Welcome to the bubble

Welcome back or if you’ve just started, welcome to the Warwick bubble. Warwick is a strange place during the summer. With barely any students around, campus turns into a mini retirement village and so it is great to have some life back in the place. This summer however was slightly different.

You have probably already noticed the great big crane hovering above the Union building, whilst over on the Tocil field a huge white thing has appeared out of nowhere.

No doubt the new website has popped up on your internet browsers and you will have seen the new SU logo, love it or hate it, let us know! This year is without a shadow of a doubt the most important in the Students Union’s 43 year history, and we are quite literally changing things left, right and centre.

A great achievement considering that back in 1970 the University’s Vice Chancellor defiantly said that the Students Union would never have its own building, how wrong he was.

We now have two and we have just begun an £11 million redevelopment on the main venue. Over the coming months you’ll be hearing how we are making your SU the best in the country and how you can be a part of shaping our future, but one thing is for certain, your SU is by no means closed this year.

Every single penny we make from our bars and cafés goes straight back into our clubs, societies, advice centre and representation. What we really want to show this year is that you can make a difference and what we do really is up to you. In terms of our facilities, we have made massive changes over the summer.

Half of the main venue has been knocked down, whilst the front of the building will remain open for six months and has had a mini re-furb, with new outlets including Grad Grub, the Kami Lounge and the Bread Oven along with our new basement nightclub, Tempo.

Part of my job as President of the SU is to represent Warwick students around the country through both campaigning and learning. Over the summer, on my travels I have heard some quite interesting stories.

One fellow SU President who shall remain nameless told me about how his University had accidentally lost some radioactive material. You’ll be pleased to know Warwick has not done this… yet! However the story of my summer was provided by the Cardiff Students Union president. We were talking in general about problems and dilemmas we faced and he brought up a matter of grave importance which his Union was really struggling to solve. Apparently it turns out that the Cardiff SU building, and in particular the male toilets had become a popular dogging hotspot for Welsh locals! Immediately my question was, what exactly was involved with dogging and how did they discover this dogging problem? Well I’ll leave that for you to Google, but without going into too much detail it basically entails various holes drilled in between toilet cubicles and coded messages via feet. All I will say is Thank God Warwick does not face such problems. We shall however keep a close eye on any Coventry residents who sneak into the building, and the Welsh for that matter!

Anyway over the course of the year I am going to try to keep in contact as much as possible. I really do want to make it clear that what we do is up to you so make sure you tell us what you want and how we can improve.

The beauty of Warwick is you can do and achieve whatever you want. Take the Boar for example, it is an entirely independent newspaper and no doubt over the next twelve months we’ll have disagreements but it is an integral part of Warwick life and something to be proud of.

Remember university life is about working hard and playing even harder. Enjoy the first few weeks.