Impact report

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ UNION

Impact Report 2013/2014

INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS

Welcome to the Newcastle University Students’ Union Impact Report for the 2013-14 academic year.

It gives me great pleasure, as incoming President, to highlight some of the wonderful work that the Students’ Union has undertaken over the past 12 months in ensuring that we continue to make a positive contribution to the experiences of all of our students.

I am even more pleased to report the NUSU is now ranked 8th nationally for student satisfaction in the 2014 National Student Survey. To be ranked in the top 10 for student satisfaction is a fantastic achievement and reflects the outstanding contribution that NUSU makes towards the student experience here at Newcastle. This excellent student feedback was also echoed by our international students who

expressed their satisfaction through the International Student Barometer (Autumn 2013); their exceptionally high satisfaction scores meant we were ranked 5th nationally for international student satisfaction.

This report will demonstrate our impact and outline achievements, all of which are helping to ensure that we continue to deliver a student experience of the highest quality. It is important that we continue to work in partnership with Newcastle University on a number of joint projects in the pursuit of our common goals. Looking forward we must not become complacent and ensure that we stay engaged with our students and focussed on delivering what our students want.

Claire Boothman

Trustees Report

3-4

Employability

28

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Chief Executive Statement

29 Focus on Sabine Kucher 30-32 .....................................................................

5-6

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Key Achievements

7-8

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Impact

9-16

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Support

Community

36-39

Student Volunteering

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17-18 19-27

Sustainability

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33-34

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Engagement and Comms

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Participation

NCL+ Awards

40-41 42-45

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President 2014/15

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TRUSTEES REPORT

Strategic Direction:

Our Values and Philosophy:

WHERE WE ARE HEADING

HOW WE WISH TO WORK

The NUSU 3-Year Strategic Plan 2012-15 was accepted and approved by the membership in June 2012. The Trustees are delighted to report that progress against our major objectives has been excellent and that we have achieved our 3 year objective of breaking into the top 10 SUs for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey a year earlier than planned. We are also delighted at the exceptionally high level of international student satisfaction expressed through the International Student Barometer (Autumn 2013)

We are an organisation led by our community of students at Newcastle University; we exist to serve this community and recognise that it is made up of various groups based on common interest and common experiences, such as faith, ethnic origin, status (home/ overseas), course of study, disability and health; everything we do is based on an assessment of our community’s wants and needs which in turn controls our direction and purpose. In all that we do we look to demonstrate the following values:

This report will highlight progress at the end of year 2 against the strategic priorities outlined in the plan, outline the major impacts and achievements of the organisation and highlight student feedback and thoughts which we value greatly.

DEMOCRATIC Our members are at the heart of our

Our Vision: THE LONG TERM GOAL Our vision is for NUSU to have a positive impact on the experience of every student at Newcastle University.

decision making. We represent and empower them.

We are supportive, responsible and accountable.

INCLUSIVE We will support diversity, involvement

Promoting a strong and vibrant community for all of our students

Our Mission: WHY WE EXIST NUSU looks to enhance the student experience in everything that we do and to do this we have identified 6 key strategic aims.

Strategic Aims: WHAT WE ARE FOCUSING ON FROM 2012-15 Creating IMPACT through representation and campaigning.

Providing SUPPORT for members through a range of accessible specialist services.

and equality. We will provide services and facilities which reflect the diverse needs of our membership.

Offering employment opportunities and enhancing the EMPLOYABILITY of our students.

RESPONSIBLE We are an effective and successful

Promoting a strong and vibrant COMMUNITY for all of our students.

organisation. We work sustainably and efficiently. We are accountable to our stakeholders.

PROGRESSIVE We look to the future, seeking new opportunities and partnerships. We are innovative, imaginative and creative and happy to work in collaboration with others.

INDEPENDENT We work as an independent charity; making our decisions based upon the needs of our members and acting in the best interests of the students who support us.

FUN We want your time with us to be as enjoyable as

We will maximise PARTICIPATION levels across all activities and services in order to reach out to every student.

In order to ensure longer term SUSTAINABILITY, we will shape our support services to effectively meet the organisation’s needs.

In order to achieve our strategic aims we recognise that ENGAGEMENT and COMMUNICATION with our students is of paramount importance and we will keep this at the heart of everything we do.

possible.

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CHIEF EXECUTIVE STATEMENT

93% Positive Impact I am immensely proud of the senior management team, our staff and our volunteers who have worked tirelessly again this year to ensure that the experience of our students is the very best it can be. To fulfil our vision of having a positive impact on the experience of every student, we set out some key strategic priorities at the beginning of the year: to continue to focus on having a positive impact on the experience of every student at Newcastle University; to move towards being ranked in the top 10 Student Unions in the UK for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey; to target particular efforts on the international student experience; to ensure that we campaigned effectively on behalf of our members; to improve our ability to enhance our volunteers employability skills; and to provide the best possible facilities and support to our students.

93% positive impact Our internal student survey is available for all students of all years to complete; this gives us a good indicator from the whole student body as to whether we are delivering the type of experience they want. A fantastic 93% of students who completed the survey agreed that we were having a positive impact on their experience.

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85% think we campaign effectively Ranked 8th Nationally

91% felt more employable

Our aspiration was to be ranked in the top 10 for student satisfaction on the National Student Survey by summer 2015. We are delighted to report that we have now achieved this a year ahead of schedule. A satisfaction level of 82% ranked us 8th nationally.

This year we successfully trialled a new accreditation scheme, which as well as capturing the extra-curricular work undertaken also highlighted to individuals the skills they had developed. In total 3430 students undertook volunteering opportunities and 91% said they felt more employable as a result of volunteering with us.

97% Satisfied Perhaps our biggest achievement was the response we got from our international students who express their satisfaction levels through the International Student Barometer. 97% of the students completing the survey expressed their satisfaction with the Students’ Union. This ranked us 5th nationally and 24th globally.

85% Think we campaign effectively

89% would recommend us to a friend 91% of students agreed that the SU building was a welcoming and safe place to be. All facilities and support considered, overall 80% of students rated us as Excellent or Good with 17% rating us Satisfactory; only 3% rated us as Poor. Furthermore, 89% of students would recommend us to a friend.

91% felt more employable As a membership organisation we will only ever be as good as the students say we are, so we remain focussed on ensuring that their priorities are our priorities.

Looking forward we must not be complacent and we should strive to continuously improve in everything we do, as others are doing the same. Over the summer we will be undertaking a bar refurbishment and preparing new social learning facilities, meeting rooms and a new catering outlet to better meet the everincreasing demand for our services.

Simon Gerry Chief Executive

NUSU ran a number of campaigns this year aimed at improving the lives of students and our Course and School Reps played their part at keeping the students at the heart of the overall experience. 85% of students felt that we campaigned effectively on their behalf.

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CHIEF EXECUTIVE STATEMENT KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

42,692 Votes Cast in our Elections Newcastle University Students’ Union is now recognised as one of the leading Students’ Unions in the UK. This report will highlight in detail the impact we have created for our students and the local community and the achievements of our efforts over the past year.

This year we have again included input from our student members to demonstrate how our work is directly affecting their student experience. Some of the most notable highlights include:

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RAG team raised £75,000 this year In our elections, overall votes cast numbered 42,692, with 26% of our students (5658 individual students) choosing to vote. This surpassed last year’s individual student turnout, which was the highest in our history and will keep us in the top quartile of SUs in terms of turnout; it also gives us a very solid democratic foundation.

In another fantastic year for student media we hosted the National Student Radio Conference, which was supported Radio 1’s Greg James and Scott Mills, for the first time. We then went on to win the Guardian Student Publication of the Year award for the second year running, and the NUS Best Student Media Award at the national NUS Awards.

We trained all of our 40 School Reps this year and 56% of 1163 Course Reps making them more effective than ever. Some of their individual impacts are outlined in our Impact section. 85% of our students agreed that we campaigned effectively on their behalf.

Our new Student Green Fund project had a notable first year after our inaugural ‘Stu Bru’, brewed by our very own micro-brewery was featured in an award winning garden at the Chelsea Flower show, and as guest beverage at a reception held in the House of Lords (by SCAN patron and Newcastle alumnus Lord Redesdale) which celebrated the Green Fund projects across the country.

87% of students who had used the NUSU Student Advice Service rated it as good or excellent. Open comments from students included:

“I was very impressed by the level and depth of knowledge from the adviser.

I felt that my query was dealt with very well and I left feeling positive and reassured. I would totally recommend the service.”

After pushing our employability agenda hard this year 91% of students said they felt more employable as a result of volunteering with us. A total of 3,430 students were involved in our volunteering activity.

Our Raising and Giving (RAG) team raised £75,000 this year, with more volunteers involved in RAG week than ever before getting involved in projects throughout the year, such as Jailbreak (with one set of students reaching Hong Kong), and other volunteer projects in Thailand, Ghana and Peru.

We introduced a new website, IT system and customer relationship management system to help us better engage digitally with our students from next year.

Early signs are very positive and this will strengthen our position to effectively communicate with our members.

We sold 4,200 Freshers’ Week wristbands and created over 12,000 opportunities for students to make friends and settle into University life.

Having secured £270,000 external funding at the start of the year, we were then successful in a further Sport England bid and gained £112,000 to run new intermural sports programmes, which will expand the current provision for sport at Newcastle University.

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IMPACT THROUGH REPRESENTATION AND CAMPAIGNING

85% of students believe NUSU campaigns effectively on their behalf

What we said: It is important that we look to create impact in all that we do. Representing our members is core to our existence and we will provide a strong and independent voice to decision makers, both locally and nationally. We will support our members in creating the change they want to see, through effective representation and campaigns which have real impact.

What happened: Election turnout this year was very good with 26% of students voting in our elections giving us a strong democratic base to take forward policies and change; a total of 42,692 votes were cast across all elections.

A very successful ‘Course Rep Campaign’ was held in 10 locations across the campus to raise awareness of the Rep System; 86% of student said they knew of the representative system and 70% said they felt it was effective. Overall, 85% of students agreed that NUSU campaigned effectively on their behalf.

26% Election turnout 42,692 votes in total 9

A SNAPSHOT OF WHAT THE OFFICER TEAM ACHIEVED ON BEHALF OF STUDENTS: Secured funding from the PVC Teaching and Learning to pilot PGT school reps in 10 schools.

Lobbied the University to plug the funding gap created by cuts to the National Scholarship programme thus securing agreement that it would continue next year.

Secured input and representation on appropriate boards to fully represent Newcastle students in Singapore, and support to set up systems to ensure parity of the student experience for these students.

Worked with the University to provide extra space during exam periods, resulting in the Pop Up Library with 220+ study spaces.

Negotiated with the University to ensure that if a lecture was cancelled due to strike action, the University would not include this information in assessment.

Ran a module evaluation campaign to inform students about the importance of this and provide guidance on how to give constructive feedback.

You Said…We did A SNAPSHOT OF WHAT THE OFFICER TEAM DID IN RESPONSE TO DIRECT STUDENT FEEDBACK: Sports Clubs felt in 2012/13 that communication with the AU was ineffective so the AU Exec introduced drop ins at club events and training.

AU Clubs were unhappy with the grants system so the AU Officer reviewed and restructured the whole system; ensuring clubs were fully consulted by voting this through at the AU AGM. Long waiting lists for Intra Mural (IM) sport and the filling of places prior to September indicated a need for more places and a new format to allow students to join later in the year. Therefore, we have secured approx. £100,000 funding to develop a new Halls IM programme and expand the existing University IM provision.

Societies have been increasingly frustrated about the lack of space available to them for their activities, so the team have secured new space in the Kings Road Centre for meetings, activities and social learning.

AU Clubs are often struggling for funds, with NUSU only able to meet 33% of grant requests.

We have now secured a large increase in AU grant allocations, as well as in year assistance for clubs such as Sailing, resulting in significant additional support for all clubs from 2013/2014.

We surveyed students to find out what you wanted from your Graduation Ball, designed the events around this feedback, ensured the event was a sell out and huge success as a result.

A lack of candidates for part time officer positions indicated our representation system is not as effective as we would like it to be, so the team restructured the positions to gain more student involvement.

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IMPACT THROUGH REPRESENTATION AND CAMPAIGNING

Making a difference at course level

Highlighted the importance of consistency from module leaders for dissertation feedback by producing examples of inconsistency.

Our School and Course representative systems are now key drivers for ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING AND LANDSCAPE change in the University. This year our Issues surrounding space and access have been a Course and School Reps have been key problem for a long time; an automatic lock down busier than ever representing their system has now been introduced which will start to alleviate the core problems. peers on staff student committees and pushing through change at course ARTS AND CULTURES and school level. All the changes were aimed at creating a better environment Secured a temporary common room for MA Art Museum and Gallery Studies students. or better conditions for our students.

This is what the Reps told us: COMBINED HONOURS (CH)

Humanities and Social Sciences AGRICULTURE, FOOD AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT (AFRD) Made key resources that are heavily demanded more easily available to students in AFRD (statistics and economics text books for stage 1 – now e-books and shorter loan period).

Started an investigation into the possibility that individual programmes will allocate specific modules to be more placement and work experience orientated. This will help employability after graduation.

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Undertook a wide ranging consultation exercise to assess whether students feel there is a discrepancy between marking criteria across modules and schools.

Once this data is analysed if discrepancies are found then it will hopefully be used as a springboard to run a university-wide campaign next year.

Reps also have met with the schools of History and Geography to discuss a proposed preference system of module selection to make the pre-registration process fairer and less stressful for all students (especially when with students numbers going up the introduction of more caps seems imminent).

Contributed to the design and promotion of codesigned curriculum and students as partners.

EDUCATION, COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES Secured agreement for 2nd year BSc formative assignments to be reconsidered, with a possibility to return to the old assessment system where they would contribute to the clinical mark.

ENGLISH LITERATURE, LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS Agreed the architecture of the new student common room was decided on in one of our Student-Staff Committee meetings. There were around 10 different floor plans available, and the focus was on asking the students what our thoughts were.

GEOGRAPHY, POLITICS AND SOCIOLOGY Working with Combined Honours School Rep to ensure fair treatment of Combined Honours students taking Geography modules. We met with Head of Geography, Head of Combined Honours and agreed that fieldwork trip in first year will NOT be attached to a specific module and that Combined Honours students will be asked to attend in order to be able to make relation with 1st year Geography students.

Continued interventions on the inadequacy of the HaSS Research Training programme for PGTs have

now been fed through to the Internal Subject Reviews, and subsequently will be presented to a forthcoming Faculty Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Committee (FLTSEC) meeting. The Chair of the HaSS FLTSEC is now aware of the issue.

The University’s Quality in Learning and Teaching department (QuilT) will now consider whether students should have the right to delete information that has been recorded by the forthcoming e-portfolios system.

This had not been considered before, and the officer from QuilT agreed to take this back and discuss it with his colleagues.

HISTORY, CLASSICS AND ARCHAEOLOGY Discussion with the NUSU’s Education Executive has resulted in improvements to the system with timetabling and the University’s I.T. department, which should allow for improvements to be made to access to the timetabling system at peak times.

Secured the creation of a PGT Forum in the Faculty Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Committee in order to facilitate discussion of PGT issues solely.

LAW Secure agreement that the exam board will now provide the Law School with more paper during exams.

Gained resolution to the on-going debate regarding the legibility of written feedback.

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IMPACT THROUGH REPRESENTATION AND CAMPAIGNING

MODERN LANGUAGES Majority of (if not all!) problems/queries at SSC have been dealt with swiftly and sensibly, with both students and staff offering practical solutions to problems.

Consideration being given to suggestion to start a ‘good news email’ for the whole of the School of Modern Languages (SML). It would list notable student and staff achievements or activities both inside and outside of SML and suggested that it be sent out once a term/semester.

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL Filed Work funding is now available.

EU conferences will now be considered as home conferences.

A new module on data analysis for 1st year PhDs has been agreed and should be rolled out for the start of 2014/15.

ReCap is now opt-out for lecturers meaning that they will have to make an effort to not provide it.

Faculty of Medical Sciences

INSTITUTE OF CELLULAR MEDICINE

MRES

BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

Secured funding for prICM and a result a successful industrial visit to Leica was organised.

New laptops are to be made available to students as a short-term relief to the IT shortages.

The first Inter-Institute charity Pub Quiz was successfully organised and raised £53.66 for AGEUK.

The MRES School Rep organised the design and setup of a video recording between staff and students that will be uploaded to the university website for prospective students.

Access to Lab D has improved and is now open as scheduled and the feedback from this is good. This has taken the pressure off lab facilities and it has been used for the CMB3001 final year module this term.

DENTAL SCIENCES New computer facilities specifically for Dental students have been made available in the Dental school allowing improved access to computers.

Unwanted ReCap recordings of seminar rooms issue has been resolved. ReCap recording from seminars would not be uploaded unless approved by the academic lead of the session.

GRADUATE SCHOOL Pop-up library clusters have been introduced during examination periods.

A review and comparison of academic dates has taken place.

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MBBS Secured new opening times for the Walton Library; it is now open until midnight during the May/June examination period.

Current A101 Accelerated MBBS are to deliver the LSE IT induction to new students starting the course in September 2014 as they felt the session may be better delivered by students to allow them to get the best out of it.

Image booklets were provided for the first time in the exams this summer. Feedback received was positive as students liked the booklet and felt they were able to answer questions more confidently as a result.

Students will now be provided with information about which optional modules would best complement the compulsory programme module(s) to help students choose modules which match their interests.

Training will be provided for new students about how to use NESS, RAS and Blackboard in their induction as of 2014.

There will be the same number of practice exam questions provided for each module as of next year.

Demonstrator training is now being provided to MRes/ PhD students in their MRes year to allow them to start demonstrating straight away in their PhD year.

PSYCHOLOGY Secured more computers and a new printer for the Psychology common room now.

ISS and estates are considering options to alleviate the general lack of workspace within the Faculty.

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IMPACT THROUGH REPRESENTATION AND CAMPAIGNING

Science, Agriculture and Engineering BIOLOGY Module evaluation surveys are now open for longer to allow students to come back and fill them in at a convenient time for them.

In some modules, some resources were not posted on BlackBoard. The Biology Taught School Rep raised this issue with the Head of School and School Manager who then opened a dialog with academic staff.

The Rep also produced an ‘easy access’ document about graduation and sent it to all third year students in the School. The document contained all of the information from the University’s congregation pages, just in a user friendly format.

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING AND ADVANCED MATERIALS Integration of demonstration needs for schools and students who have skills in other areas than the school they are in.

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CHEMISTRY Consideration being given to introducing The Chemistry database ‘Reaxys’ earlier than the current timeline of stage 3.

Introduced new advanced training workshops which have all been well attended, and some excellent feedback received.

An additional postgraduate social was organised in the form of a brewery tour for all PG students and staff, also functioning as a ‘welcome to the department’ event for three new staff members.

Secured a new hand drying system in the 2nd floor toilets of the Bedson building.

CIVIL ENGINEERING AND GEOSCIENCES (CEG) Secured a microphone (and installation thereof) in the Isaac cluster.

CEG is to become a test school for the IT Skills resource that has been created in the Faculty of Medical Sciences and is now looking to increase its scope across the University.

We created a poster with all the reps and their roles which is up permanently and we are planning where it could go to be more visible and improvements that could be made for next year as well as adding a PG rep poster.

Successful survey into communication between staff and students identified that emails were the preferred method of communication.

It has been organised for next year that all course reps (in stage 1 and 2) introduce themselves in a lecture after the away day so everyone is knows who they are.

Began the process of getting water fountain installed in the common room with interim solution of drinks in the vending machine.

MECHANICAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING Secured extra printing credits for third year students that allows them to print around 200 extra pages for free.

MARINE AND SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY Secured more computers for the Armstrong Marine Common Room.

New and improved timetable formulated for next year with less teaching hours, balancing out school work with reading.

MATHS AND STATS From the Student-Staff Committee (SSC) meeting there were a lot of complaints about a particular module, mas 3112, This module will be totally rewritten for next year.

More work space especially during exam periods will be provided next year after effective representation up to ULTSEC.

Secured additional bike rack space outside the Stephenson Building which has been much appreciated by students.

Coursework submission dates on NESS are now available at the start of each term.

The Library has liaised with the staff and School Rep to provide a better referencing and endnote service.

This has been an achievement as the School has provided a preferred referencing style and method for the students to follow unless otherwise stated by the lecturer setting the work piece.

‘You Say We Did’ updates have been circulated around the school via email as well as on a poster on the Course Rep notice board. This has been a good way to communicate the work and achievements the Course Reps have been making.

SWAN CENTRE In future students will get PPE for Lab work provided so they don’t have to buy it themselves.

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SUPPORT FOR MEMBERS THROUGH A RANGE OF ACCESSIBLE SPECIALIST SERVICES

87% rated the service as Good or Excellent What we said: Sometimes student life can be challenging, and our members need help from others. We will provide support, advice or simply dependable information, to ensure that our members are well looked after in their times of need.

What happened: Our Student Advice Centre (SAC) was very busy again this year with 613 new clients, the majority being housing issues followed by academic cases. In dealing with financial issues we managed to recover and save students a total of £32,178 in 2013/14. In addition, it is assessed that at least 34 student clients would have very likely have dropped out of University early without our intervention which equates to approximately £141,000 in retained fees.

87% of survey respondents who had used the service, rated it as good or excellent. Open comments from students included:

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“I was very impressed by the level and depth of knowledge from the adviser. I felt that my query was dealt with very well and I left feeling positive and reassured. I would totally recommend the service.”

“Very, very, very helpful.”

We also continued to run other support services this year such as the Nightbus, the Emergency Taxi Scheme and Nightline. Following some criticisms last year of the Nightline service we invested more resource and staff time to amend the governance of the service, upgrade facilities, and help with volunteer recruitment.

We are pleased to report that the Nightline service doubled their number of volunteers and had nearly 100% shift coverage and offered a much improved service; the service dealt with 670 calls this year and many Instant Messages on the newly introduced messaging system.

As well as running campaigns our Reps are there to support students with whatever they needed, whether that be academic issues, or problems with accommodation or in halls. This year we trained 60% of our 1200 Reps face to face, and the remainder had access to our online training materials; this ensured that all reps were effective in their respective roles.

Welfare Campaigns Each academic year we run a number of campaigns to in order to improve the student experience. We focus on 5 priority campaigns that students tell us they want us to focus on in our annual survey, which this year was Exam stress, Sexual Health, Mental Health, Student Housing and Student Safety, alongside a number of other important campaigns that result from ongoing student issues across the year.

Student Council, student focus groups, feedback from student reps including Course Reps and Community Reps and national and local student issues help us determine what we campaign on next, and we are continuously increasing student engagement in our campaigns. This year we ran our first completely student-led campaign, Mind the Gap, which aimed to start a positive discussion about the 1 in 5 students with mental health problems and tackle stigma to encourage more students to seek support; 8 other partner mental health charities also got involved. The campaign attracted BBC media coverage and saw over 170 delegates from across the community attend an inaugural conference. Our student-led conference sessions were excellently rated at an average of 4.3 out of 5 for quality.

Other key campaigns included Stressed Out Students to help students tackle stress during exam periods, where we gave away over 2000 goody bags filled with useful tips and freebies, 1500 cakes and biscuits, and where 240 students had the chance to spend some time relaxing with dogs from the charity Dogs for the Disabled. Our monthly Sexual Health Advice and Guidance days encouraged over 150 students to take chlamydia tests, and saw over 6000 condoms given to students. A campaign to tackle lad culture on campus attracted national attention and saw NUSU representatives speak at a number of research events and our Housing campaign provided over 1000 ‘Don’t Panic, Don’t Rush In’ information booklets to students giving them facts and tips about navigating student accommodation after Halls.

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PARTICIPATION OF OUR MEMBERS ACROSS ALL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES

Memberships of clubs and societies up to 17,700 What we said: We recognise that not all students will want to participate in all the activities and services we offer, but that participation in some form is critical to ensure that we remain engaged with the diverse student body. We will continually review and monitor how, where and when our members want to participate to ensure that our offer remains relevant and positive.

What happened: Research shows us that the Students’ Unions with the highest satisfaction ratings are those who are most engaged with their students and particularly those with high participation in clubs and societies. This has been another record year for us in these areas with total membership of our Societies reaching 13,566 (a 14% rise on the previous year) and membership of our 61 Athletic Union Clubs reaching 4,137 (a 10% rise on the previous year).

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Our general activities programmes which offer everything from one-off sessions to regular community volunteering placements also showed significant growth in participation rates. Our ‘Go Play’ programme which offered one-off sports taster sessions attracted 1,500 participants across a range of sports from archery to table-tennis (far beyond our target of 1080), and 1,300 students attended our ‘Give it a Go’ programme which ranged from mountaineering to mud-buggying and capoeira to choral singing.

What the students said about Society Grants:

In other activities: over 4,200 students took part in our Freshers’ Week activities (outlined further under our community section); our new Student Green Fund environmental project attracted 536 new volunteers in its first year and these were in turn matched up with the 937 local community members engaged in the project; 1200 students were elected as Course and School Reps.

DEBATING SOCIETY

A lot of hard work this year went into advertising and promoting our elections to students to ensure we had a strong democratic base. Overall election turnout was 26%, with 5658 individual students voting and total votes cast reaching 42,692. Students’ Union Council was also well attended with all, but one, meetings being quorate.

We recognise that students are at their most entrepreneurial and inventive when we let them formulate their own ideas and initiatives. To help encourage societies attract new members we awarded a number of additional grants this year. Here is a taster of some of the feedback from those who received grants:

The Debating Society grant was used to send 8 members (3 teams and 2 judges) to the European Universities Debating Championships in Zagreb this August. EUDC is very important to our society as it provides the biggest stage for our members to excel at. The presence of world-class speakers and judges provides the greatest opportunity for members to get constructive feedback on and practise their public speaking, as well as providing a capstone to their debating year. Our members can then go on to pass on this knowledge to next year’s debaters in internal sessions.

opportunities to our members is enormous. The things we learn at EUDC and the contacts we make will ensure that future members get as much as possible out of Newcastle University debating in years to come.

MANAGEMENT SOCIETY Newcastle University Business School’s Management Society, and Young Enterprise company, Connect 5 successfully organised and delivered the first studentrun event of its kind, selling out all available tickets for the night in just 24 hours. The event invited 70 organisation representatives to attend including The Bank of England, UBS, Santander, Accenture and many more - as well as a large number of regional SMEs. The use of a young enterprise company and presidents across 4 societies helped to make this event achievable and meet its aims of building networks, creating collaboration within societies and benefiting students immensely through leveraging alumni networks, building institutional relationships with Times 100 employers, assimilating the business school with the regional business community, and inspiring students through the four speakers. 92% of attendees gave positive feedback on the event and 76% said they would pay to attend next year.

Although the impact to individuals may seem small, the benefit to our society in widening future

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PARTICIPATION OF OUR MEMBERS ACROSS ALL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES

MEDSIN SOCIETY

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT SOCIETY

AFRO-CARIBBEAN SOCIETY

LINKS SOCIETY

The Society grant helped us to organise and fund the International Development Conference 2014. Without the additional funds we would not have not been able to invite such a variety of speakers who ranged from CEOs to academics (we even flew in a speaker from Geneva who used to work for the UN and give TED talks!); it would have been impossible to make our wine reception such a huge success. We knew we had reached our aim, when people were still debating global issues and international conflicts (and how to solve them!) at midnight. In summary, IDC 2014 allowed our delegates and speakers to connect, to network and exchange valuable ideas. We are looking forward to providing this platform again next year, challenging this year’s success and welcoming another 120 people to learn about development.

The name of our event is African-Caribbean Day, which is derived from ‘Africa Day’, the founding of the Organisation Of African Unity, which gave way to the establishment of the African Union. On 25th May 2014, the African Union celebrated their 51st anniversary. We used AC Day as an opportunity to commemorate the achievements of not only the African Nations but also the Caribbean islands.

Newcastle LINKS received a grant to help fund the LINKS Weekender, which was a training weekend away in Dufton in Cumbria. The aim of the weekend was to re-cap some basic first aid and to learn some more advanced first aid which is not covered in the weekly sessions. Members were given the opportunity to practise skills such as CPR and using a defibrillator.

Not only are these very important skills which can ultimately save lives, they are also vital for any member who is already, or is planning to become, a qualified first aider and perform duties. On the final day, a major incident scenario was staged. This allowed members to put into practise all the first aid that had been covered over the weekend, as well as giving them the opportunity to learn about triaging and prioritising casualties.

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We had four speakers to provide us with talks on development, the role of the diaspora in shaping development and the culture of African nations and the Caribbean islands. Alongside this, we had entertainment by the Afro-Dance Crew (dancing), Kennedy Banda (singing and playing djembe–a musical instrument), Ballas D’Afrique (singing), Dr Osundare (a video of a poem recitation), Radikal Queen (reciting a poem) and a range of African and Caribbean delicacies to give everyone the opportunity to taste food from both cultures. We believe the event enlightened and enriched the minds of our members and others attending, in addition to providing a window to see the diversity and importance of the African continent and the Caribbean.

Everyone felt that the group bonded very well and friendships were formed over the weekend. This helps to enhance member’s experience of the society and also allows them to feel more comfortable practising their first aid skills and going on duty with people that they are familiar with.

On the 22nd of February Medsin used the grant to host our first ever Teddy Bear Hospital Funday at the Hancock Museum. Teddy Bear Hospital is a society run

by Newcastle medical students that aims to promote a healthy lifestyle and to alleviate fears children may have of going to the doctor. We do this by visiting various primary schools around the area on a Wednesday afternoon and running a session including various different activities such as a healthy eating and exercise activity and an activity on brushing teeth. We also ran mock doctor consultations with children and their Teddies in order to try and familiarise them with healthcare professionals.

We decided this year that we wanted to try and reach out to more children whose schools we had not managed to visit so we held a Funday opening Teddy Bear Hospital up to the wider community.

We ran the session from 10am-4pm and had seven activities on offer. These included: Healthy Eating and Exercise, Brushing Teeth, Ambulance/First Aid, Doctor Consultation, X-ray, Taking Medication, Surgery/Your Body.

The day was incredibly well attended and nearly 200 children participated in the day. We gained lots of positive feedback from parents and children during the day and one mother even took the time to write to us to inform us how much her daughter enjoyed herself. We hope that through this day we were able to educate many young children about a healthy lifestyle and to familiarise them with experiences they may have in hospital should they ever have to go. Our committee members and volunteers did a fantastic job at interacting and educating the young children.

We hope that the experience helped them in further developing their communication skills with young children and with parents.

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PARTICIPATION OF OUR MEMBERS ACROSS ALL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES

ENACTUS SOCIETY

FELLWALKING SOCIETY

NUTS

DANCE SOCIETY

Our grant was used to fund travel and training costs for five members of our society, including the President, Treasurer, Project Leader and two project members to attend the Enactus UK Training Weekend in Grantham. They were joined by students from most other teams in the UK. Activities included: some employability sessions including interview practice; CV writing and practice assessment centre sessions all ran by Enactus sponsors such as Unilever, KPMG and Deloitte; a careers fair, especially helpful for our third years looking for graduate jobs; specialist training for each role as well as team building challenges; and the opportunity to meet with people from other universities in the same roles.

We used the grant to fund a training trip to Fort William on the weekend 14-16 March. On this expedition, members were taught how to use ice axes and crampons in order to stay safe whilst walking in challenging conditions. They were then able to try out these skills in a safe, supervised manner to reinforce what they had just learned. A more advanced group practiced their climbing skills, including the incoming president. This provided him with important experience he will then use next year.

We spent the first part of our grant on buying a new Lighting Control Console. This new console has benefited the society and members by allowing them to gain experience with up-to-date methods of lighting control including the use of syntax entry and fixture profiles. These methods are comparable to those used in professional scenarios; giving members transferable skills for tools they may use should they pursue technical theatre beyond the society. This new console also provides a much more intuitive and user-friendly interface than the old console, allowing new members with very little or no experience at all easily grasp the basics of lighting control.

Our special grant from the Students’ Union enabled us to put on our annual showcase, this year named ‘Get On Your Dancing Shoes’. It was a massive success, receiving a five star review from The Courier. We sold over 800 tickets, completely selling out on the closing night, even having to turn people away at the door.

As a whole the weekend has left the attending members enthused and motivated to continue the year with Enactus Newcastle, everything we learnt and gained from this is going to be relayed to all our societies’ members with a society training day at the end of January to ensure every member gains the most from the society and this event as possible!

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The vital skills learned by all members will be put to good use both when they walk on their own and, if they’re still part of the University next year, with the society. This will enable them to pass on what they’ve accrued in their training to the ‘next generation’ of society members, continuing the great past time of exploring the rugged outdoors.

In future years this console will be used in the vast majority of the society’s productions, as well as in the annual drama festival and society members training. There is also the possibility of taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for any complex lighting effects should the venues equipment not suffice.

The second part of the grant helped fund the production of ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ at Northern Stage.

When asked the show’s Director Charlie Burt said: “Directing Annie Get Your Gun is easily the highlight of my university degree. Being given the opportunity to direct a musical that I love, and working with an extremely talented cast was a true privilege.”

The show gave dancers a chance to perform everything they’ve been working on all year. Many beginners in particular had never performed before, and really appreciated the opportunity this show provided them with. There are not many opportunities for nonprofessional adult dancers to perform after leaving school, so without this show for the society to work towards, many dancers may have given up their sport.

Around 80 society members are part of our competition teams, but others had been unable to perform before the show, which featured around 200 dancers. As so many of our society are involved, with such a diverse range of styles included, it allows members from lots of different classes to get to know each other better and encourages members to meet new people.

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PARTICIPATION OF OUR MEMBERS ACROSS ALL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES

ERASMUS Society

Rocksoc

ELSA

We used the grant money to put towards flights to Belfast for a weekend trip for 28 of our members.

Our society organised a two night trip to the capital of Northern Ireland to give our foreign students the opportunity to gain an insight and understanding into the religious struggles suffered in Ireland and see the magnificent culture that Belfast has to offer.

We offered a unique and rare opportunity to show students, who are only in the UK for a relatively short time, a city that forms a great part of this country’s history.

On the 16th of March 2014, Newcastle University Rock Society held and organised our very own music festival in Trillians Rock Bar in the very heart of Newcastle City Centre. This event was and has been for two years in support of the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. 8 bands from different ends of the rock music spectrum performed throughout the course of the day. Several of which were local to Newcastle, including Blackjack, Harlot and Hellion Rising. Each and every one of the bands received an outstanding reception thanks to their high energy sets and pure passion for the music.

The crowd themselves were unsurprisingly very active and vocal in their support of not only the music but also the Sophie Lancaster Foundation.

The grant allowed ELSA Newcastle members to visit the European Parliament, as well as participate in the EU studies fair in order to find out more about master programmes abroad, as well as meet other ELSA branches around Europe.

As well as getting a taste for local food and night life, our members visited the Titanic Museum to learn about the ship’s tragic history in addition to the city’s industrial heritage. A bus tour of the city enabled our members to gain a better understanding of the religious and political struggles that plagued the city for 40 years and which continue to play a part in their proud heritage, whilst a visit to one of the world’s most celebrated geographical formations, the Giant’s Causeway, gave them the chance to soak up famous Irish scenery. We received great feedback from those who came with us to Belfast; it offered our members a chance to get to know each other better, practise their English and experience a different part of Britain.

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The Sophie Lancaster Foundation succeeds in their aim of reducing intolerance to subcultures by providing educational workshops all across the U.K and thereby raising awareness amongst people of all ages of the consequences that negative labelling and discrimination towards subcultures can have. They instead promote cohesion and respect for one another regardless of our differences.

The trip included: a tour at the Parliament. a seminar on elections and EU countries’ passivity when it comes to choosing the members of the Parliament, a Q&A session about careers in the EU, a visit to the European Commission Visitors Centre where we had a seminar about EU law, seminars on European and international studies-the position of Europe in a changing world and Business and Law-Comparing business and regulatory environments in Europe, the US and Asia, a further EU studies fair with seminars on ‘the future of education- going digital and the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)’, ‘the European job market (European Personnel Selection Officer)’ and ‘European confederation of private employment agencies (Eurociett)’. Participants could also get their CVs checked by a specialist from Careers International and Recruitment Solutions.

Motorsport Society Special Grant Report Newcastle University’s Motorsport Society used its special grant this year primarily to subsidise the efforts of its go-karting team in the British Universities Karting Championship. For the first time in the society’s history, the increase in grant enabled the club to attempt to qualify a 2 kart team for the championship.

Whilst only 4 drivers had represented the University previously in the 2012/2013 season, for 2013/2014 this now increased to 12 as a direct result of the increase in funding. The extra places available to represent the University led to a trial being run to find the best drivers after almost 150 people registered their interest at the society’s first Freshers’ Fair. The trial race was fully booked which led to 2 other social races being organised during the year. Newcastle was able to qualify its 2 teams for the premier division of the BUKC for the first time and proceeded to compete at every round of the championship, something which had not been achieved previously.

Aside from the benefits to the karting team, Newcastle Racing, the University’s Formula Student team consisting of 18 Mechanical Engineering students, was able to enjoy the extra funding. The team builds a racing car during a 2 year cycle to compete at Silverstone against 100 other Universities from across the world. A discounted karting race took place to help motivate the team in the lead-up to this summer’s race at Silverstone.

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PARTICIPATION

EMPLOYABILITY ENHANCED BY OFFERING OPPORTUNITIES TO OUR MEMBERS

OF OUR MEMBERS ACROSS ALL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES

HINDU AND SIKH SOCIETY The festival of Diwali is also known as the ‘Festival of Lights’ and is celebrated widely throughout the Hindu and Sikh communities. As a religious/cultural society, we decided that we would hold an event which allowed students from all backgrounds to come together and celebrate this wonderful festival and to learn about why it is celebrated all whilst raising money for charity!

The event itself involved fundraising and selling tickets up to a month prior to the event; the night itself consisted of a charity representative coming in to talk about WaterAid and a talk was given by one of our committee members regarding the story behind Diwali and how it is celebrated in both the Hindu and Sikh communities.

The celebrations continued by our committee members performing two Bollywood dance routines and singing acts, a magic act provided some fun entertainment whilst the guests enjoyed a delicious 3 course Indian meal. The entertainment ended with a fashion show (choreographed by two of our committee members) showcasing the latest in Bollywood fashion, and was said to be the highlight of the evening! The night ended with a DJ and dhol players playing the latest Bollywood/Bhangra music and bringing everyone together on the dancefloor to celebrate Diwali in a fun way!

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In terms of committee members, organising this event helped us work as a team and bring the community of the North east together. It improved our organisational skills and also enhanced our communication skills making us better prepared to face the big, wide world once we graduate from university!

COMBINED HONOURS SOCIETY Our grant helped fund a 5 day trip for 14 members to the Terezin Concentration Camp in Prague. The concentration camp provided a new perspective for all involved to see the history of the Czech Republic and how World War 2 affected them. After already visiting many of the cultural places in the city centre and going on a walking tour of the city the visit allowed us to see further afield.

Our members greatly appreciated the trip, as it provided a great opportunity to learn more about the history of the country. The comments we received as feedback where: “I never knew that Terezin existed when you think of Concentration Camps you always think straight to Auswitch and this is a completely different kind of place. Visiting places like this, really make you think and remember some of the terrible history”

What we said:

What happened:

The graduate job market is fiercely competitive and our members recognise that if they wish to get the job they really want, they have to stand out from the crowd. We will look to provide opportunities for our members to broaden their horizons and develop wider employability skills which will help them pursue the career of their choice.

Newcastle University is among the top universities for graduate employment, according to HESA statistics released earlier this year. 93.7% of our students are in work or further study within 6 months of leaving university. Given the background economic context this is excellent news for our students and reflects the amount of time and effort that the Careers Service and ourselves put into preparing students for working life.

94% of Newcastle University students are in work or further study within 6 months of leaving us

This year 117 students gained academic credit for their volunteering through the Career Development Module and 75 NUSU volunteers received the NUSU accreditation in its pilot year. These initiatives continue to become more popular as students look to stand out from the crowd.

At the ncl+ awards we recognised the achievements of our volunteers and societies, and those who have gone above and beyond in their extra-curricular activities. The evening proved memorable in many ways especially for Sophie Willcocks, who was not only celebrating her birthday, but also picked up the award for Sustainability Action, for her ‘Planters Project’.

2014 was also a great year for the Anglo-Japanese Society, who saw the Alumni Association’s Simon Tindall present their President, Rachael Levitan, with the prestigious ‘Society Officer of the Year’ award.

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EMPLOYABILITY ENHANCED BY OFFERING OPPORTUNITIES TO OUR MEMBERS

91% of our volunteers believe they are more employable as a result of volunteering with NUSU

Entrepenurial Spirit Award Brigitte West, Director and Co-founder of Beauty by the Geeks

NCL+ Awards

Focus on Sabine Kucher

Only the best of the best won an NCL+ Award.

Having one of these awards really enhances your CV.

WINNER OF THE PEER REPRESENTATION AWARD

FULL LIST OF WINNERS ACADEMIC AND PEER REPRESENTATION AWARD

ENTREPENURIAL SPIRIT AWARD

Sabine Kucher, School Rep and Scrutiny Officer

by the Geeks

SUSTAINABILITY ACTION AWARD

ARTS AND CULTURE AWARD

Sophie Willcocks for her ‘Planters Project’

Eddy Robinson

COMMUNITY SPIRIT AWARD

MOST IMPROVED SOCIETY OF THE YEAR

Adam Lisik for volunteering over 600 hours with

20 Minute Society

St John’s Ambulance

CONTRIBUTION TO SPORTS DEVELOPMENT David Eastwood

Brigitte West, Director and Co-founder of Beauty

SOCIETY OFFICER OF THE YEAR Rachael Levitan, President of the Anglo-Japanese Society

BEST SOCIETY OF THE YEAR Medsin for their community healthcare projects

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A total of 3430 students volunteered with us this year and we delivered 168 hours of training to 1975 of them. Here one of our volunteers, Sabine Kucher, explains in her own words what she feel are benefits of involvement.

Like many others I started university just wanting to have fun, make friends, learn and come out with a good degree.

However, the enthusiasm of everyone I met and the sheer number of opportunities to get involved, learn something new and make a real difference meant that I became very active in a number of areas of the Students’ Union. Over the years I was a Course Rep, a student councillor, a School Rep, a Part-Time Officer for the Students’ Union, the student representative on University Senate, an editor for the student newspaper, a member of a number of NUSU Committees and a Committee member for the Debating and Chess Societies.

HOW AND WHY I FIRST GOT INVOLVED It all started out with my involvement in the Debating Society. As an international student I joined in my first year to improve my English and I got hooked. I loved competing and meeting so many fantastic people from different universities around the country. At that point, I didn’t feel like I was involved in the Students’ Union much at all, it was more that I helped out my society and its members who had become a family away from home for me.

It was only after a time of personal difficulty and a year out following my first year that I returned to Newcastle wanting to help out others as my way of giving back to a community that had welcomed me so warmly and helped me when I had a very difficult time. That’s why I decided to become a Course Rep, trying to make it a little easier for my fellow students.

In the spirit of living life to the full I also started writing for the award-winning student newspaper The Courier, where I later became Deputy News Editor and I rediscovered one of my hobbies by joining the chess society (later becoming a committee member).

Really I just wanted to make the most of it all – if my day had had any more hours I would have done even more. With all the possibilities and opportunities on offer I’d have been a fool not to.

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EMPLOYABILITY ENHANCED BY OFFERING OPPORTUNITIES TO OUR MEMBERS

A GREAT WAY TO MEET PEOPLE

SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Whether you become a member of a sports club or a society, volunteer with SCAN or become involved in representing your fellow students, at NUSU you will always meet fantastic people who are enthusiastic about what they do. It is a great way to find friends in a city where you may not know anyone, particularly if you are an international student like me.

You don’t need to become as involved as I was to develop your skills; starting as a club or society member you have tremendous experiences with your mates, but you also learn more than any university course alone could teach you. NUSU will provide you with training for any roles of responsibility like being an officer on a committee. Dedicated staff will help you every step of the way. You will grow as a person and these transferable skills are what employers are looking for.

Your new friends really make you feel at home and their enthusiasm for the things they love and their passion to make a real difference are contagious.

Before you know it, you’ll want others to discover what made Newcastle such a great choice for you and you become involved more and more.

And often you hear about other interesting opportunities through your first one. The positive experience in my role as Course Rep led me to become our School Rep because I discovered I had a talent for engaging with students and negotiating with faculty.

This is why I later became a student representative on Senate where I believed I could make a real difference by being open and bringing a new perspective as an international student.

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Being a member of the Debating Society helped me find my family away from home, friends I could always call no matter what, but it also gave me confidence that I really can do what I set out to do. I developed great analytical skills and public speaking skills that helped me write good essays and give interesting presentations. It also made interviews a much less daunting task.

As part of the Committee I learnt to take on responsibility for others – if I didn’t organise the training session, nobody else would - as well as excellent organisational skills by planning events, accounting for contingencies and sticking to the plans.

I also developed a keen understanding of budgeting and planning for emergencies.

Through the ups and downs of being a School Rep and a Part-Time Officer, I developed great negotiation skills as I often needed information from others or to make a decision that required a majority backing – I learnt to see both sides and command the attention of a room when conducting meetings. I also developed hugely improved communication skills, the ability to plan realistically and stick to the plan as well as a good understanding of corporate governance.

Most importantly though, I believe that as part of NUSU you become a great team player. There are few things that you can achieve without the input or help of other students or fantastic staff and, quite frankly, even if you could do it without them, why would you want to?

EMPLOYABILITY The skills I developed and all the experiences I had as part of NUSU have not only helped me to grow as a person, they also enabled me to find a challenging, well-paid job as a researcher. In fact, I was even introduced to the role through someone I met on my course and got to know better as part of the Economics Society.

While the introduction certainly helped, my involvement in NUSU meant that I had a CV packed to the brim with experiences and achievements, so I got invited for an interview where I got to talk about them.

It seems to have impressed the interviewer sufficiently and, after the summer, I will take up my new role which is full of challenge and responsibility from the start.

A MESSAGE TO OTHERS

“I am really grateful for all of the amazing people and opportunities you have as a member of the Students’ Union – it is tremendous fun while you are involved, you meet some fantastic people and all the skills you develop will undoubtedly land you a job once you graduate because you stand out from the crowd. “

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COMMUNITY PROMOTING A STRONG AND VIBRANT COMMUNITY FOR ALL OF OUR MEMBERS

What we said:

Services and Activities

Awards

University life is much more than just study, we want our members to live, work and play to get the most out of their time with us. We will ensure that all of our members feel welcome in our diverse, exciting and lively community, no matter who they are, where they come from, where they live, or how they study.

After Freshers’ Week our focus is on ensuring that students became aware of the breadth of services and activities that we offer so they could tailor their own university experience to best meet their needs.

Whether it was joining a sports club or society, participating in one-off events such as ‘Give it a Go’, or ‘Go Play’, joining the SU Council or running in our elections, volunteering to be a Course Rep, or taking part in community volunteering there really was something for everyone, and ample opportunity for all students to socially interact with their peers. We know that if students have a sense of belonging their overall university experience will become so much better.

After two very successful years in student media, during which ‘The Courier’ won student publication of the year for the second year running (unheard of!) and to round off another amazing year for media, NUSU’s media (Newcastle Student Radio, The Courier, and TCTV) won the Student Media of the Year Award at the NUS Awards 2014. This followed another first at NUSU this year when we hosted the National Student Radio Awards; a fantastic event with over 400 delegates was supported by national radio presenters such as Greg James and Scott Mills.

What happened: It is very important that students feel welcome from the moment they know they are coming to Newcastle.

We make contact with our students immediately through social media avenues and then are ready welcome them through a range of activity we provide during Freshers’ Week. We organise a myriad of events designed to help new students get to know each other and last year there were over 12,000 activity placements during Freshers’ Week as well as a whole host of evening entertainment events from grub crawls to theatre trips, live music nights and comedy.

We really try to diversify our programme so there is something for everyone. When asked 87% of students said they were satisfied with Freshers’ Week 2013 and 81% felt it was good value for money. Over 4200 wristbands were sold and over 300 trips, events and activities organised over a 5 day period.

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Our Societies, as well as providing a vehicle to create on-campus communities, were also keen to support the local community and have wider social impact and, teamed up with the RAG adopt a Charity scheme; this allowed them to take ownership of a particular charity and fundraise for them with our help and guidance.

RAG itself raised a record breaking £75,000 this year, with more volunteers involved in RAG week than ever before getting involved in projects through the year, such as Jailbreak (with one set of students reaching Hong Kong) and other volunteer projects in Thailand, Ghana and Peru.

In recognising academic excellence the Teaching Excellence Awards’ now in their 3nd year grew in popularity this year. We saw a significant increase in the number of nominations to 632 this year, directed to 426 individual members of staff. This year for the first time, we were able to accommodate 60 nominations made by students at NUMed Malaysia (for 25 members of staff) and 90 nominations made by students at NUIS Singapore (for 22 members of staff).

It is very important that we continue to recognise the extra-curricular work and achievement of our students and this year the ncl+ and Media Awards saw over 200 students nominated across all categories.

Students have also been involved in numerous Students’ Union led events from the International Festival of Arts and Music (with representation from Indonesia, South America and Spain), to the ncl+ awards (celebrating student success in extracurricular activities), to the Graduation Ball.

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COMMUNITY PROMOTING A STRONG AND VIBRANT COMMUNITY FOR ALL OF OUR MEMBERS

Student Volunteering and the Local Community

A taste of our Student Green Fund and Environmental Projects

920 new students registered to volunteer on our local community projects this year, the majority of which were delivered through SCAN (Student Community Action Newcastle), our sub-charity. As well running projects directly ourselves such as our Student Green Fund Environmental Programme, IT on the Move, and our Medsoc projects, we referred our volunteers to work on 250 opportunities with 90 other local organisations and charities such as ‘Crisis’, ‘FANE’, ‘St Oswalds Hospice’ and ‘Success 4 All’. In total our students contributed 44,680 hours of their time to community volunteering projects giving a total social return of £670,200 and a Social Return on Investment of £4.55 for every £1 invested.

The Student Green Fund is an initiative funded by HEFCE through NUS to encourage students to learn more about and participate in environmental projects.

NUSU were successful in securing £270,000 grant to run a number of initiatives. The first year of the 3 year project has been very successful across all strands: Student Eats Allotment and Market Garden Enterprise; Guerrilla Gardening; Rupert’s Wood Project (Conservation & Sustainability Education); Green Grants Fund; Stu Bru Microbrewery; Orchard Programme.

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SCAN Student Eats Allotment

Guerrilla Gardening

More than 200 people have volunteered at the allotment this past year and the plot has really come on leaps and bounds because of their support. We have been able to maximise the growing space on quarter acre plot and have also constructed a large greenhouse, a couple of sheds and even a pizza/bread oven. Students are able to gain first-hand experience of growing fresh produce and of managing an allotment plot, as for the fruit and veg that is growing we have been given it to our volunteers to take away and cook with and also selling it on campus via an honesty box scheme; any money made is used to buy seeds and new tools to keep the project going.

Our Guerrilla Gardening activities have included helping out the Newcastle City Council Park Rangers with conservation tasks in Leazes Park, teaming up with local residents from the Greening Wingrove Project to plant poppies in Nunsmoor Park, creating a wildflower garden on a rundown area of land near Fenham and planting over 600 trees along Grandstand Road in Newcastle. Most recently our volunteers spent the day helping out on the Allotment at Harvest and Help supporting their disabled service users with a range of tasks. It was particularly good to see the two sets of volunteers interacting and chatting as well as getting stuck into the job at hand.

One of our regular volunteers Sophie Willcocks, who took part in in the Greening Wingrove Project, was inspired to do something in her own street, improving the street planters and gardens there.

With the support of SCAN she was able to liaise with the local council and got permission to work on the planters. She was then able to recruit her own team of volunteers from student and non-student residents living in the street to take on the project. Sophie was awarded the NCL+ Award for Sustainability Action in recognition of her efforts.

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COMMUNITY PROMOTING A STRONG AND VIBRANT COMMUNITY FOR ALL OF OUR MEMBERS

Stu Brew

Orchard and Green Fund

Rupert’s Wood Project

Green Markets

The Stu Brew project has allowed our volunteers to set up the first student run micro-brewery in Europe.

The team had early success as their Inaugural IPA beer was showcased as part of an award-winning garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, and was the guest beverage at a reception in the House of Lords which celebrated and showcased national projects related to the NUS Student Green Fund programme. The reception was hosted by Northumberland’s Lord Redesdale, a Newcastle University graduate who was once a volunteer with SCAN.

An orchard has already been planted at the SCAN site on the Rupert’s Wood Estate which is owned by Lord Redesdale; this site is also going to be used as a base for further bee keeping activity. Hives have already been set up at the student-run Nuns Moor allotment.

The first round of applications from local schools to join the existing, and run their own, projects have been received; a further £20,000 of green fund grants will be distributed to community and youth groups who are interested in the projects.

It has been a busy year of preparation for this strand as staff and volunteers prepare for the summer season of 7 camps and 2 daytrips! Activities will include the OPAL (Open Air Laboratories) Bug Count survey which feeds into the national OPAL biodiversity research, teambuilding activities, wide games and woodland exploration, and a woodland story-mapping exercise. During the day children will see and learn about red squirrels, dragonflies, roe deer and the new baby faun hidden in amongst the bracken.

NUSU are working towards establishing a regular Green Market at Newcastle University in conjunction with the NU Energy/Environment/Sustainability team to promote our sustainability initiatives. The Green Market will be open to all and will host a range of traders (including clubs & societies). We will continue to expand the number and type of traders as the market becomes more established. In accordance with the University’s healthy lifestyle and sustainability agendas, the initiative aims to encourage staff and students to eat well by choosing fresh, seasonal food and to think about where their food comes from – shopping locally to support local businesses and minimise the environmental impact of their purchases.

The micro-brewery will be run on sustainable lines in terms of energy and water use and will be as green as possible. As part of the project we are also promoting the message of sensible drinking. It’s about enjoying the product, not how much you can drink! Next year as part of the project a 2.5 barrel micro-brewery will be set up in the university’s Chemical Engineering Department building. The department will use the brewery operation in its teaching and research work.

Ales will then go on sale in the NUSU bar.

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ENGAGEMENT AND COMMS OUR MEMBERS WILL BE AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO

What we said:

Communication Tools

As a membership organisation, engagement and communication lies at the heart of everything we do.

We will ensure that mechanisms are put in place for NUSU to engage with students, stakeholders and the wider community so that the activities, services and benefits that we provide are understood by all. We will continue to listen and act on feedback to help us improve in the way our members want.

WEBSITE:

What happened: This year we ran a strategic project to review and replace our databases, current IT systems and website.

It is essential that we understand our students and their interactions with us and by using new technology we will have a much better picture of how and when students interact with us, as well as being able to more effectively communicate with them. The new website was launched in June 2014 and the new content, images and templates uploaded over the summer period. Feedback thus far has been very positive from staff and students.

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This year we had 501,856 visits to our website which was a decrease of 2.7% on the previous year. As well as identifying the need to refresh the website appearance and content our ability to signpost to our website from Facebook was restricted this year as mentioned below. We are confident that our new website will attract an increasing number of visitors next year.

FACEBOOK: The numbers of students liking our Facebook page increased by 69% this year to 18,500 likes. This was well beyond our target and we knew from previous years and surveys that students like to receive information this way. Unfortunately, due to Facebook changing the way their algorithms work the impact this year was decreased overall, and this showed in the awareness levels amongst students of some of our events and activities. It did emphasise that we should not become dependent on one type of social media communication.

TWITTER:

OTHER:

Twitter proved very useful this year as 6,043 students followed our central Twitter feed. This was an increase of 91% from the previous year and shows the increasing popularity of this type of media.

We also successfully trialled YouTube and Instagram this year and will continue their usage into next year.

In addition, we built three bespoke targeted websites for Freshers’ Week, the Stan Calvert Intervarsity Competition (which was also live blogged) and a temporary online shop, all of which proved extremely popular.

EMAIL: The introduction of Mailchimp to use for our allstudent emails proved very successful this year and gave us the ability to much better measure who was reading our correspondence. The open and click through rates were very good and well above industry standard; open rate average was 27.5%, with a 3.6% click rate, based on 22,000 subscribers. It will be important to keep the content relevant and targeted next year to ensure this very positive trend continues.

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SUSTAINABILITY WILL SHAPE OUR SUPPORT SERVICES TO EFFECTIVELY MEET THE BUSINESS NEEDS

Income Trading 43% Non-Trading 47% Other 10% Expenditure

Paid to Suppliers

16%

Paid to Staff

43%

Costs linked to service activity and delivery 41%

What we said:

What happened:

In order to ensure longer term sustainability, we will ensure that the Students’ Union has the resources and capacity to deliver on all the objectives we set out to achieve. Good governance, a motivated workforce, a strong financial plan, first class facilities, and cutting edge IT provision are all essential in delivering our aims.

Finance Financially, we had a challenging year and were slightly down on our financial targets posting a circa £49,000 surplus (subject to audit and adjustments). Our ability to attract and maintain our additional external income streams has again been successful and as well as running out Student Green Fund, we have secured further funding from Sport England to run further sports programmes following the success of our last ‘Go Play’ programme.

We were able to invest in a new IT system which combines an effective CRM system and user friendly website, and undertake a minor bar refurbishment as we prepare for the arrival of the new intake of students. We also gained agreement to expand into a neighbouring building which will help us cope with the ever-increasing demands for our services and activities; working in partnership with the University the new facilities which will include a new social learning space with IT access, a new fast food catering outlet and new meeting rooms for use by clubs and societies, should be up and running in Autumn 2014.

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Where our income is generated and spent Income Trading

43%

Expenditure Paid to Staff

Non Trading

47%

43% Other

10%

Costs linked to service activity and delivery

41%

Expenditure Paid to Suppliers

16%

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SUSTAINABILITY WILL SHAPE OUR SUPPORT SERVICES TO EFFECTIVELY MEET THE BUSINESS NEEDS

Staff

Highlights from the Staff Survey:

Environment

The staff have worked tirelessly this year and are a major driver in us realising our success. We continued with our Better Health at Work programme which encourages our staff to lead healthier lifestyles and gained a Silver Award this year (an improvement on last year’s Bronze Award) as we introduced a range of new initiatives.

CLIMATE/WORK CONDITIONS

Our HR strategy with our ‘Warm, Welcoming, Helpful and Happy’ tag line at its core seems to be having the required impact on both our staff and student customers, as we received some excellent feedback this year. Emily Porter was nominated for Best Student Union Staff Member of the Year at the NUS Awards and was awarded the runner up prize.

COMMUNICATION

In our community section we highlighted some of our environmental work in terms of getting students involved in a myriad of initiatives on campus and in the local community, but we also do a lot of work in ensuring that in our day to day work we take into account environmental issues. We strive year on year to reduce our carbon footprint through a range of measures such as actively managing our heating systems, only using recycled paper, introducing environmentally friendly travel policies and running campaigns such as ‘Switch-off’.

98% of staff agreed os strongly agreed with the statement ‘NUSU is interested in my health and wellbeing

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95% (+20%) were satisfied or very satisfied with work conditions. 93% agree or strongly agree with ‘my employer celebrates cultural diversity’ and 98% of staff believe the work climate encourages teamwork and support.

The satisfaction rate for communication has continued to improve at 86% (+11%). 98% (+10%) now feel they are clear in what is expected of them in their role.

SUPPORT Satisfaction increased to 86% (+14%) with staff particularly pleased with their supervisor, with 93% (+3%) agreeing they are listened to by their line manager. 88% believe their supervisor is effective in developing and managing them.

The culmination of this work is reflected in an external audit by members of the NUS Green Impact Team.

Green Impact is a behaviour change programme developed by NUS, encouraging positive student-led environmental action through a bespoke workbook of actions. Over 100 Students’ Unions take part each year, as well as an increasing number of universities, colleges, and others ranging from NHS Trusts to local authorities.

As an organisation we achieved a score 20% higher than the national average, scoring well in all areas particularly energy and campaigns. Feedback from the auditor was as follows:

“Newcastle University Students’ Union have done a great job at maintaining their gold award this year. I was particularly impressed with their societies volunteering and campaigning projects, as well as their state of the art Building Management System. “

OVERALL SATISFACTION: Staff agreeing they were satisfied or very satisfied rose to 90% (+18% on the previous year).

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Contact us Newcastle University Students’ Union Kings Walk Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8QB +44 (0) 191 239 3900 student.union@ncl.ac.uk Web: nusu.co.uk Tel:

Email: