Hi Everyone!

Another week has flown by already! Although there are far fewer students around during summer the Sabbatical team are still keep busy and have a lot we are working on. This week one of my first meetings was with Natalie who works for Stirling Voluntary Enterprise. She’s extremely knowledgeable on everything happening in the wider Stirling community so it was fantastic to meet up with her and see where we could work together. We identified several areas where we could work together such as mental health, transport, private letting and equality work.

I also had my first meeting with the Health and Wellbeing working group along with the Sports President, Rebecca Blair. We discussed how the Union can move forward in partnership with the University of Stirling through a joint Health and Wellbeing strategy. This strategy will be aimed at preventing and tackling mental ill-health, but will also focus on the general and physical wellbeing of students and staff at the University. One initiative that has already been identified for this year is more co-operation between the University and Union in the Healthy Body Healthy Mind initiative. This initiative includes mental health, alcohol awareness, physical activity, and smoking prevention.

Friday morning I went to meet with some of the staff at the INTO building with the VP communities, Jamie Grant. We discussed how we can better engage INTO students with the Students Union and everything we have to offer; from Clubs and Societies to having a voice in Student Union elections.

I’ve also been working on a quiz for the Student Union Sabbatical reunion. This involved looking through some old Brig newspapers. It was interesting to see how Brig has changed, however, a lot of student issues have stayed relevant over the years.

On Friday Audrey (the chief executive of the Union), Jamie (the VP communities), and I all went to the garden to do some weeding and planting. We planted some kale (which will later be used in the Student Union smoothies available in Venue) we also planted some cabbage. Did you know that you can volunteer with the Green and Blue space and help out in the garden? It’s a great way to get some fresh air and helps to reduce stress! 

This Saturday we had an open day and Stirling Students Union had a stall to let prospective students know what the Students Union can offer them. I really enjoyed speaking to all of the students who were considering studying at the University of Stirling!

Remember you can drop me an email to president.union@stir.ac.uk with any issues or questions!

-Astrid

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