Welcome Fair.

We started off the year with Welcome fair at Bower, the weather definitely helped make this a great day, as did all the really engaged stall holders, the live graffiti wall, circus skills, music from CFM DJs and of course all the students who attended, the free pizza, ice cream, karma colas and vegan brownies also helped power us through the day!

City Campus officer

Our City Campus officer Aengus has been really active this year, he has been working through points on his manifesto and is a constant support to Bower students (and me)

City campus Officers work towards manifesto and success’ of 2023.

• Aengus shares the log in for the City Campus Instagram, we do regular videos of him on the page which are my favourite of all our posts!
• We do monthly pop ups where he and I, ask students for feedback, what they need/want of the SU, Aengus is really responsive to taking feedback that we get at these pop ups higher.
• The shop moved to the café area, so is open more regularly and reliably.
• We have sent out surveys to all CATE staff to try to liaise with them for some collaborative late openings.
• We are collating opinions on the travel to and from Bower, through survey and pop ups to pass onto the travel team.
• Having passed on student feedback the SU has agreed to extend the Free Food offering at Bower to include 30 sandwiches as well as the hot meals.
• Secured Student Experience funding for the Community Corner.

Fundraisers and Creators and Makers market.

• There is regular Student led Fundraisers, Film making, illustration and photography students have held sales to raise money for their Degree shows.
• There was also a Creators and Makers Christmas market where students raised money as well as gaining experience of selling their craft, they were also invited to take part in a workshop where they learned such things as how to price their work, how to market themselves and their art, this was led by Student Ventures.

Societies.

• Christian Union come over to Bower every other week to give out free tea, coffee and biscuits, and meet Bower students and tell them about their network.
• A new Bower based Society was launched, Creators’ Network, which aims to create a cross course creative community to network, gain work experience and improve creative skills
• MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking Society launched, and have secured Society top up funding and Student Experience Funding to go on society trips.
• Drama Soc held sold out shows of their Christmas play, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk: a pissed panto’ at the People Republic of Stokes Croft.

Green Team and Sustainability.

• Green team have held activities through the year and for Green Fortnight which were really successful.
• We have had really positive feed back for the Free sustainable period product pop up stalls and trial. One student said that they have been inspired and will try to take the initiative back to her school in her home country, she said that she has really valued how open people are about talking about periods, and she will be encouraging her school to follow suit and supply free period products.
• After a few set backs we are looking forward to the opening of our Community Corner where we will have the Community Larder, a book swap, clothes swap and art supplies swap, we hope to be having a launch of this in late Jan.

Cost of living support.

• The Community Larder has proved very popular this year
• As have the Free Food Fridays. From January next year we will be giving out 30 sandwiches alongside the hot food, as there is such a demand.

Travel

• We have been collating feedback from students and staff at Bower over feeling unsafe leaving campus via walking and cycling routes. We have opened a survey for people to share their issues of the commute to Bower. We are working in partnership with many UWE services and stakeholders to better map all concerns so we can re-engage First Bus, the Local Council and the Directorate at UWE Bristol to seek change.
• We have also posted where to get the buses from – as the closest stop isn’t necessarily the most reliable.

Events

Most Thursdays we have held a crafty Club over the lunch time period in the SU shared space, where we have tried different activities. We will continue this over the next term. I have started up a mailing list, where I email out what we will be doing week to week, and post pictures of the last activity (please do email subower@uwe.ac.uk and I can add you to this email list)