SU Spring Elections 2025 Interviews: Ollie Chapman, VP Welfare & Campaigns

In the run-up to the Warwick Students’ Union (SU) Spring Elections, The Boar and RAW 1251AM collaborated to offer all Full-Time Officer (FTO) candidates the opportunity to be interviewed.

Ollie Chapman, one of seven candidates running to be Vice President for Welfare & Campaigns, discussed with The Boar his policies and platform for the role. The interview focused on his plans for radically increasing accessibility on campus, changing student support services, and his own priorities for student campaigns.

What are your key priorities?

When asked about his key priorities if elected Vice President for Welfare & Campaigns, Chapman highlighted four policies he plans to implement.

First, he discussed his plans to change Rootes grocery, the on-campus shop, into a more affordable shop for students. Second, he emphasised his plan to compile a report into rent prices and rises on campus. He asserted that this report would be used to lobby the University into offering better deals to students.

His third key priority included enhancing a current Students’ Union (SU) campaign, the Free Breakfast club. Currently held every Tuesday, Chapman plans to make the breakfast club daily to ensure disadvantaged students have access to a meal every day. For similar reasons, his final main priority aims to subsidise bus passes for disadvantaged students at Warwick who are struggling to bear the brunt of the hidden costs of higher education.

How will you seek to improve mental health and wellbeing provision on campus?

When asked about mental health and wellbeing provision on campus, Chapman discussed the need for greater improvements to current systems like Report and Support.

He said: “I think with things like Report and Support for example, people’s mental health is being massively impacted by the fact that they are not being listened to.”

He discussed his plans to bring in an external review of Report and Support, while emphasising the importance of consulting student groups on the matter. He added: “I would like to introduce more professionally led support groups for students on campus.

“I think it is important to have a community and to feel heard […] it is important to have people there with you that you can relate to, so I would like to introduce more things like that as well.”

Are there any ways you think the End Period Poverty Campaign could be further improved or enhanced?

Chapman emphasised the important of the End Period Poverty campaign, adding: “I think it is a fantastic campaign, one of the best campaigns by far that I have seen from the Students’ Union in my time here.

“As far as I am aware, the SU and the directors of the SU are entrenching that into a more permanent fixture.”

In the interview, he discussed how great of an opportunity this is to make sure the campaign is in every toilet on campus and to spread awareness about the campaign as much as possible.

How would you ensure that the welfare of students that may be suffering through the current cost-of-living crisis? 

The candidate said: “As you can tell from my four priorities, that is what I am most passionate about.”

He discussed the financial problems facing many students, and how he hoped making Rootes cheaper and subsidising bus passes would ease some of the financial burdens of university, amongst his other priorities if elected.

He added: “Stagecoach bus passes are £410 this year, I believe. Where are you getting £400 from as a working-class student? You don’t just have £400.

“You can take it out your student loan but then you have nothing else left for food, and that is at least six weeks’ worth of food there.”

Are there any ways by which student safety could be further improved or prioritised by the SU?

Chapman outlined plans to separate the welfare responsibilities of community safety from their security responsibilities. Speaking from personal experience, he asserted that community safety is not fit to act as a welfare service on campus and pledged to get greater training for campus security or implement new staff roles.

He also discussed working alongside the Vice Presidents for Societies and Sports to ensure mandatory welfare training for social secretaries.

What campaigns would you seek to run over the next year?

When asked about his campaign plans, Chapman reiterated his four key priorities discussed earlier in the interview.

In conversation about plans to make Rootes grocery cheaper, he said: “I think we are at a point where the economy is so bad and students are struggling so much that there is more appetite for that than ever. I want to use that anger of students, I want to use that to mobilise, to fight, to show the University why we want it.”

He also discussed his plans to compile a report into accommodation prices on campus, and expanding the free breakfast club into a daily event.

What makes you stand out from other Welfare Officer candidates?

Before delving into his experience, Chapman discussed how great it was that all candidates for his sought-after position had very similar policies, and how this meant that no matter what, student life at Warwick could improve.

He outlined his various positions in SU committees, previously sitting on the Welfare Committee and Steering Group, which he said gave him experience with the SU’s democratic structures. He also sat on Student Council where he was elected as Chair.

He asserted that his part-time position as Membership Assistant in the SU sets him apart from other candidates because he has had the opportunity to develop a nuanced understanding of the Students’ Union and its processes.

He added: “I believe that understanding of the SU should help me push the change through that I want to achieve.”

This interview, along with all other interviews for Vice President positions, can be watched in full using the link here, courtesy of RAW 1251AM. [coming soon]

Read Ollie Chapman’s manifesto here.