“I feel that everything in my 10 point manifesto is accessible and achievable”
Matt Haslam – Lonsdale College
For Matt Haslam, running for Vice President (Activities) is about helping the student body to get the most out of their University experience, as Haslam feels that he himself has. He stated “I have always enjoyed engaging with activities outside of academic commitments and love encouraging people to do likewise and get involved.” Haslam is confident that he has the relevant experience to be able to fulfil the role, saying “the experience of serving on 3 different Execs has given me a great insight into societies’ organisation of events, socials and campaigns. As Cross Campus Societies Officer I have already begun initiating ideas I have for the development of our groups, to initial success so far and I hope for greater success in the following weeks and terms.”
From sitting on the Activities Exec, Haslam can see that there are no differences between sports and societies as far as the VP (Activities) and his team are concerned, and he feels that this combined FTO position has been a great success. “As VP (Activities) I would aim to attend as many society events and sports matches as I could. Events are a great place for networking and letting the people who have elected you know who you are.”
One issue that he has with the current system is that, “current societies don’t use the Activities Office as much as they could; I think it’s important to build one to one relationships with as many of the societies and clubs as possible.” Matt would aim to make the Activities Office more of a hub where people could drop in and get information and support.
Haslam also thinks that improvements could be made to the current relationship with the Sports Centre and that the current issues are down to a lack of respect from the student body, lacking communication from both sides. He feels that more work could be put into the relationship, with LUSU encouraging a better attitude from the students and increasing publicity for the Sports Centre’s events.
Haslam wants to stress that he feels that everything within his manifesto is accessible and achievable. “My manifesto is structured into 10 points to make it easy for people to read. All the things that are mentioned in my manifesto are realistic and workable. Through my role as CCO Societies I can see some areas where things can be improved.”
