AU President

Brianna Cummins

I study geography BSC and I play women’s rugby. I started women’s rugby when I first came to uni after being a swimmer for all of my life — I just decided to find a new challenge and just that was that. Sport has always been a very massive part of my life from growing up. I used to play in the garden with my grandad a lot, so he’s definitely pushed me to be the sportswoman I am today.

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BE AU PRESIDENT?

One, I just love Exeter. I love it a lot. So obviously if there’s an excuse for me to stay, then I’ll stay. But also I think I am very passionate about sport in general — I believe that sport has the ability to really help people from a wellbeing perspective to an actual physical health perspective. And I’m a firm believer that everyone should have the option to join a society or play some kind of sport just to kind of improve themselves. To bring it back to the rugby club, I’ve never felt as accepted before and I’d love for other people to feel that kind of acceptance with really any kind of society, though obviously, I’m going to be more inclined to sport societies because I’m running for Sports President. And also it would be nice to get a girl in there!

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the ROLE?

I think people do have a bit of mental block sometimes against sport and some people feel like they can’t do it and like they have to be really good and there’s a big gap between like the highest level athletes to people that just do it like regularly and like just for fun. So I think that’s the biggest challenge, encouraging people that you don’t need to be amazing at it. Like it’s just going to have fun and just release a bit of like steam and like, get some endorphins and things like that. You’re not there to become a professional like you’re there just to have fun and make some friends. And it’s just yeah coming from that angle probably — so trying to get people over that, stigma that might have been from school that “I’m not sporty I don’t wanna do sport” when in reality there are so many sports out there that people can get involved with.

What will you do to combat toxic cultures in au societies?

how will you ensure both men’s & women’s sports are supported by the au? what is your biggest weakness?

What is your MOST MEMORABLE NIGHT OUT IN EXETER?

Well, I think I’d love to have regular meetings with all like society Committee members, just like regular updates about how they’re doing intake in their, in their societies themselves, and the kind of like I’d like to go along and just like, witness the culture myself. Just getting a real feel and obviously like flagging up things which come up. I’d also probably want to release more regular surveys to clubs just so we can get a truthful anonymous opinion on what they’re doing well, what they’re doing wrong and how we can work with that.

So one of my main points is women’s empowerment within sport, and that’s something I’m very passionate about. I’ve been involved in the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign for the past couple of weeks. Obviously playing a male dominated sport, and for the other male dominated female sports, it’s very difficult. But then you can’t take away from the fact that like, they’re also sports people too. There has to be a level of like mutual respect, obviously you’ve heard about all the stuff that has been going on this year with the women’s sports in general. I would just strive just for equality cause at the end of the day, okay potentially you can’t always equally compare the sports. They’re men. We’re women. But it’s the same. If you love sport there should be no questions asked.

I have raging ADHD so being organised. Literally like it will be everything flying everywhere, so definitely at the start, I can imagine it being pretty manic. But I think I’ll get used to it quickly. I think it’s just a big step up. I was a social sec and then captain of the team, and it’ll be a huge step up. Like suddenly, like you’re this figurehead for the uni, essentially — the sports world of the uni. I think it’ll be a lot of pressure, I might have to brush my hair a little bit more as well!

It’s always gonna be a night where you end up in the Lemmy (and you don’t remember getting there). This was my first year (years ago) I’ll just say it didn’t end well. But other than that most TP nights always end in some kind of VK rushing and shaking. But yeah definitely the Lemon Grove cause that place should be strictly just for Freshers! It’s got school disco vibes.