impact REPORT

2013/14

This year we began our new three-year strategic plan which was put together by and voted on by Anglia Ruskin students. We’ve been really busy working to make big impacts in the five areas of focus in this plan. You might not have had a chance to see our plan so here’s a quick recap of what we want to do for our members over the next few years.

VoiceWe want you to be able to make your university what you want it to be. Whether that’s by getting involved with or leading a campaign, utilising the democratic structure of the Union to make changes or to just simply get your voice heard.

ExperienceWe want you to feel part of something and be proud of the community you’ve helped to create. Our focus on your experience will make sure events and activities are always led by students and that they’re accessible to all. Our student communities, like societies, will be celebrated, supported and promoted so they can continue to grow.

EmployabilityWe know the majority of you attend university to improve your chances of getting the career you want afterwards. 9 out of 10 of our graduates are in work or further study six months after leaving and we contribute to this in lots of ways. We want to provide excellent training to hundreds of students a year, provide opportunities to develop new skills and create an environment where you can learn the important life lessons not covered on your course.

SupportYou start an incredible journey when you come to university. Our aim is to be there at every point during that journey giving support, training and excellent service along the way.

AwarenessWe want to remain relevant and student led, in order to do this we need you to contribute to the way we’re run. We found that lots of students simply didn’t know they could do this. We want to promote our services better, strengthen our brand and make sure our partnership with the university work to improve your awareness of what a Students’ Union can be.

All the details about our strategic plan can be found on www.angliastudent.com/theplan

We’ve asked our members to tell us what impact we’ve made this year. Have a look through the amazing stories in the pages below.

MeganCommunications Officer

VOICE

305 Positions2346 Votes

5 Positions10000 Votes

1225Votes

171 Attended

23 New Policies

8 Policies by RepsUNIO

N C

OUN

CIL13

6Campaignsrun by societies

12New positions created bystudents to be Representatives

Reps took student opinion to high level University meetings

Students nominated someonefor a Made a Difference Awards

43841

Reps won a ‘Rep of theMonth’ award

78%Of all Reps havereceived training

Alex and Aga - Vegan SocietyWhen we started being Vegan we noticed how hard it was if there weren’t other vegans around you who could re-affirm your decision. Our aim was to help others to be more confident in their ethical and moral decision; we wanted to create a network of people and to instigate some key changes throughout ARU to help other vegans. We’ve had people who have asked for help to become vegan; people have been more confident on campus to ‘out’ themselves as vegan. We put a policy proposal forward to the Student Council and got student support for adding vegan options to the cafeteria menus. The Students’ Union then arranged a meeting with the catering managers and through working with catering staff we have added a wider variety of both vegetarian and vegan options to cafeteria menus. The Students’ Union has been very supportive of

our campaigns, helping us to make changes to our University. It’s now much easier for people to speak about veganism and for people to find food on campus.

Alex and Aga Vegan Society

I’m in my 3rd year, I’m also a Course Rep and a Faculty Rep for Science and Technology. As a Course Rep your job is to listen to your fellow students, take the good points and the bad points and feed these back to the lecturers and then work with the lecturers to make improvements. There have been times when we’ve not received lecture notes for example and just by taking student feedback and working with lecturers, these sorts of things have been rectified. When I first started at Uni I identified a weakness of mine that was meeting new people and public speaking so I decided a way of improving and confronting those weaknesses was to become a Course Rep. I’ve become more confident and I’m able to talk in public; there’s an endless amount of skills I’ve gained and opportunities as well.

I was approached by a student who I’d known form the Foundation year, she explained to me that there was a compulsory course trip to Devon when students moved into their 2nd year. They were told at the start of the year that it was going to be a certain price but when they got all the details they

found out it was going to be an extra £40-50 each. We took this feedback to faculty level meetings. The price was reduced to what it was originally, saving students money, and I believe that there

is something in place now where the University will be more transparent about hidden course costs. What motivated me to start University was to get a good

job. Every student has the potential to receive a first class honours degree but to make yourself stand out you need to do something else. One of the best things you can do is be a student rep. You get to go to lots of meetings, learn new skills and you also get to represent your fellow students!

DeanCourse Rep

EMPLOYABILITY

1249Student Volunteers

Hours spent volunteering by students

22,182New online CustomerService Training for student front desk staff

New Employability session at the Rep Conference

Reps attended a development session

95Volunteering placements available this year

651

For the last year I have been president of the AMT (Audio Music Technology) Society. Our aim is to provide live sound training to any students interested in the world of sound and being involved in the technology behind performance. We intersperse that with real world experience. We run the venue here at Anglia Ruskin, but we also put on lots of outside events for both other societies and private clients. One of our main roles as a society is to run the sound at the Cambridge venue, the Academy, but we also run the sound for events in Chelmsford. We run the front of house sound, monitors, lighting and sound for venue, preparing the staging and running all technical aspects of the production here.

I’ve gained a lot of useful workplace experience of event management and organising groups of people. We in effect run the society as a live sound company and I would feel happy to now go in to a

live sound company, understand my role and know what was expected of me. Through my role I’ve learnt a lot about ‘tech-ing’ events which really compliments my course; Audio

Music Technology. So, on my course I learn the skills and through my society I learn how to turn those skills into real employable characteristics that I

can take forward into the workplace. It’s all very well learning the theory of mixing and balancing sound in a class room, but nothing can replace the experience of working in an actual live venue with musicians on a weekly basis.

BenAMT Society

I’m a 3rd year Human Research student, it’s my 3rd year being a Course Rep and my 1st year being a Student Trustee of the Students’ Union. People may not know that the Students’ Union is a charity and as a charity it has a trustee board. The trustee board is made up of students and external trustees who together contribute their skills and knowledge to help oversee issues at the Students’ Union. Being a trustee I help to ensure the union is student led. We meet every couple of months to discuss the budgets and strategic direction of the Students’ Union. One of the benefits to myself of

my voluntary roles is demonstrating a high level of responsibility and acting in ways that students

might not usually do at University. I’ve learnt how to deal with delicate issues

and handle them in a professional way as well as meeting some interesting people I wouldn’t have had to chance to otherwise. There are multiple opportunities to get involved with the union and the impact you make is your own.

PatrickStudent Trustee

EXPERIENCETeams competed inVARSITY 201424

703 Students attended the Chelmsford Festiball and Cambridge Summer Send Off

25,193 Tickets were sold for social events

1211 Students attendeda Give it a Go this year

1,637Clubs & Societies

Members

Course based Societiesstarted this year31

85%Of Reps felt they have

been celebrated fortheir success

Being part of a society is an amazing experience. I started as a member, then became part of the Vice-Committee and I’m now the President of the society. Running a society can be quite difficult; it can be stressful when you’ve got all your work to do on top, but both the rest of the committee and the society members do as much as they can to help. It really brings everybody together when you see an event take place that you know you’ve been a part of and they’ve been a part of. We’re the biggest society at ARU, we’ve got 90 paid members. We’re based around a book and film – it’s just a thing that we all like and we know our members like. Society events are a great place to meet people with similar interests and you find out

so much more about people as the year goes on – it’s a great starting point. It’s amazing to feel like such a part of a community

both with my society and with the university as a whole. We meet each other on such a regular basis and don’t just talk about

Harry Potter! Societies have been a massive part of my life at University and it’s definitely something I encourage other people to get involved with.

KateHarry Potter Society

I’m the Captain of the Chelmsford football team. When I started at ARU, I got involved with the football team straight away, there wasn’t a club President at the time so I was asked to do it. I was nervous at the start but when I took on the role it completely changed my life. It introduced me to about 50 other students, people who I wouldn’t have met by just living in halls or on my course. One the biggest benefits of being part of a club is meeting other people and feeling a part of the University. You get to experience the other side of University life, the social side. We organised joint socials with the rugby and netball teams and we used the Chelmsford Student Lounge as a place to meet before we went out.

It gives me great pride representing Anglia Ruskin and wearing the badge playing all over the

country at different Universities. If you ask any of the football teams or the netballs teams, they’ll say how proud they are of Anglia Ruskin.

I’d recommend everyone join a club, be proud of Anglia Ruskin and fell part of the community.

AdamChelmsford Football

AWARENESS

angliastudent.com x 1,083,228 pages viewed

49,595

Students’ Union articles in the Bulletin (ARU internal magazine) this year

21ILoveARU brand launched to celebrate ARU community, pride and experience!

7 Rep Newsletterswere sent out this year

#ILoveARU

The SU Bite newsletter wasread 49,595 times this year

I’m the Head of International Faculty Student Advice Service at Anglia Ruskin, I work with the Students’ Union on a number of initiatives around the student experience. This starts off with International Orientation and Welcome and the Students’ Union are really key to making the best experience for our students. We start the planning process as early as we can. We can only provide a seamless service to new students by working in partnership with the Students’ Union, just so we can make sure we’re on the same page with our plans, that we’re delivering

CarolineHead of International Faculty Student Advice Service at Anglia Ruskin

the activity students want and that we’re listening to student feedback. Getting current and former students involved with the Welcome events really does make a big

difference and we can see that in the positive feedback we get from students. The Students’ Union can empathise with the international students, perhaps more than staff

can, and tell them about what it’s like being here at Anglia Ruskin and help them to settle in.

This year the Advice Service was successfully audited by the Advice Services Alliance, an independent organisation which ensures the quality of Advice Services in hue he UK. We were awarded the Advice Quality Standard (AQS).

The AQS is awarded to organisations that give advice to members of the public on legal issues. Organisations are audited every two years and have to demonstrate that they are accessible, effectively managed, and employ staff with the skills and knowledge to meet the needs of their clients.

We have held this award or its predecessor since 2009 and we are been audited every two years to check that we continue to fulfil the requirements of this standard. Being accredited in this way means that students can use our Advice Service with confidence, knowing that we have professional Advisers

with the knowledge and skills to advise them correctly. Students can have confidence that we offer independent, confidential impartial advice

that meets this professional standard. Over the past twelve months the Advice Service has given advice

to 1307 students. We have supported students through academic appeals, grievances and complaints, accommodation problems and course issues, placement problems and disciplinary, plagiarism and fitness to practice issues.

DebbieStudents’ Union Advice Service

impact REPORT2013/14

PRESIDENT: Daryl SharpeACADEMIC OFFICER: Aisha D’SouzaCOMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Megan BennettEXPERIENCE OFFICER (Cambs): Sarah HaiderEXPERIENCE OFFICER (Essex): Ola Adetola

Your Executive Officers Team for 2013/14 has been: Francesca Rust - President, GabbiForeman - Academic, Megan Bennett - Communications, Daryl Sharpe - Experience (Cambs), Jack Goodwin - Experience (Essex)

Your Executive Officers Team for 2014/15 will be:

See the impact made this year on YouTube