Your Students’ Union is led by four Executive Officers: your President, Vice-President Barts and The London, Vice-President Education and Vice-President Welfare. Your Executive Officers are students elected by the whole student body each year in the Union Elections. They work for you on all issues to do with student life, listen to what you want done and work with the relevant people to make it happen.
The Vice-President Welfare is all about supporting you, from how to manage study stress to increased mental health awareness. We caught up with this years’ VP Welfare Adam Sparkes to find out more…
Can you describe what your role is in the Students’ Union and what you do for students?
I’m your Vice-President Welfare, which means I was elected by Queen Mary students to fight for you and your welfare while you’re at Queen Mary University. It’s my job to represent the voices of students that are part of Queen Mary on all issues that could affect them while they study here. I think when we come into these roles they’re pretty open as to how we go about that. Personally, I see this role as fighting things like Prevent, national legalisation that harms our students through to being as available as possible to go and sit with a student that just needs to talk to someone.
I absolutely love being able to help students on a personal level day-to-day, as well as fighting battles that affect us all in a more overarching way.
Please do get in contact if there’s any worries you have, or if I can try and help in any way.
What are some of the goals you have for the Union this year and what campaigns are you going to be working on?
This year I and my executive team are being a little ambitious. We’re like that. The big things on my list are really putting a fight up against the governments’ Prevent Duty. I also want to do everything in our power to make sure they know we will not stand there and be pushed around without fighting back.
I also want to start the process of bringing our community closer together. I want to provide the space and resources for student groups to hold collaborative events throughout the year, and also get them involved with large scale union events like QM International and QM Pride.
I’ll keep this bit short and sweet, but there is a very large mental health campaign being planned (yes, I’m being secretive on purpose!).
For anything else, in the coming weeks, my action plan will go live so feel free to have a look at my full plans for the year!
Any advice you’d like to give to freshers starting in September?
Be yourself. Push yourself, and don’t stay in your comfort zone. Get involved with everything and anything. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only take 3 things with you, what would they be?
Cigarettes, a lighter, and sun cream factor 50.
You can add Adam on Facebook and follow him on Twitter to keep up to date on what he’s working on for students. You can also follow the Exec Officers on Snapchat at qm-su.