Find out about the work from Perth Depute, Rebecca Bond including Boccia, Student Voice Reps and the future in 2024!
What's Been Going On at Perth?
It’s been a busy few months in the role for both myself and Fiona Smith, who is Your Students’ Association President at Perth. We sit on various committees within UHI and the Highlands and Islands Students’ Association and are working hard to develop existing projects and initiatives as well as putting new ones in place. I’ve been making strong progress on my manifesto objectives so far as well as acting on any issues and concerns raised to us by students.
Our Student Voice Representative (SVR) recruitment has been quite successful, and we have had excellent feedback and engagement from them, particularly during our Student Representative Council (SRC) meetings. We were delighted as an association that some of the Personal Academic Tutor Coordinators and Sector Development Directors attended the SRC meetings and were able to answer queries and get to work on students’ concerns immediately. I’m confident the partnership we are forming as officers with the UHI team is going to bring significant progress in improving the overall experience for all students, whether you are on campus or studying remotely. If you have any queries or issues you feel should be raised, please bring it to us! We will always strive to solve them as soon as possible and keep you informed of our progress every step of the way. All of our students have the potential to make excellent SVRs – and it’s never too late to sign up! So if you want to be a part of making positive and exciting changes to the experience of thousands of students at UHI Perth.
Developing sports opportunities was one of my main manifesto objectives and I am delighted to see the strong progression made thanks to the strong collaborative efforts of Your Students’ Association and the sports department at UHI Perth. We are here to support students who want to start their own clubs and societies, so bring the activities you want to see to us! We have joined forces with Scottish Disability Sport to start a Boccia Club on Thursday mornings and have had lots of students from the Social and Vocational Studies department join us – with great feedback from them all. If you’ve never heard of Boccia then it's well worth a look, a fun sport that’s very inclusive.
Our Next Steps
All Your Students’ Association officers across the UHI region make up the Executive Committee who meet regularly to discuss both local and regional objectives. Helping students navigate the cost-of-living crisis is a strong theme throughout the UHI campuses. Here at UHI Perth we have contacted local travel companies to explore options that could help lower travel costs for our students as well as develop the range of complimentary food options available.
Christmas is fast approaching, and the start of Semester 2 will be here before we know it. We have exciting plans for the second half of this academic year and look forward to seeing new and returning faces at our events. A ‘Re-Freshers Fair’ is on the cards and whether you are a January starter or a returning student, we want to see you there! Let us know if there are any activities you would like to see us incorporate into it, we want to provide you with the events that you want to participate in and suggestions from students make sure we can do this. February is LGBT history month which as an association we are passionate in celebrating – so we are busy behind the scenes working on activities for this.
Keep an eye out for money management workshops which will also be starting next semester. I am working in partnership with some of the lecturers and students within the Business and Accounting department to deliver these. We have plans to host family friendly activities, which will be aimed particularly at students with children at the nursery based here. One of the themes of my manifesto objectives was to make sure that there are events and activities for everybody on campus and I think we are well on our way to achieving this!
Having our vast range of departments participate and perform at events is really helping to build a sense of community on campus. If you want to put your skills and experience on display at one of our events then we would be delighted to support you in doing this. There is a brilliant display of talent and potential at UHI Perth, so let’s show it off!
I look forward to engaging with even more students over the rest of the academic year and increasing our reach. Your Students’ Association are here for all students and I’m excited to see what the future holds for the experience at UHI Perth.