Welcome, welcome, students new and returning! To all of the guys, gals, and non-binary pals! To the allies and the queers and all corners of our community!
I am Izabella, I am your current chair! However, I was not elected. I was originally elected to be the Social Secretary, however our originally elected chair unfortunately had to step down. I have stepped in to fill the role until I can be (hopefully) properly elected in the October by-elections. I am a trans lesbian studying sociology, with aspirations of going in to sociological research and lecturing. I am also obsessed with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power!
The Committee
The committee for this year is made up of:
Chair - Izabella Grey (Me) (Interim)
Vice-Chair - Katherine Spowart
Secretary - Aedan Fisher
Treasurer - Vacant
Social Secretary - Vacant
This means that we have three positions available to run for in the October by-election. Chair, Treasurer and Social Secretary!
I will be running for chair and hope to be officially elected in October.
The Community
This year we will be mostly using discord for our communication as it allows us to keep our community secure and allows us to easily have people show their sexualities, pronouns, and gender! Information on joining can be found on our SU page!
We have a range of events we want to run for the community this year that will be accessible to a range of different people. These range from our partnership with Level for food, drinks, bowling, laser tag and golf, to our sponsorship with Yates’ for nights out, to attending pride events, visiting museums, and so much more! We will also be running online events so that people from Burnley Campus, or less socially inclined people can also be involved! This will include things like Cards Against Humanity, Jackbox, watch parties, and other similar activities! We hope to run a diverse range of events for people who want quiet socialisation, or raging, thumping parties, or adrenaline seekers, or people who just want to walk in a park!
We also want to provide a place to get access to resources, to post LGBTQ+ friendly places in Preston, or news relevant to our community.
Our Plans
This year we plan to continue our push for more gender neutral toilets on campus. The new student centre has a suite of gender-neutral toilets, and we hope to be able to use them as a model that the university can push into every building!
We also plan to hold the university to account, and demand they improve their representation for our community. There are no pride flags on campus, aside from the SU, and we aim to change that!
We want to work with other societies too, particularly those of other marginalised groups, such as the BAME society and Disabled Students society. We hope to be able to develop events together to raise awareness, or just to promote our communities working together.
Yet another main plan is to start the production of the “Gay Agenda”. A newsletter dedicated to LGBTQ+ stories, local news and places that have done well. This is still in the fledgeling stages, and we would appreciate any journalism students who want to give us a hand. We just love the idea of being able to have a physical copy of a gay agenda. It acts as a useful piece of information, but also as a middle finger to homophobes and transphobes!
Finally, we want to start an advocacy program for LGBTQ+ people. The idea being to train students to be able help other people in the community to get access to the healthcare they need. To help them with name changes, or gatekeeping doctors. To prepare people to be able to properly fight for others. This is my personal main goal for my time as chair.
Freshers, Freebies, and Prizes!
Freshers is almost upon us at the time of writing! I am excited to meet all the new people to our community, and all of those who are exploring their sexualities and gender identities! We have a number of things this year to give away! A limited number of handheld flags, pronoun and flag pins, stickers, and flyers and business cards (both with progress flags on the back so you can display them!).
We will also be running a prize draw shortly after the societies fair! Everyone in our discord server will be entered into the prize pool and we will randomly select 10 people to win an LGBTQ+ pin! We are also running a contest to design us a new logo! Details will be announced shortly, but the winner will receive a free trip to Level on one of our events, as well as a free drink and meal!
Speaking of Level! We have just released the tickets for our first event with them! Please check our page for more information!!
I look forward to seeing and speaking with you all soon! Best of luck with your courses, take advantage of all UCLan has to offer, and never let anyone stop you from being you!!
<3 Izzy