
Who’s who in the Union?The management team has the operational responsibility for the day-to-day
running of the organisation.
They’re assisted by a bunch of other full-time staff, as well as lots of student staff members. There’s also a Board
of Trustees, which look after the serious stuff and make the final decisions on what
the Union does.
John Glasby
CEO
Catrin Hopkins
Finance Officer
Andrew Morwood
Membership ServicesManager
JamieBarker
Marketing & Communications
Manager
Phil Hughes
Food & BeverageManager
Alison SalterRetail Manager
Finance: the mon y stuff
£2.1 millionturnover for the year
eSubject to audit, we delivered an overall deficit for the year of £33k from a combined turnover of £2.1m. This compares very favour-ably with both the budget deficit of £66k and the 2011/2 result of £142k deficit. This result confirmed that our
strategies of diversifying into daytime non-alcohol based revenue streams (Starbucks, Stone Willys, Briwsion and The Underground) together with pain-ful cost cutting measures, were the right ones and we are confident they will lead to a Students’ Union that is financially sustainable in the future after years of decline.
income
expenditure
58%income from trading
31%income from grant 11%
other
29%paid to suppliers
35%paid to staff
36%service & delivery costs
Connecting with youOur goal is to ensure that all students are aware of and engage with the Union.
facebook fans
twitter followers
web page views
65643770
771,109 We’ve increased and improved our social media presence so that information about our services are available to our diverse range of students!@
Listening to you
The Officers went out and about on campus to listen to students’ views
Listening to youThis year, we’ve focused on engaging students, boosting the information
available and awareness of the services and activities we offer.
We’ve run surveys and held focus groups on a wide range of topics, and we’ve taken those on board: we’re already making changes to how we operate.
Ioan (President) and
Laura (Welfare Officer)
on tour this year!
We had over 700 responses to the I Love Aber survey!
Students told us in detail what they like and don’t like about what we offer...
Aber Agenda
Empowering youEvery student studying here is represented by an Academic Representative.
This year, we recruited 319 Academic Reps, including 12 Institute Reps, 2 for each institute (one undergrad and
one postgrad) all of which were supported and trained by the Union.
Working with their departments, the University and the Students’ Union, Academic Reps work hard to represent and give students a voice, to ensure their education is the
very best it can be.
Academic Reps are vital to us in gathering students’ needs at course level.
319academic reps
to representstudents
Through the year, we...
ran
train
ing se
ssions in October
hosted a student conference
given ongoing training for public speak-ing, leadership, chairing and meeting skills
I’ve loved being a course rep. Seeing students strug-
gle is horrible, but being able to represent that to the
department was fantastic. Once the changes were
brought in, there was nothing that made me prouder
than being able to relay that back to the student, it
made all the hard work completely worth it!
- Academic Rep, English & Creative Writing
“ ”
Investing in your facilitiesThis year, we’ve given the Union building a total makeover.
It’s gone from the drab and unappealing building it was last year to a proper multi-purpose space, which gives students a perfect setting for socialising,
studying, hosting meetings and events, eating and so much more.
The
Pic
ture
houseWe converted the annex into the Picture House: there’s a big screen, sound system and every Mon-
day we filled it with beanbags for a movie night
The Underground got a complete revamp: once we took over running it again, we put in a salad bar, fresh ba-
guettes and a hot dog stand. We filled the area with sofas and tables, so you have somewhere
to sit and eat your lunch.
We launched the online delivery of Stone Willy’s, as well as keeping the behind-the-bar service, so students can have hot food delivered to their door at almost any hour of the day.
We also launched a bakery (Briwsion) on the upper level, which serves pastries, cookies,
doughnuts and has a pasta stall.
Starbucks is thriving in Cwtch, and with the introduction of more comfortable seating and tables, students say it’s the perfect place to go between seminars.
The UndergroundSt
one W
illy’s
BriwsionSt
arbucks
Investing in our staff
staff student officersstudent staff
This year, we employed
160
37,230hours
members of student staff, in...
generating
into students’ pockets!
• We also employed 20 full-time staff, and invested in them with thorough external training and new appraisal systems.
• The management team have taken on training in leading teams and developing
people
• We held an away day for all permanent staff and Officers in July where they built their
working relationships
• Full-time Student Officers received extensive training both with us and from
the National Union of Students (NUS)
£ 201,350
Investing in you We sold
34,701 cups of Starbucks.
These helped to fund three full-time Student Officers to represent students for the year.
The shop sold
9,575 bottles of Coke, which helped to fund the Picturehouse development
NUS cards, which helped maintain our fleet of mini-buses 1,929
7,212
Ginsters sandwiches, which helped to fund a Student Advisor to provide support
£600raised at our Big Sale in Welcome Week, which
we fed into Nightline, the student listening service
We printed and sold
You enjoyed
Freshers’ Fair
Generating opportunities
Taking part in extra-curricular activities helps bring together students with shared interests, gain new skills outside of academic departments, make friends, make a difference
and boost employability.
This year, we’ve helped and hosted a variety of opportunities for students to grow and develop. Let’s take a look!
3601students part of a
sports club
4950and
came to the sports fair
2720are part of a society
4600came to the societies fair
and
We held both these fairs, as well as
the other Welcome fairs
again in Refreshers week to give students another chance to join!
Generating opportunities Generating opportunities
We held our first ever Volunteer Fair in February to showcase a range of local
and national employability-boosting volunteering initiatives that are on offer.
Students gained lead-ership and team-
working skills in our Freshers’ Heroes schemeover
200
volu
ntee
rs th
is ye
ar!
the
fresh
ers’ f
air was packed!
New students were given a taste of sports in our massive Sports
Week event
over100
students atten
ded!
All these opportunities are pub-lished on students’ HEAR (Higher Education Achievement Report), a record which accompanies the de-gree certificate and lists the extra-
curricular activities!
SLTAs
Your voiceThe voice of students is central to everything we do here at AberSU.
This year, we’ve helped the student voice to get even stronger, both in the Union and the University.
24%voter turnout (that’s almost double the
UK average!)
They voted on who they wanted to lead their Union
They decided what needed to be done or changed in the Union in the GMs and Assemblies held!
They told us what th
ey would do if they
were Vice-Chancellor for a day
students
attended!
100
Your voiceThey told us what academic
issues impact them the most, which led to the Aber Agenda
report
students responded!500
They put forwards students and staff members who have demonstrated excellence and contributions
439nominations were received,
double last years’ figure!
Some were even invited to the event!
Supporting and campaigning
we won campaign of the
year at the NUS Wales
Awards 2014!
Throughout the year, we lobby, support and campaign for students, on both University, local and national issues.
The results go a long way to improving the lives and experiences of students.
Let’s have a look at just some of the campaigns we’ve worked on this year...
Private Sector Housing FairIn November, 1000 students came to our Housing
Fair which showcased to students the range of private sector accommodation available in Aberystwyth.
We also provided a contract checking service, and had advisors on hand to prevent students rushing in
to sign a contract.
Welfare-Win! Peak-Time Hourly Train ServiceOur Welfare Officer was part of a committee
reporting on the dissatisfaction with trains running from Aberystwyth every 2 hours – a committee
who had their voices heard and represented students to the Transport Minister.
This has led to a commitment to a peak-time hourly train service from Aberystwyth, giving students increased options for their travel.
Supporting and campaigning
Sexual Health Clinic Services The closure of the sexual health clinic on campus took place
without student consultation.
AberSU campaigned against this and organised a demonstration, which has led to an offer of additional services in the Wellness
Centre from the University.
The ‘WelFair’New students were welcomed to Aberystywth with
the ‘WelFair’ which gave them the chance to explore the range of support and advice services available within the Students’
Union, University and local community.
Eliminating Mental Health Stigma and Discrimination
We were the first SU in Wales to sign the Time To Change Wales pledge. which puts an action plan together to eliminate
stigma and discrimination around mental health.
This has included increasing the number of non-alcohol focussed events, running de-stress campaigns and inviting speakers to
discuss mental health issues.
National Student Money Week
At a time when student fees and expenses are high, we held a Money Fair in February with representatives from local and national organisations.
They were on hand to give advice on saving, spending and all thing money.
Supporting and campaigning
#FUWEDNESDAYSWe’ve campaigned this year to remove timetabled lectures on a Wednesday
afternoon, which restrict students’ personal development time.
Whilst the initial timetabling issues were resolved, we have continued to lobby the
University to free up Wednesday all-day.
... as you can see it’s been a busy year!
EventsThanks for making our events so amazing!
Your Students’ Union
facebook.com/UMaberSU
facebook.com/abersuevents
twitter.com/UMaberSU
instagram.com/umabersu
youtube.com/UMaberSU
abersu.co.uk
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f
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