Hannah Blackburn

Hey, I’m Hannah! I’ve been at Staffs since 2017, studying my BSC and MSC in Forensic Science and have been involved with the Union all over the place!  

I have been involved in the Cheerleading Club, Mountaineering Club, Pole and Aerial Arts, Lacrosse, StaffsTV and Am Dram (including being on committee for four of these). I also worked at LRV and Verve since my first day of university, becoming a Team Leader and Team Leader Manager during my time there.  

Pronouns: She / Her / Hers

I want to...

Clubs, Societies and Sports Teams

• First up is the Charity Cup, which is a yearlong competition all groups can enter to try and raise as much money for as many charities as possible.
   

• I also want to put on more events, such as a Back2School Sports day, the charity cup as above, and more cross team activities.
   

• Next is introducing sports placements for photography and sports journalism students to help document each team’s games, competitions, training and events throughout the year.
   

• I think Team TV should be extended to societies as well as sports teams, and Instagram takeovers to help promote you and what you do.
   

• Lastly, I want to introduce proper first aid and mental health first aid training for committees to help you keep your members safe.

Body and Mind

• To start with, I want to improve our mental health services by:

  • Partnering with charities to provide a direct line for our students when they need help

  • Bringing back Dog-Destress-Days

  • Implementing regular mental health check-ins with students through personal tutors, lecturers, or the wellbeing team to stop our students from feeling abandoned.
     

• I believe we can improve our sexual health services by bringing in monthly drop-in slots for STI testing and providing more easily accessible morning-after pills.
   

• To help students keep physically healthy, I want to introduce affordable personal training at the gym by using our coaching sports students.

Your money, your say.

• I want to work with First Bus to provide proper student tickets for Staffs students so they don’t have to spend £20 on a pack of 10 tickets which they may never use up.
   

• I want to look at new options on our venue menus, introducing things like Bubble Tea to the Squeeze Box menu, because why not?
   

• I'm going to push to keep prices in shops and services on campus from rising and to make sure we get our money’s worthwhile at Staffs
   

• With lots of new buildings happening around campus like Catalyst and the nursery, the university is going to have a lot going on that needs student input, I want to make sure students are involved in these processes.
   

• To keep your belongings safe, I want to install lockers in the library as a secure space to keep your things if you need to go to the toilet or for a cigarette.

Keeping You Safe

• I want to introduce three new systems to Staffs:

  • The Cop Shop Reporting System is to allow for incidents to be reported more easily and more directly to Simon Stone.

  • The Library Angels system, which is a team of trained students who will come to student’s aid in emergencies such as panic attacks, asthma attacks, disability issues, mental shutdowns, etc.

  • The Walk-Me-Home system will keep students safe walking home at night by trained staff escorting them.
     

• I also want to implement regular Pop Up Cop Shops where students can have access to free tools to help them stay safe, such as rape alarms, torches, unit cups, money testing pens, padlocks, bottle tops (stop spiking).
   

• As this is a success at other universities, I want to introduce the Safe Taxi Scheme, to help our students get home after a night out in Hanley or Newcastle if they have lost their bank card or run out of cash.

Creating Opportunities

• I want to set up some volunteer programs for Staffs students and help our students gain industry experience. This could be through:

  • Working within places like YMCA to help you gain work experience,

  • Using arts students to fill our blank spaces on campus,

  • Giving counselling students placement opportunities with the wellbeing service.
     

• We brag about being a 24-hour campus but only a few services actually are. I believe we can do more, such as extended opening times for the labs in the science centre, and introducing longer gym opening times, potentially even 24-hour access..
   

• I also want to work with careers to help students get part-time jobs while at university, especially those who lost jobs due to Covid.

The Inclusion Agenda

• I want to bring in more speakers for topics such as LGBT, Black Lives Matter, feminism, mental health and so many more.
   

• Work with our networks to host Ally programs.
   

• I also want to improve hidden disability awareness, which is a scheme already in place at Staffs but there is no promotion or awareness. I want to increase education on this topic, as well as introducing a station during welcome week for people to register for the Sunflower scheme and collect their lanyards.
   

• When coming to uni, many of our students may struggle with basic computer/writing skills. To aid this, I want to implement computer/software and literature training into the beginning of courses to ensure everyone is capable and ready for the years ahead.
   

• To build on the Period Pride gamechanger, I believe we should introduce access to period products to ALL bathrooms across campus, not just Union facilities.

Road Away From Covid

• Thanks to Covid, for the past year the Staffs we knew and loved has not existed, so I want to Bring Staffs Back.
   

• Firstly, I want to improve student’s social lives by aiding sports and societies in their return to physical sessions and working with the venues to provide fun events for welcome week and throughout the year.
   

• Secondly, I want to ensure the return to on-campus teaching is as smooth as possible, and ensure the quality of teaching returns to the previous high standards before lockdown.
   

• Thirdly, I want to increase access to online resources. This involves making lecture recording a standard procedure and working with the library to put more resources online.

Sustainable Staffs

• In the People and Planet Sustainable University rankings, we are currently 85th, meanwhile Keele is 12th! I want to work to improve this ranking by lobbying the university to commit to a Climate Emergency.
   

• I’ve also seen how much furniture has been thrown away this past year alone, why are we not giving this away to students, or encouraging the university to reuse it?
   

• Finally, I want to promote the discounts already in place in our venues such as the bring your own cup/straw discounts when purchasing coffee, and the meat-free stamp cards.

Here is a list of what I am working on, what I have completed and what I still have to do: