Happy Holidays!

Well, what can I say? What a term! It sure has been a busy one for me and it's ended so quickly! I'm pleased to say that I've already learnt a great deal since I began my time at BU in September and I hope that next term will be even better for all of us.

I have been feeling a bit under the weather this past week so I haven't been quite so active. Even so, I've helped out a bit with both Donuts for Darfur and the Food for the Homeless collection and did manage to help decorate Dylans for the Christmas Party yesterday.

The postgraduate Christmas meal was also a great success, with around 25 attending. There will no doubt be many more events to come next year!

I'd like to say a big thank you to all who have helped out the Union this year, from volunteering to entertaining, from representing to communicating and also all those who will continue to help in the New Year.

Well I'm off back home to Plymouth tomorrow, if the trains are running at least! It sure hasn't been a good day today for travelling. Bloody weather!

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Dan :)

Christmas is coming!

Well, it's that time of year again and it won't be long now until it's here!

Meanwhile, this week has been somewhat quieter. Now, I'm not sure if it feels like that because I'm meant to be doing coursework...perhaps it is. Even so, I can sense a couple of late nights coming up this weekend in order to get my assignment in on time. I expect all of you are in the same boat right now, as it's just that time of year! We'll all get through it though I'm sure as the festive season fast approaches...bah when am I going to get time to get all those presents!

Nevertheless, I've still had time to do some community work. I had a busy weekend with the Southampton RAG raid that proved to be a really worthwhile experience, as it's the first street-based raid I've done so far. Even so, it sure can't beat last Thursday's raid where all of us had a fantastic time at the McFly raid at Wembley Arena, where we all managed to get tickets as a reward for our hard fundraising work. Now, I'm by no means a McFly fan...or at least I wasn't before the night, but even I really had a great time!

I attended the opening ceremony for the new About Face Centre (opposite Poole Hospital) on Wednesday, a new support centre for a charity who is one of the core RAG charities this year. We were welcomed with open arms and it's great to see how the money we raise this year will go towards such a good cause and maintain the centre for years to come. It was also time to deliver some boxes to the Lansdowne Campus for our Food for the Homeless campaign this year, and I hope all of them are full by the end of term. Please give whatever you can to your 'local box'!

Is it really almost the last week of term already? I guess time flies when you're having fun! There sure is plenty coming up in the final week with the Christmas Ball, Donuts for Darfur, the Dylan's & The SU Shop vs. The Old Firestation grudge match and much more. I hope you all manage to find time to come along to these great events in between all the coursework, after all, coming to Uni is about having fun as well as finally getting the piece of paper we're all here for at the end of it all!

Finally, there's a Christmas Meal for postgraduate students tomorrow, where the plan afterwards is to move to Aruba...no not quite the island but the bar (oh if only!), so please come along if you can as it should be a great night and a great opportunity to get to know some more students who are in the same boat as you.

As always, I welcome your comments on the blog or alternatively feel free to send any feedback to me via e-mail at supostgrad@bournemouth.ac.uk. After all, I'm here as are the rest of the exec committee, to do our best to represent you and make your Union a better one!

Running and Raiding

Well I've certainly had a busy week, what with actually having some lectures and lab sessions for once! I attended the RAG committee meeting on Monday to propose a range of events for World AIDS Day this coming Monday. This was well received and I hope that the RAG committee will get together to raise plenty of cash for various AIDS-related charities and promote awareness of the condition.

As I'm off to Wembley Arena in London this evening on a RAG raid for the Meningitis Research Foundation (MRF) I won't be at tonight's Union exec meeting. However, it should be a great night where I'm hoping to raise as much as I can for our four core charities this year. I'm hoping to do even better than in Bath a few weeks ago at Southampton this Saturday where a group of us RAGgies are off to raise money for Shelter. 

I also hope to be helping out with the food collection for the homeless around the local area this Christmas along with Donuts for Darfur in the last week of term. I'll write up more about those nearer the time!

Student Experience and Winton Forum Meetings

I attended the Student Experience Committee Meeting yesterday in the main conference room in Poole House yesterday along with several other representatives from our Union and found it a rewarding and useful experience. We managed to get across a number of issues that students have raised, such as buses, timetabling, ALN, myBU, e-registration and accomodation. It's great that the committee are aware of these pressing issues and the feedback we received was positive so we hope to see a number of positive changes in the coming weeks.

Last Wednesday I was at the Winton Community Forum Meeting, where the main topic of discussion was the problems associated with large numbers of students living in the local community. It certainly was quite an interesting meeting, with a few more-militant attendees. However, it seemed to have a positive outcome and I know those of us from exec who attended did our best to improve the image of the Students' Union and the University to local residents.

Some of you may have seen that a Christmas meal has been kindly arranged particularly for our postgrad community by Mory Cisse. There's a Facebook event set up for this and places are available on a first-come, first-saved basis. Find out more information here. Stay tuned for more events coming next term!

That's it for this week, more updates coming soon. In the meantime, feel free to e-mail me at any time at supostgrad@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Volunteering and Postgrad Open Days

Besides my uni work, I've been pretty busy lately getting involved with various RAG-related events, such as the Bath raid at the beginning of the month and tuck shop at Dylan's Quiz last Tuesday. I've also helped out at both Postgraduate Awareness Week (11-18th Nov) and the Postgraduate Open Day (19th Nov) as I found the open day I attended in March to be invaluable to my decision to choose BU to continue my studies.

I'm planning on helping out at a number of charity events before the end of term including two more RAG raids to the McFly concert at Wembley Arena on 27th Nov and Southampton on 29th Nov. I'm also going to be fundraising and selling ribbons on World AIDS Day on 1st December and also assisting with collecting food for the homeless around the area for Christmas.

It's certainly a busy time but I have a lot to make up for, considering that I had little involvement with my previous Students' Union at Plymouth. I just now need to find time for finishing that assignment... ;)

Introduction and Update

Hey, I'm Dan Carter and if you don't already know I'm the Postgraduate Officer for the current academic year.

The purpose of my blog is to let you, the students I represent, know what I'm currently working on and any future ideas and thoughts I may have for the coming year. I will also post up anything relevant from the SU executive meetings we have each Thursday evening.

I am currently working with one of our postgraduate students, Mory Cisse, to build upon his previous success with past events particularly for postgraduate students as a means to meet one another and share similar experiences.

I am currently lobbying for funding for various events in the next few months, which include:
- Christmas meal at either Melange or Harbour Lights in the centre of Bournemouth
- Christmas ice skating outside the BIC
- New year trip to Southampton, including a pub crawl and ending in Oceana

Any suggestions or ideas for future trips are welcome, as are more general issues that you would like me to raise at our exec meetings.

Welcome

Hi!

This is the blog for Your Students' Union Officers to let you know what they're doing for you as students of Bournemouth University.

This is for the SU Postgraduate Officer, Daniel.