Hello, welcome to my blog and my first post as President of the Union. I’ve now reached the end of my first week and the Union is still standing, all in all, a pretty good week! After two weeks of intense handover, my fellow Sabbaticals and I have flourished from ‘Sabblings’ to your fully-fledged Sabbs. Our predecessors gave us a fantastic and intense introduction to the Union and taught us the ins and outs of our individual roles. I have already had the opportunity to meet lots of interesting people, who share the same passion and enthusiasm for their job as I do.

This past week my fellow Officer Trustees and I went on residential training to develop our goals for the coming academic year. This was very useful, providing us with a firm foundation and clear vision on which we can hang our team and personal plans and aims.

First and foremost, my ultimate aim is for students to feel they have been to a University where they have been able to make the most of their time with the opportunity to do what they love or try something new. I also want to ensure that everyone feels like they have had plenty of support in all matters of life at Imperial. To wet your appetite, here are a few of my personal priorities:

Housing and accommodation have crept to the front of the radar this year. We are hoping to improve the support behind house hunting in your second year and above, as well as advice on general house management. We will also be collaborating with other London Universities to assess house pricing and the possibility of rent caps. Additionally I will be looking into a solution for the guarantor form problem faced by international students.

I also want to vastly improve feedback, to be able to integrate students into important decisions, before they are made, rather than after. It will also give an opportunity for every student’s voice to be heard on an equal platform. I am currently looking into an ICT innovation to put this platform on, so watch this space..!

Additionally, I would like to pay close attention to the needs of Clubs, Societies and Projects (CSPs), and to help each CSP obtain the funding and resources they need to be able to run their Club/society/project smoothly. I will endeavor to provide support for obtaining outside funding, through training sessions on sponsorship and holding a sponsorship fair for all CSPs.

Finally, for all the new students reading this, Hello/welcome/congratulations – the most exciting years of your life are about to commence! I’m looking forward to meeting you all in Welcome Week (which you should be very excited about, as it’s going to be great)!

That’s me for now – keep an eye on my blogs to find out what I’m getting up to. In the meantime if you want to get in contact, please drop me an email and/or tweet me 

Lucinda