Wednesday 17-08-2016 - 23:54

From Student to Sabbatical Officer 

 

Hello, bonjour and welcome! As some of you might know, Wrexham Glyndwr Students’ Guild have now officially change into a Union!! For most of you this is just a name change, but for us it means we are now COMPLETELY independent from the university! Go team WGSU! We also have a brand new team with lots of new staff (Insert dramatic music here) that means we now have more time to continue to support you and lobby the university on things that matter to you most.

 

I thought I would take this time to introduce myself (lucky you!) and reflect on my journey from student to sabbatical officer and what has happened in my first couple of weeks in post. My name is Travis and I am currently your Vice President. I graduated this year with a BN (Hons) Nursing degree and I still find it a crazy thought that I’m now a qualified nurse. While still a student I decided that I wanted to get involved with the SU and thought what better way than to run as a part time officer. In my 2^nd year I ran in the SU elections for the LGBT officer position in which I was successful (not hard really when it was just me running).  

 

As LGBT officer I ran liberation campaigns such as Out in Sport, represented the SU and you, the students on Remembrance Day, sat on disciplinary panels fighting for fair outcomes for the students and most importantly I had some fun when I organised LGBT History Month in February 2016. This consisted of flying the rainbow flag for the first time off the uni’s clock tower even though it was upside down *Face Palm*, themed days, a sensational night in the Centenary Club hosted by a wonderful Drag Queen Carla Jackson and organising a LGBT night in Liquid & Envy.  

 

As your Sabbatical Officer I’ve been thrown into the deep end without any armbands, but luckily I can swim. To start my term in office I attended NUS national conference #SU16 in Liverpool which was lovely, until the night due but I’ll come back to that one. The day started with opening speeches from NUS staff, Vice president and president followed but lots of workshops and networking. As you probably know socialising and meeting new people is hungry work so I was thankful when lunch time arrive however, even this didn’t come easily as you were not allowed a knife to help you eat your food. That’s right NO knife! I mean…. come one, how am I supposed to cut my chicken? Anyway, after struggling to cut things up with a fork its back to work being ushered in the conference hall once again for more talks about liberation and the student movement. 

The day came to an end and everyone, at this point was looking forward for dinner. The options, vegetable curry or vegetable pasta (excuse me where’s the meat?) again with NO knifes. Right I’m not sure if any of you have tried to eat curry with just a folk but it’s a lot harder chasing rice round a plate than you think! Now for my favorite part, the night entertainment AKA drinks!!!! It started off all lovely the whole SU family sitting by the docks laughing drinking cocktails, then along came happy hour. 241 cocktails seemed like a good idea at the time #Winning until happy hour stopped and I switched over onto the wine (why I thought this was a good idea I’ll never know). Long story short, myself, fellow sabbatical officer Emily and staff member Will all ended up dancing the night away in POP world while the wiser staff members went back to catch 40 winks zZzZz

So you’re probably thinking, that doesn’t sound so bad. WRONG! Me being me ended up getting separated from everyone towards the end of the night and while they enjoyed a lovely taxi ride home I thought it was a good idea to walk back to the hotel (how hard could this be right?). Two and a half hours later I called defeat and had no other choice but to ask a group of people if they knew where the nearest taxi company was: Being helped into a taxi by Liverpool’s homeless, who are lovely by the way was not how I thought I’d end my night (Yes I did give them money for helping me, I’m not an animal). Safe to say I didn’t make it to the morning conference meeting (or lunch for that matter) but I did manage to wake up and shake off my hangover in time for the awards ceremony in which we were nominated for small and specialist students’ union. Sadly we didn’t win, but we were a close runner up and received a certificate, plus this time we were allowed knifes, everyone was so excited; small things.  

 

Conference finished, my next task was getting back from Liverpool in time for the VC installation ceremony. Whoever thought of putting them one after another is just plain mean! Half way back to Wrexham everything was going well I was making good time, I had a wonderful window seat with lots of leg room and most importantly I got on the right train. However, as it’s me something had to go wrong and sure enough it did. The train conductor/ticket lady (never sure what to call them really? Anyone know?) came round and, like any other person I presented my ticket and this is where it all went downhill. The lovely Yvonne, that wasn’t her name but still, told me my ticket had expired and I had not in fact bought an open return which lasts a month but instead I had purchased an open day return. Turns out Mersey Rail like to call their tickets different names compared to every other train company *angry face*. Twenty minutes it took me to blag my way out of a £20 on the spot fine but Yvonne came round to the idea of me just buying a new ticket from her and that it was a total mistake, as I let out a sigh of relief and handed Yvonne my bank card to pay for the new ticket I was greeted by a stern look and a reply of “We don’t accept card payment on Mersey Rail, its cash only!”. Well bloody fantastic I don’t carry cash, I mean who does nowadays? So off we go again for another 20 minutes until she finally gives in and tells me to just buy the tickets on the platform in Chester (I didn’t but don’t tell anybody, Shhh!).

 

Finally arriving in Wrexham, I now only had 15 minutes to get from the train station to the ceremony, gown up and find out what I was supposed to be doing. Safe to say I didn’t think I could run that fast either but I made it. Turns out all the rushing and arguing with train staff was all worth it as I got to carry a massive heavy mace from one room to another and back again (Yay go me) #NotWinnning! But in all honesty it did make me feel just a little bit more important than I am being part of it; again it’s the small things. 

 

This is just the tip the iceberg when it comes to conferences and meetings, but I’ll share my experiences of them in another blog as I can feel you starting to fall asleep reading this (congratulations if you’ve got this far without!)   

 

Until next time ☺

Travis Davies 

WGSU Vice President