So 3 weeks ago, I started my first graduate job! As you may be able to tell by the lack of blogging, I am very busy settling in and I’ve also just moved house. A new chapter in my life has begun and I’m so excited.
For those who may have missed any previous posts, I am the new President of the Students’ Union at University Campus Suffolk. A daunting role but extremely exciting all the same.
The first couple of weeks of my new job were mainly a training/handover period from the officers before. This was a very valuable time which mainly consisted of staff introductions, meetings, website training but also some fun and exciting opportunities such as playing badminton with the new coach of Suffolk Saxon’s and being interviewed on TV for the BBC!
What I’ve certainly learnt is that no two days are the same!
Also, I’ve really come to appreciate and see first hand the amount of work that is done ‘behind the scenes’ at the Students’ Union. So much time and effort is put into supporting and advocating for students at the University and I think it can be really easy for others to base how effective and ‘good’ a SU is on the amount of times they actually see their officers out and about. With that in mind, there will be a big focus on the engagement and visibility of not only myself and Johnathan (Vice President) but also of the executive officers, who are also elected by students. After all, our main role is to represent students and the best to do that is by engaging with them and speaking to them about issues that affect them directly.
At the end of each day for the first two weeks, myself and Johnathan wrote a blog post to be featured on our union website which gave an overview of each day. I’ll post the link to the website below:
Last week we spent 4 days in Liverpool, two of which were travelling days and the other two were spent at the NUS SU 15/16 conference. This is an annual conference hosted by NUS and all Student Union staff and officers are invited to attend. The main themes of the conference were inclusivity, accessibility and challenging diversity and the workshops tackled a lot of these issues. We had the opportunity to network with other universities and share ideas on what was working for us and what we needed help with. Overall it was a brilliant couple of days with both myself and Johnathan coming away from it buzzing full of ideas. The next NUS conference ‘Lead and Change’ is in two weeks time and that is for all the full time sabbatical officers. It will be held at Keele University and I’m looking forward to that!
I constantly update social media with what’s going on in the SU and what I’m doing on a daily basis. For anyone interested in the role and life of a President, you can follow me on any of the social media channels below!
Facebook: @supresidentrachel
Until next time,
Love & hugs,
Rachel ❤
rachelgilbey.wordpress.com 
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