Since our web-coordinator has been begging me to update my blog on here I thought I’d do his nerves a favour and go for it..

Welcome to the most exciting chairperson blog you’ll ever read.. (honesty optional).

It’s been a busy few months since I took my position as Chair of Unity. I was originally the Campaigns Officer and then the LGBT Senator of LGBT Pride and now.. well I’m the chair of the most amazing society around, don’t you know?

I – and my fellow committee members – decided last May that we wanted to take the society in a more positive, unified direction (you can see the original update here) and after asking our membership to discuss new names and take a vote, here we are; Unity Bangor!

I’m so pleased with the turn-out this year. Membership and attendance at meetings had always been a problem for previous committees and I’m so happy with our dedicated members this time around. Our meetings are always well attended and everyone always sticks around for a chat afterwards.
Fruit Salad is going from strength to strength, too. Our first one in Freshers’ Fortnight was almost a sell-out and because of this our lovelly Social Secretary, Jess, managed to haggle later opening hours (9 – 2!) for the first time ever. Our charity red-themed Fruit Salad at the end of October was a success too, raising hundreds of pounds for AIDS charities.

Participation online has been a massive change this year, too. From only having one small Facebook group (that no body really remembered to check) we’ve managed to establish a Facebook ‘person’ and get a massively diverse friends list, most of whom take part in all of our online activities; commenting on news stories, debating issues, uploading photos and showing support. It’s been so refreshing to see and a really positive move for the society, too. We also have a twitter account which gets quite a lot of attention from around the world.

Our presence as a force within the Union is going very well. We have excellent links with the sabbatical team, senate, the Equality and Welfare Committee and all of the lovely people who make our Union what it is. Our voice within the Union is now one to be respected and we’ve been pushing for some really positive changes (for example, the inclusion of Unity Guides within the Peer Guiding system). I’m sure our campaigns officers and senator will keep you updated on those.

We’ve had a lot of eager new members this year, turning up to help out with Fruit Salad and always volunteering for anything we’ve got going on. I’m ever so grateful for this and I hope it will continue. Without our members we wouldn’t be worth much and it’s so encouraging to see people who really believe in what we do.

I’m really proud of all the work my fellow committee members are putting in to making Unity such a positive body of people, too. I greatly look forward to seeing them get their teeth into the rest of the year, with exciting campaigns, trips, events and schemes.

Speaking of events and campaigns.. World Aids Day is fast approaching (1st December) and we have some very special plans for you. The University, Union and Unity (UUU…?) are pulling together to organise an evening service and concert to mark the day. It’s really important to gather together for this, if we can, to show our support. Almost all of us know someone (or someone who knows someone) who has encountered the damage that HIV and AIDS can cause so let’s get together to show our support and raise awareness.

Jess has managed to get a collection of (biodegradable!) Sky Lanterns in red for us to set off after the service. Hopefully if enough people take part our demonstration will look as good as this (little ambitious? No!).

Finally, tomorrow is the Equality and Welfare meeting. In this meeting we will be discussing World AIDS Day (WAD…) and also our No Platform Policy with regards to the BNP and similar voices. There is also a discussion about a counter-demonstration in Wrexham in response to the Welsh Defence League’s protest against Islam. It’d be worth turning up to discuss these issues, 2.30, committee room in the SU.

Aha! My first blog over with.. what did we think? Comments and suggestions welcome..

Bub-bye now

Emily