As a committee, we have tried this year to change the SUMC to make us more involved in the university, the community and with our members. We have done so much in this one year and we are so proud of our achievements.
For the first time ever, our club participated in the BUCS tournament, giving our members the chance for the first time to test their skills against universities countrywide. Despite our injuries, we managed to do ourselves proud with all our members scoring 98 or above and we could not be more proud of the effort everyone put in.
This year we were also set to compete in Varsity for the first time in several years, however due to Covid-19 this was sadly cancelled. The good news is that the groundwork has been put in so that we can do it properly next year!
We went on a trip to Snowdonia where we stayed in a bunk house for the weekend, hiked to the summit of Mount Snowdon (something to cross off the bucket list) and went climbing in the Welsh countryside.
During the year we have hosted three fundraisers. First, we hosted a Rick and Morty themed Quiz Night to raise funds for our club trip to Snowdonia where we managed to raise over £70 which went towards food for our trip to Snowdonia.
We then did our part for the Movember campaign and hosted a bake sale, selling moustache shaped biscuits and cakes decorated with moustache toppings, along with selling hot drinks sold in cups decorated by our members. We sold a variety of cakes, and biscuits to cater for gluten free and vegan diets, and all of the napkins, cups and coffee stirrers were biodegradable because we aim to be sustainable. As well as this, our President, Finance Officer and Trips Manager all took part in the shave at the start of the month and grew moustaches during the month of Movember. With the bake sale and the lad’s shave campaigns, we raised a total of £288.20 for the Movember campaign.
Our next fundraiser was in collaboration with the Mature, Parent and Carers society. We hosted a Christmas Family Fun day, where we hosted craft activities, biscuit decorating, climbing, Santa’s grotto and a kid’s party. This was done thanks to our student and union staff volunteers for helping lead the crafts and supervise, the Officer team for being Santa and his helpers in the grotto, and Summit Hospitality for donating food for the kid’s party. With this event we managed to raise £26 for Home Start.
Finally, we took part in Green Week by going vegetarian! The committee and several of our members gave up meat for the week and tested out some vegetarian alternatives to our normal meals. By the end of the week, none of us were fully converted to the vegetarian diet, but we definitely have some new meals to cook to shake up our normal diets!
As a committee, we are so proud of our club this year. We have achieved so much this year both in terms of the fundraisers, the trips, the campaigns and the competitions, but we’ve also seen our members become closer and the social aspect of our society has thrived this year. Seeing the club, the members and ourselves as a committee grow so much in just one year has been incredible and it has been brilliant being a part of it. Thank you to everyone for a fantastic year, and good luck to next year’s committee. This club makes us #ProudToBeStaffs.
