Nominations open for all of the Full Time Officer elections 24th January. 

I love my job! It’s incredibly varied, and to know that you’re helping people and creating positive change is a great feeling. But unfortunately it's ending in June, and you can run to replace me in July. The election is in February! 

So what does the Welfare Officer role cover? What sort of things would I campaign and work on?

Health/wellbeing

•  Mental health
• Sexual health
• Physical health (like exercise and healthy eating)

Housing & Community

• Student housing standards
• Raising awareness of tenancy rights (e.g. avoiding bad landlords and agents!)
• Standards and rents of university accommodation
• Community relations between students and non students
• Students’ right to rent – stopping any threats to where students can and can’t live

Money

• Budgeting
• Debt
• Looking after your finances in general

Safety

• Personal safety
• Safety of belongings (bike thefts/burgulary)

The Environment and Ethics

• Recycling (ties in with community relations
• Reducing energy consumption
• Encouraging the SU and Uni to be an ethical and sustainable organisation

Special projects

For the last two years, I realised that student parents needed support, so that’s been a campaign of mine.

So I have to put all of these things in my manifesto?!

Over the past two years of being Welfare Officer, I have done work on all these things, and a lot more! But this doesn’t all have to be on your manifesto.

You can have your own goals and projects, and other things will come up that you’ll want to be involved in, either from students needing help, the university working on something, or for lots of other reasons.

Your focus of your manifesto should be what you think most needs changing – what is important? What have you been hearing from your friends and course mates that needs sorting out?

What else would I do in the job?

As well as these areas, as an officer of the SU, you also run the SU! You make decisions about the direction of the Students’ Union (like the opening of Fulton Outfitters for example) and you make decisions about staffing and recruitment.

As a team of officers, we often come together too to fight on things like university course cuts, or any major issue that comes up like the dreaded fees last year.

This job is political, in that every decision we make changes the course of the SU and the university too, and with welfare it can also influence the local council – and that is all politics! But it isn’t party political – we are all here to represent our members, which are YOU guys – Swansea students. The vast majority of what we do is based on research by us or others about Swansea students, or students in general – not just our own opinion.

Ok, sounds good. But I don't know if I can win an election!

Please don't let fear stop you. 

When I first ran in 2010  I was cripplingly shy and had no idea what I was doing. I was barely involved in the SU, and wasn't actually aware that there was a proper election and everything until I'd commited myself to it! 

I did think about dropping out, but with the help of a few brilliant friends, I got out there and talked to people, and the vast majority of people I chatted to were so friendly, and genuinely glad that I made the effort.

I was 180 votes away from winning, but absolutely gobsmacked that 700 people voted for me – people I didn't know thought I had good ideas! The next year, I ran again and won, and the year after that! :)

During election week it’s all about talking to as many people as possible about your ideas.

So please run if you want to do this job, and best of luck! 

You can nominate yourself and find out more HERE!