As we come to the end of the academic year here are a few words from your Officer team so you can find out what they've been up to all year on your behalf!

Hi all, we’ve made to the end of this year and I’m finishing my role as a president today. I would like to say that it was an honour for me to be part of the University of Huddersfield Students’ Union and I enjoyed every day here at the office. I learned a lot from the staff and students, also I enjoyed this experience that I’m sure will be one of the most interesting years in my life.

I was proud to work with my team and we did our best to develop the SU and working hard to achieve our objectives and to make student life better. I wish the new officer team all the best and I’m sure that they will keep making great changes over the next year. It’s hard to say goodbye, but I’ll be visiting Huddersfield whenever I have the chance to say hi. Good luck to you all and see you soon.

Wael Alenzi

SU President

It has been an incredible year working for your Education Officer, and I have thrived off of representing your academic interests, working with Course Reps as well as supporting students run campaigns among many more activities! The key things I have worked on this year with and for students include:

• Setting up the BAME Ambassador Scheme which has won an award this year, you can read all about it here.
• Extending upon the Asylum Seeker work by a previous Officer, to increase the number of scholarships that are available to Asylum Seekers, whilst ensuring that scholarships are fully paid, including maintenance, living and tuition fees. Further, supported the President of the Students Action for Refugees Society (STAR) in developing the society and support the campaign for Equal Access.
• Working with some schamazing University departments and services including Computing and Library Services, Student Services, Staff development, HR and Occupational Health to make changes that affect both Students and Staff.
• Working with the SU departments including the Shop, the Advice Centre, the Course Rep Assistants and the NUS Delegates to offer my support and help with exciting projects like the Ease Your Mind booklet.
• Reaching out to Barry Sheerman and local MPs to stress student’s concerns.
• Working with Officer team on various projects including boosting employability, international events, commuter appreciation week and the SU on Tour, aiming at getting out to as many students as possible to discuss ways in which the Union and Officers can support you.

I am looking forward to representing you again next year, as your President, particularly developing equality, diversity and inclusion projects for students to get involved with, as well as youth minds in democracy.

Thank you for an amazing experience, and please contact me @ su.president@hud.ac.uk if you would like to get involved with anything mentioned, or would like to develop a campaign, project or society!

Looking forward to seeing you all again soon, and welcoming new students this September! J

Jonathan Stephen

Education Officer and President Elect

These past 12 months have been absolutely incredible, and I am so excited to carry on being your Community Officer for the upcoming year.

My 3 main objectives for 2017/18 were to; revamp the RAG function and increase fundraising by our students, improve how the SU helps our students to become more employable, and finally to improve the safety of our students.

At the very start of the year, you all voted for CLIC Sargent to be the RAG charity of 2017/18 and managed to raise over £1100 over the course of the year!

During Freshers’ and Re-Freshers’ we partnered with The Howarth Foundation and managed to raise over £200 in those two weeks for the charity.

This year our students have put on 14 fundraising events through RAG, ranging from the Ultimate Frisbee club doing their days-of-throws to students shaving their heads. You have raised thousands of pounds for over 15 different charities this year, thank you!

I worked with a group of students and we raised awareness of the importance of making blood, organ and bone marrow donations. The NHS then came onto campus where over 30 of you signed up to be new blood donors which is excellent!

We provided breakfast every day for a week for all of you wonderful commuters who come from far and wide to Huddersfield University, helping you meet fellow commuters and share your ways of saving money whilst coming to and from Uni.

The Officers teamed together to produce a short video informing you of the employability opportunities here in Huddersfield, which was followed up by a series a mini GIFs pointing out how to find a job in Huddersfield.

I partnered with the University Careers Service and STAFFLEX, a Huddersfield based recruitment agency, and hosted a Part-Time Jobs Fair, explaining how to apply for a part-time job in the SU and the different roles. As a result, we have over 200 students apply to be a student staff member here at the SU, crazy!

With safety being an important objective of mine, I got myself of Huddersfield’s Pubwatch Committee, where I can work to managers of the local bars and clubs to make Huddersfield’s nightlife much safer for all of you. As a result, the Pubwatch has invested in Street Marshalls to work with door staff and the police during busy nights.

To achieve my objective of improving student safety in Huddersfield I set up the Safe Taxi Policy. Working with GT Taxis and A1 Taxis, the Safe Taxi Policy allows students to gain a free emergency taxi home, to be paid at a later date. Read more here.

Finally, I have linked up with the British Heart Foundation to be ambassadors of their Pack For Good campaign, asking students and staff to donate unwanted items to those less fortunate than them. You can still get involved, drop off your donations in the SU.

Thank you for an amazing year everyone, bring on next year!

Tom Bowden

Community Officer

As Activities Officer, I’m really proud of the hard work that’s been put in from the Activities Team to help me achieve the goals I set out at the start of the year.

We kicked the year off with Freshers’ Week where CHASE & STATUS headlined our biggest Hud Live ever alongside Karen Harding and a whole series of talented student acts.

We’ve seen a great increase in Society engagement since I introduced the free memberships, making our student groups more accessible with greater rewards through the brand new AQM system. Even more of you were taking advantage of our cash rewards and other prizes.>

It’s been an outstanding year for Sport – we’ve introduced a whole range of new and accessible events from social football and outdoor trips to an extremely successful THIS GIRL CAN campaign, liberating and empowering women to get involved in sport.

As well as this, our Sports Clubs have been successful on the pitch – winning a load of BUCS team and individual competitions, being nominated for regional and national awards, receiving call-ups to GB national student teams and finally reclaiming the VARSITY trophy away in Bradford!

Finally, I started work on some improvements to the SU floor in Student Central, with new games consoles, TVs and table tennis to get involved with in your free time and in between lectures.

Thank you for an incredible twelve months so far and can’t wait to kick on next year!

Jake Rodgers

Activities Officer