Josie Jessop is running in the 2020 SU Elections for the role of Sports Officer. Impact‘s Isabelle caught up with her and asked why she would make a good candidate for the position.
How important do you feel sport is to university life?
Personally, sport has been a massive part of my university experience. I made most of my friends through sport and I would be really lost without it. Therefore, I see sport as essential to the University of Nottingham. It unites the university at events such as varsity and generally inspires good, connected university spirit. Everyone is proud to be green and gold, with the university of Nottingham being ranked top 5 in national university sport rankings.
Why do you think the role of Sports Officer is important to the Students’ Union?
In my opinion, sport is a massive part of the university’s identity. Therefore, it should have a student union representative that reflects its importance and be the voice for sport students. Sport is such a huge part of so many student’s university experiences and like me, many students would feel lost without it. Sport is essential to keep healthy and connected with each other.
What do you believe you could bring to the Sports Officer role that others may not?
I am not someone to do anything half-heartedly. Therefore, I believe that if elected, I would be a Sports Officer that is passionate about all sport at the university, dedicated to ensuring everyone was accounted for and had access to sport. I would truly care about any problems that people faced and do everything in my power to help.
“In my opinion, sport is a massive part of the university’s identity”
In your manifesto you mention your plans to make Varsity even bigger and better. How do you plan to fund this?
Next year’s Varsity will be unlike any other due to economic strain caused by COVID-19, and as a result, I’d look for cost-effective ways to re-vamp it. There are a lot of students who already volunteer for the university in events such as Big BUCS Wednesday, festivals & coaching in general, which gives me confidence that the student body would also give their time to contribute to making varsity better. Student photographers and media and marketing secretaries within sport clubs can use the event for work experience and the photos taken could be used within their own portfolios and for future job interviews.
By including as many sports as possible in the varsity series it would hopefully encourage more support and excitement over the event with clubs being able to easily promote themselves both at UoN and Trent. The Varsity Events themselves can be used as ways to make money – selling Varsity merchandise across all university campuses, for example.
To maintain the high level of engagement, considering COVID-19, I will investigate the possibilities of streaming fixtures, keeping in line with social distancing guidelines should they still be in place.
“I would truly care about any problems that people faced and do everything in my power to help”
Your manifesto mentions plans to hold networking events in the Autumn and Spring. How would you encourage as many students as possible to engage with these events?
I would set up an open group/page that all members of sport clubs would be invited to where the networking events would be posted so everyone on the page would be aware. I would also try to incorporate as much diversity into the event in order to attract as many different types of students as possible.
The event would be student-led, with several sport clubs and societies asked to help run the event through members volunteering from these groups. It would be mutually beneficial, giving all the societies and sport clubs involved exposure. For example, societies could provide the musical entertainment, student photographers could use the event for work experience as mentioned earlier and the event would be fuelled by the combined effort from a range of different societies and sports clubs.
The integration of IMS sport is something you mention on in your manifesto. How do you plan on achieving this?
This point comes from seeing the huge benefits of having IMS integrated into my own club, with increased attendance to socials and greater involvement within club events throughout the year.
If elected, I plan to integrate IMS into sports clubs more effectively through setting up support and networking groups for IMS Executives, club IMS Secretaries and sporting clubs themselves, as well as multiple online support groups, to create easy and efficient communication.
I would also like to build upon initiatives such as the IMS All-Star Event that was intended to take place this year. Ultimately, I think that everyone should have access to all aspects of sport at UoN!
Voting for the 2020 SU elections closes at 3pm on Monday 11th May.
You can read Josephine’s Manifesto here. The link to vote for the 2020 Students’ Union candidates is here.
Isabelle Raikes
Featured image courtesy of Nina Sasha.
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