My October started with the freshers fayre in Aberdeen, I’d been planning this since July and with the help of the campus officers we’d put together a great fayre. I thought getting the fayre setup would be tricky but the campus officers, some (greatly appreciated) volunteers and myself worked together and had everything ready well in advance of the students arriving. All the Aberdeen-based clubs & societies had a stand plus SRUCSA and NUS Scotland. We were very lucky to have Gordon Maloney the NUS Scotland President at the fayre, several SRUC & NESCol students took part in his photo petition on high rent prices. Graeme Thewliss (Student engagement officer) joined Claire Holland & Craig MacKenzie (Joint Aberdeen Campus Officer) on the SRUCSA stand, we got plenty of suggestions from students and there was enthusiasm in starting new clubs. There was also good interest in the external organisations which attended – Police Scotland, Garage & Campus, Blood Donors and STA Travel. Garage & Campus (bar & nightclub) were supposed to be sending along their American school bus to take students into town for free on the Wednesday night – unfortunately the bus failed its MOT and never made it. SRUCSA will remain in contact to reorganise the bus and ensure students get this opportunity again. Overall the freshers fayre was a great success; staff, students and externals all seemed to have a great time and I found it really rewarding to see it all come together so well after months of planning.

This month I went to my first environmental committee meeting, which was held at Elmwood Golf Course. After being an environmental student for four years at SRUC, I found this meeting really interesting. Environment & Sustainability is something I’m keen to involve SRUCSA in this year, so keep an eye out for more information and opportunities available soon.

Briony & I have actively been involved in the organisation of the careers fayre, I made several suggestions which I’m happy to see have all been taken on board. Over 200 organisations have been invited and hopefully we’ll get a good turnout on the day. Each SRUC campus will have a free bus to the event at Oatridge on the 12^th November, hopefully we can get plenty of students from all campuses along!

Earlier this month Charlie Osborne was elected as Barony Campus Officer and Carly Van Blerk as Elmwood Campus Officer. Briony & I met with Charlie and Carly in Edinburgh to introduce them to SRUCSA and prepare them for their new roles. We now have a full team of SRUCSA officers and I’m looking forward to working with you all!

I liaised with students to find out about their Information Systems (IS) experience this term and gave this feedback to the IS User Group. These comments have been taken on board and IS will shortly respond to students.

At the end of the month I attended a Halloween night organised by Claire & Craig in Aberdeen. There was a decent turnout of students who all seemed to have a good night. Craig & I setup a big speaker system connected to Spotify on a laptop, allowing students to ask for music requests went down well and might be done again in future.

On the final 2 days of October we had a SRUCSA exec meeting on the Elmwood campus. Affiliation and funding requests were reviewed and the team began to work on Part-B of the Student Partnership Agreement. We also had an “ask the exec” session where the team went round campus to meet students.

With the new SRUC Clothing range available now, we’ve been putting up posters on campus and promoting it on our website/facebook/twitter. I hope the new clothing will be a success and we’ll see staff and students proudly wearing their SRUC clothing!

Thanks for reading.

Alex Robb

If you’re interested in buying SRUC Clothing click on the link – https://www.srucsa.org.uk/srucsa-shop/