The force behind Freshers’ Fair

B: What clubs and societies are you currently involved in or have you been a member of?

A: Last year I was in Muay Thai, Karate, Ju-Jitsu, Sinfonietta Orchestra and I used to be involved in the 2 clubs my friends were setting up: Comedy and North American society.

B: Did you always want to become a Sabbatical officer?

A: Well, I’ve only been at Imperial 2 years, so it wasn’t like a long-running thing. It wasn’t something I came to university to do… But being largely involved in clubs, it was definitely something that I started wanting to do towards the end of first year.

B: Did you consider Deputy of Clubs and Societies to help clubs run smoothly?

A: Yeah, I just really enjoyed having support from the Union, and I wanted to be a part of that.

B: Is there anything you want to change?

A: I want to try and make everything run as smoothly as possible, to make sure everything is working. To make sure people who are running a society for the first time know what they are doing. The other thing is to look at the management group structure and see how we can make that work potentially a bit better. It clearly does work, but it can maybe be improved.

B: On the issue of accountability, Chris mentioned having a student vote to decide if each Sabb has done a good enough job. Do you think with the work of Deputy Clubs and Societies, the work you do is directly visible to the students, ie: if all societies run smoothly throughout the year, students can take that as evidence that you've done a good job?

A: My job day-to-day involves replying to a lot of requests by all the different clubs; management-type stuff.

How I handle that is very obvious to the clubs directly. Hopefully lots of people will see me do a good job this year, but the people who don’t see the direct impact may be the ones who actually vote – because people who are unhappy tend to want to voice their concerns, as opposed to satisfied people not bothering to vote.

B: Are you involved in deciding how much funding each club gets?

A: Yes.

B: Do you think open office sessions are needed? Do people have valuable opinions about the running of clubs?

A: Yeah. I think students’ opinions should be taken into account. I’m not sure about hot desk-type sessions though, because last year’s were not well-attended, I think.

B: I think they were badly publicised though! Anyway, do you have any comments about your predecessor?

A: Yas was amazing, she also gave a fantastic handover.

B: It's interesting that you're doing a sabb year in the middle of your degree. Do you think the fact that you'll have to go back to being a student after this year will affect what you do this year?

A: Yeah, I think it serves as motivation to do a good job, because I want to continue to be heavily involved in clubs when I return. If I change something, it will directly affect me!

B: Can you run me through your day to day tasks?

A: I tend to get in and spend a couple of hours replying to emails. Then I’ll have a meeting with a club; either an event budget or a room booking. There’s always something, I generally have a couple of meetings with different clubs every day! Probably a meeting with someone at the Union; a catch-up or planning and executing a task. Most days there is also a meeting with College, eg: about power outlets on Queen’s Lawn, or clubs Open Days.

B: Are you consulted about the sports grounds Imperial owns?

A: Commercially-sensitive things are generally just decided by College and dealt with by the Union President, due to the high level of confidentiality. But in terms of how clubs go to the sports grounds and how they use them, that’s part of the sports partnership the Union has with College. I do have some involvement in it, but not a great deal.

B: What do you think about College closing Teddington sports grounds?

A: There were a weird couple of months where we didn’t really know what was going on, but College then clarified things for us. I don’t know much about the loss of Teddington grounds, but it is to the benefit of gaining Heston, which is fantastic.

B: Is Heston further away?

A: Yes, it is further, and it is less accessible by public transport, which is a bit of an issue. But having it next to Harlington, it’s much easier to have two grounds next to each other. The benefits of Heston though is that not only does it have sports fields, it has indoor space, including a theatre. So hopefully we can get more involvement from Heston than just use of it as sports grounds.

B: Things like this makes it seem like the Union has little impact on the decision that is reached.

A: Yeah. These places are owned by College, so we can only inform College about the impact it will have on students.

B: But even then, College don't have to listen?

A: (awkward silence)

B: So your job is to represent the student view, but in the end what they do with that is up to them?

A: Yeah, basically…

B: I'm only asking to clarify, because there are loads of students who are really angry with the Union for not doing a good enough job with regards to doing what the students want. But in reality, it isn't the Union's fault!

A: Yeah, there are many meetings and decisions which are made solely by College, and they don’t communicate anything to the Union, so it’s really hard to organise a rebuttal.

So with Teddington, now we know for sure that the medics can’t have it any more, we can only try and do everything we can to make sure that they are properly represented at Heston.

B: What about the people you work with in the office? The non-sabb full time workers?

A: I’ve got the 3 student activities workers (manager, administrator, coordinator) and someone who supports the sports partnership.

B: Who hires them?

A: The Union hires them; I sat on the panel for some of them. There is input from the sabbs about who gets hired.

B: So do they work under you?

A: -Ish. Technically the sabbs are in control of the way the Union is run in certain respects. But their day to day jobs are not determined by us. They report to the Managing Director, who is below Tom.

We’re not exactly in charge of them, but they do answer to us. We determine the direction we want the Union to go.

B: Okay. But in the end, what the Union does this year IS decided by the sabbatical team?

A: We give an idea of the aims and goals we want to achieve. But in the end, there are things which have to be run every year, like the finances of the Union.

But we can propose the changes we want to make.

B: What's the thing you most like or dislike about the Union?

A: I like the atmosphere. The fact that we’re students but we can help in the running of the Union. In terms of dislike: not having enough time. I get so many requests that need answering, but I have meetings and so much other stuff.

B: In terms of Press, does College influence the Union? Or is there a clear separation between the Union and the College?

A: The Union has its own Communications department. They make sure that everything we say is representative of the Union and what the students think. College Comms runs separately and they often get one of our representatives to give a statement.

B: Alright, you can have some fun questions. If you were trapped on a desert island with the other Sabbs, who do you think you would collectively eat first? Or: who do you think would be the last person to survive?

A: Tom would definitely outlive us all. He’s got outdoor survival skills. I’m not sure who we would eat first. It would depend on how useful people prove themselves to be.

B: Did you go out a lot in your freshers year? Can you recommend any places or any to avoid?

A: I did go out a fair bit in my first year, but I was also in a lot of clubs, so I didn’t have that much time. I would not advice going to Propaganda too much: as much as you think it’s amazing in first year, it is never that good. I haven’t been out for quite a while, but I quite like Roxy’s and some places in Vauxhall too. In terms of pubs, you can’t beat a good ‘Spoons,’ B@1 or a decent cocktail bar.

B: If you had to eat one meal from 568 for the rest of your life, what would it be?

A: The halloumi salad is pretty good. And you wouldn’t be disgustingly unhealthy.

B: If you were allowed to name a Union drinking bar, what would you name it?

A: I feel I would be letting the student body down if we didn’t name it a science pun... But I can’t think of one right now!