Monday 14-12-2020 - 14:16

2020, what a year. It’s been a year of zooming, innovating, lockdowns, clapping for carers, and helping others.

Throughout it all we’ve been fighting for you and making sure your voice has been heard where it matters, and we’ve achieved some really exciting changes for Bristol students.
Here’s our annual round up of everything we did this year!

Pre-Lockdown

Remember January and February? Months where life in the UK was still pretty normal...

We kicked off the year in high spirits, with our Refreshers Fair and a week of society events and activities. 

We also announced two new SU spaces would be coming to campus, with students deciding the names in an online vote: the Bristol SU Loft and new bar, The Beckford. The spaces will open in early 2021!

In February we supported the UCU strikes, with your 2019/20 Education Officers Hillary & Chris helping to support UCU colleagues and the strikes to ensure we retained the best quality teaching staff.

 

MARCH

Life started to get a bit different and we experienced the start of the first UK lockdown. 

Combining a pandemic with our student elections was not in our plan for the year! But after a hard week of campaigning 43,000 votes were cast and your new 2020/21 officer team were elected. 

The University moved to teaching remotely, and we worked hard to support you in this challenging time. We gathered feedback from over 750 students to find out concerns and what support they needed, before springing into action.

Your officer team successfully changed rent policy for students in University owned accommodation, pushed to receive clearer guidance on assessments in the summer term, as well as successfully lobbying the University for more financial hardship funding to support students.

 

APRIL

With the start of a new term came lots of changes with teaching, assessments and event student group activity all moving online.

We issued an open letter to accommodation providers across the city and local MP Thangam Debbonaire to ask for additional support for students.

Bristol SU Lettings wrote to all landlords explaining the situation their tenants were in. Some of our landlords through Bristol SU lettings cut rent payments completely and 25 waived up to 50% off rent payments for students in their final term.

 

MAY

Our officer team spent time reviewing feedback received from students and reps and began lobbying the University on issues that would be important to students in the next academic year such as financial hardship provision.

We led two foodbank collection drives for the new Emergency Foodbank in Redcliffe and opened collection points in student halls of residence. Students donated over 50kg of food, cleaning products and toiletries. 

At the National Societies and Volunteering Awards Bristol students and groups took home awards in a range of categories. Congratulations again to everyone nominated, as well as winners Will Routledge, Gigi Aulsebrook, The 93% Club, Chaos Society, Bristol Phab, Pitstop, BoPS and the LGBTQ+ Society!

 

SUMMER

In June we hosted our first ever virtual awards season. We had over 750 nominations across the Society, Sports and Bristol SU Awards. You got dressed up to join the party and celebrate from the comfort of your own homes. We also welcomed our new officer team and hosted our first online student council. 

In July we said a fond farewell to our CEO Sam Budd, who had been with Bristol SU for over a decade. Under her leadership the SU had transformed completely and was recognised with many national awards. 

We stood in solidarity with the thousands of students who received unfair A-level results in August. We whole-heartedly supported the NUS petition to the government to right the wrong done to them and welcomed the government U-turn on the issues. 

 

SEPTEMBER

Our officer team worked to clarify the University’s policy on face masks and visors, and lobbied for increased testing capabilities and free tests for students. 

Your Student Living Officer Ruth worked to support students who were affected by the Dean Street Works housing not being ready for the start of term. The officer team successfully lobbied the University for a range of asks, including providing one week rent free for first week of tenancy, laundry and moving costs, and more.

Rushab, your Sport and Student Development Officer helped to protect Wednesday afternoons from the extended teaching week, allowing time to get involved in extra-curricular activity or take a break from your studies.

 

OCTOBER

We welcomed students back to Bristol in style with our first ever online Welcome. Hundreds of students joined for online events including Give it a Go sessions, mingles, quizzes, and movie nights.

We put together 2100 welcome boxes for students in halls, which involved:
- 8500 googly eyes
- 155kg flour
- 4200 bags of soil 
- 455 student staff hours 

Our first ever virtual Welcome Fair was a great success, with over 8,000 unique visitors, and a total 143,000 booth visits. The virtual fair allowed thousands of students to find out more about different opportunities safely. On the day after the fair, our student groups received the most signs up ever in one day! 

In early October The Courtrooms halls entered self-isolation, quickly followed by a number of other halls. Your Officer team worked hard to ensure that students asked to self-isolate were able to access essentials such as food and toiletries, as well as lobbying for further support from the University.

We celebrated Black History Month, with the theme of ‘Our Past, Present and Future’.  The BME Network and variety of student societies hosted a series of online events to highlight issues important to the Black community. 

Your Student Living Officer Ruth launched the All About Drugs campaign, with free drug testing kits, and weekly drop-in sessions made available for students. The project is the first of its kind at the University of Bristol, and aims to remove barriers from students accessing support, and to reduce the risk of harm associated with using drugs, including alcohol. 

 

NOVEMBER

Term one elections looked a little different this year without any in-person campaigning, but with lots of online activity instead. Over 1,100 students nominated themselves for roles, and around 4,000 students cast over 21,000 votes.

We supported the Bristol student rent strike, reported to be the largest in UK history with over 1000 student signups. Led by Bristol, Cut the Rent and supported by the officer team, the campaign was executed due to frustrations at having to pay full rent, given the disruption to the student experience caused by Covid. 

Your education officers successfully lobbied the University to increase the weekly hourly library study cap from four to eight hours.

Your Student Living Officer, Ruth secured a 10-day rent rebate for students living in university halls to ensure that students are not unfairly financially affected by the student travel window.

November also saw student campaigns Reclaim and Interfaith week, Islamophobia awareness month, with lots of important online panels and discussions. 

 

DECEMBER

Our officer team started the month by lobbying the university to introduce mitigations for January assessments which would include:
•    Uncapped resits as standard for those who fail exams. This is in line with mitigations in place for summer assessments last year and would ensure that no student falls through the cracks.
•    Ensure students don't have more than two long form exams in a 7-day period, and that those who have three 7-day exams in a week are automatically offered extensions.
•    The same allowances for ECs as in the summer assessment period and lower the evidence needed to defer exams. 

We worked with partners across the University and our student groups to make sure there was a range of activity available for students over the holiday period. You can see the full list here. 

 

It’s been a long and turbulent year, and we want to thank our officers, reps, and everyone who supported our student campaigns and events!

We hope you have a safe and happy Winter break and we’ll see you in 2021!