Transforming Students' Lives and Enhancing Employability
Societies
Student society memberships remain strong, and over 7800 students are members of at least one society.
We created a new permanent staff position this year in the Student Activities department to assist students with training and transferable skills. This led to the creation of the SocsPlan – an online diagnostic tool for society use so that the Student Development Manager can organise skills events which address collective concerns society execs face. We also created Role Guides for society execs to help progress their skills in leadership, delegation, teamwork, and organisation. Over 100 societies attended training to help them run their own societies, including managing their money, event planning and duty of care.
Our student societies had an outstanding year in terms of national recognition, which greatly enhanced students’ profile and employability through extra-curricular activities. Notable wins included:
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RBS ESSA Awards win for enterprising students
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RaW - 4 wins from 4 nominations at the national SRA Awards
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Warwick Glee - won Masters of Show Choir 2013
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Warwick TV - won 2 NASTA Awards
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The Boar - voted Student Publication of the Year 2013
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6 Awards at National Student Drama Festival
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6 clubs & societies nominated for national NUS Awards.
In addition to running a successful Society Awards event in Term 3 (which saw local councillors including the Lord Mayor of Coventry attending and proved an important step forward in our relationship with local authorities by illustrating how students contribute to and enrich our local communities), Societies Officer Silkie Cragg also re-branded SocsFed and obtained sponsorship for the organisation, which led to the organisation of a trip to Amsterdam which 120 members attended. By the end of Term 2, sponsorship for individual societies was at record high of £198,000 (compared with £64,000 in 2006-7).
Sports
"New research from BUCS has revealed that the current average salary of graduates who engaged with sport at university is £32,552, compared with £26,728 for those who did not."
Our sports teams had another strong year, retaining the 23rd annual Varsity tournament shield with our largest-ever point margin of 70/20 across a total of 44 official fixtures covering 20 different sports. This year saw 3 headline events – Ice Hockey (2200 spectators), Basketball/Netball (300 spectators) and Rugby League/Rugby Union (2000 spectators), plus 7 friendly fixtures incorporating Varsity first-timers such as Handball & Mixed Lacrosse.
The annual Sports Ball in Term 3 sold out in record time of under 2 minutes, leading us to secure a second dining room which allowed an additional 500 guests to attend. With a total of 1300 attendees, this was the biggest and most successful ball to date, introducing canapés, indoor fireworks and a steel drum band to the line-up.
The establishment of the world’s first alliance sports challenge came about as a result of our partnership with Monash University in Australia. Over 30 Clubs applied and 12 Clubs were shortlisted to present their cases as to why they should travel to Melbourne and compete with Team Monash from 16th-29th March. 4 clubs were selected (Women’s Netball, Men’s Football, Swimming & Water Polo and Ladies Hockey) and over 100 members from these clubs applied. 30 members were then selected after completing interviews, while feedback was given to all successful and unsuccessful clubs and club members.
We secured over £25k from the University to support the project, allowing the individual cost to be £500 - the trip included a Welcome event, training sessions & matches, a residential meal, campus tours, a sports & careers leadership session, a tour of Carlton Football (AFL) Club, a trip to Healsville Sanctuary, an Aussie Rules (AFL) training session, a trip to Melbourne Aquarium and a day trip to Phillip Island. During the students’ free time they watched a State Netball League Match at the National Hockey & Netball Centre and a Melbourne Victory football match against Perth Glory; went on a tour around the Melbourne Cricket Ground Tour and Rod Laver Arena; visited the Koori Culture and Heritage Museum, the Eureka Skydeck Tower, the Queen Victoria Markets and took a trip along the Great Ocean Road.
Over 9700 students joined Warwick Sport, with over 6000 being members of at least one sports club. In the BUCS league, we finished 22nd overall.
Social Enterprise Project
As winners of the Ernst and Young Prize Tagging Competition, we secured £10,000 of funding to develop a project with them that would help students improve their business skills. We wanted to make sure that this project would not only help students become more employable, but would also have a positive impact on campus and our local communities, so we settled on Social Enterprise.
Working closely with Ernst and Young, and with the help of local social entrepreneurs, we developed a training programme that would support students who wished to tackle a social problem through entrepreneurship. Following our successful training day (which saw a turnout of 50 students), we received 10 applications for funding with ideas ranging from tackling homelessness and the problem of empty housing in Coventry through to a website to help societies and student charity projects find volunteers. Ultimately, we funded one project, with Viva La Yog running a hugely popular stall on the Piazza selling their homemade, organic frozen yoghurt to fund healthy-eating workshops for primary schools in Coventry. Co-winners Backer Adventures planned to run affordable adventure and obstacle races for societies and community groups, whilst donating a proportion of their profits to local charities.
This initiative was followed by the Mentor On the Move event in Term 3, which saw students able to team up with mentors and sponsors in the area of social enterprise.
Careers and Employability
Feedback from our annual Big 5 survey showed that employability was a major area of concern for many students, and that our members wanted us to help bring more graduate recruiters to campus. Throughout 2013-2013, we hosted a greater diversity and spread of career opportunities in the Atrium than ever before, as well as working closely with Student Careers and Skills to communicate the alternative careers events they organised in fields such as journalism, charity, and the arts.
Major names running graduate recruitment events in the SU included:
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Royal Bank of Scotland
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Barclays
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MI5
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Grant Thornton
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Lidl
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Virgin Media
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Coventry Building Society
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Endsleigh Insurance
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Network Rail
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PWC
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Teach First
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Lloyds Banking Group
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KICK: Startup Careers Fair