Hallam Union is reaching the end of a fantastic year packed full of representation, campaigns, activities and development, making it hard to summarise and do justice to all the students’ and staff’s hard work!
Our efforts to improve our ethical and environmental practice have been recognised by receiving a Silver Sound Impact Award for environmental best-practice in Students’ Unions, along with achieving Fairtrade Status.
The launch of SHU Media has seen the three areas of SHU Print, SHU Radio and SHU Box grow throughout the year giving students a great opportunity to develop skills in media. SHU Box contributed to the 18.5% increase in the voting turnout of this years elections. Due to the candidates’ video manifestos visible across the university raising the awareness of the Hollywood themed elections.
Sheffield Varsity saw over 70 fixtures compete in 30 sports. The twelve days had the best spectator turn out of twelve previous Varsities leaving it to a nail-biting draw 20-20.
This year has seen a variety of campaigns from sexual health which included training volunteers to give advice; to student safety with free self-defence classes organised at collegiate campus.
Societies have had a very successful year, with 12 new societies starting this year there are now more than ever before; with the at Debating Society winning society of the year the recent Societies’ Awards for their array of debates on issues from Higher Education Funding to Human Rights.
Hallam Volunteering have gone from strength to strength with over 500 volunteers participating in over 30 community projects; with the Higher Education Active Community Fund awarding the ‘Monday Club’ Outstanding Project of the Year and Natasha Pearson Student Volunteer of the Year. This made us the only Union in the country to win two such awards.
The Faculty Involvement Groups (FIGs) were launched at the start of the year, this initiative brought together Student Faculty Reps with staff from their Faculty to co-ordinate student voice in the Faculty and work together to resolve issues.
At the end of May we will be holding an event celebrating this year and would like to thank all those who have worked with us to achieve the successes we have had.
Looking ahead, we have just completed the first consultation on our Governance Review and have recently published our first ever Strategic Plan, giving the organisation a strategic view for the future. We wish next years Executive Committee all the best and if this year is anything to go by then the sky’s the limit!
