First blog!

Hello

First blog; it’s about time I started!

I’m Gareth and I am studying Journalism here at Edge Hill University. I just wanted to get blogging before all the applicants get their UCAS applications sent off in January.

Aside from my course, I have other interests here in the university that you might be interested to hear about over the next few months.

I am currently living in halls for the third year in a row now, and each year I have had experience of a different hall. I have had catered and self-catered, en-suite and shared facilities, common room and no common room! All three years I have loved living on campus and I will profile each hall in future blogs nearer to the accommodation application time.

At Edge Hill University, we have one of the fastest growing Students’ Unions in the country. Two years ago we had just one sabbatical (full-time paid role) officer, our SU President. Last year we had two Vice Presidents (Academic and Welfare, and Activities and Participation) added to the executive team, and this year we now have a third Vice President, Communications and Campaigns. Added to these positions, we have roughly 20 officer positions filled by current full time students who volunteer their own time.

In the Students’ Union, I am the elected Sports Officer for 2010/2011. This is quite an active role as there are sports taking place every week. I have to work to cater for anything a team asks me to help them with, with filming and producing sports reports, deciding and announcing the Team Edge Hill awards for team and player of the week, while also carrying out my duties as club captain for Gaelic Football and Rugby Union 2nd team captain.

The Gaelic Football and Rugby Union teams are just two of the clubs here at Edge Hill University, and I am also a part of the Hockey team when I have time! Along with these three clubs there are over 20 other sports clubs on offer. Again, I will go into more depth on the range and quality of the sports teams in a future blog, but for now you can check out my most recent sports report (albeit quite an unsuccessful week for Team Edge Hill by our usual high standards!)

Gareth Dowling reports the sports from Edge Hill University 29 November 2010

If I don’t blog again before then, I hope you all have a happy Christmas and a great new year

Slán go fóil (Goodbye - in Irish!)

Gareth

Students' Union Sports Officer

Hi Edge Hill

So it’s finally come. All those annoying messages and campaigning back in March was all for this. I am now the Edge Hill Students’ Union Sports Officer!

A daunting task really. While I have SU experience from my time as Societies Officer in the 2008/2009 academic year when I was a fresher, it will not compare to the work expected of me this year. So much has changed. Back then we only had one sabbatical officer, the President. Since then, Nic has introduced three vice presidents, and has expanded the Union to a point where we can expect genuine respect from the University, the students, NUS, and other SU’s.

The Sports Officer role, which was vacant in my first year, has also been transformed. The introduction of Team Edge Hill to increase participation and achievement has been a huge credit to the SU, and to my predecessor Natasha Vincent, who did so much work through the year, and has left me with a lot to live up to. I hope to continue on with the great work she has done with the Sports Development Officer Rosa Hussey, and the Vice-President Activities and Participation Pete O’Farrell.

These three people have transformed sport at Edge Hill creating 35 new BUCS teams in the last year with the introduction of Team Edge Hill and now having over 350 students competing on sports teams each week. These are just two of the things I hope to improve on in my role as Sports Officer. Under the manifesto I was elected on, I promised to try increase the number of sports teams, number of sports, and number of students participating.

I would like to invite all students to start thinking about joining a sports team for the coming year, and regardless if you’re a fresher or final year student, attend the sports desks at fresher’s fair, and sign up! If you find we don’t have a sport you’re good at, or you just simply enjoy playing, let us know and we will work towards setting that team up and looking for students of similar interests.

I hope to blog regularly this year and keep in touch with the students on the work I am doing so everyone can be happy that they made the right choice when voting for me.

Thanks

Gareth