SU Summer Elections 2025 – VP Sports Interviews: Brandon Ring

As part of the Warwick Students’ Union (SU) Summer Elections, The Boar offered all candidates for the Vice President for Sports election an opportunity to answer questions outlining their manifesto, experiences, and aims for the role. 

Brandon Ring, one of the six candidates for the position, discussed his manifesto and aims with The Boar’s News and Sport teams. Ring outlined his key pledges of reducing the cost of sport at the University, increasing accessibility, and expanding training for club presidents and exec members. 

What are your key manifesto pledges? 

My key manifesto pledges are to bring the cost of sports at the University down, to ensure accessibility for all students, rigorous and comprehensive communications with each club, to ensure that I fully fight the corner of every student, and to create a dedicated strength and conditioning area for students at Warwick Sport.

I am running as the non-compromise candidate, which means that I will fight tooth and nail to bring prices down for students across campus and to bring attention to accessible schemes for sports at the University. I will work tirelessly to ensure that we get as many people involved in sports as possible and build a Warwick Sport that supports sportspeople of every level.

An investigation by The Boar earlier this year found that 91% of students find the cost of a Warwick Sports Pass too high. How do you plan to decrease the price of sport at Warwick and make it more accessible to students?

Transparency of expenditure both from the SU and Warwick Sport is a hard requirement for bringing the Warwick Sports Pass down. The on-campus pass is currently far too expensive, and while steps have been taken to decrease the cost of the Sports Federation fee, it hasn’t functionally brought down the cost of sports in any capacity, with prices threatening to rise again in the next year.

Through allowing students access to a breakdown of spending, we can create a system of accountability and lobbying to cut excess expenditure and bring the price of the campus pass to a reasonable level. Further, by signposting and expanding currently existing accessibility schemes such as the Sports Officer Bursary, Rock Up and Play, and the Sportswear for All fund, we can significantly increase the ability of students to access sport.

How would you seek to support and improve sports clubs performance in both BUCS tournaments and non-BUCS competitions in the year ahead? 

A dedicated Strength and Conditioning area within Warwick Sport, dedicated to students and clubs, with specialist equipment intended for use by each individual sport is a steadfast goal of mine which will serve as a significant boost to all competitive sports at the university.

Furthermore, boosting accessibility to transportation for BUCS and non-BUCS competitions alike will be a significant boost to the competitive nature of our university. During the last year, the united feeling of #TeamWarwick has fallen to the wayside, and I intend to bring back a system of marketing, advertising, and spotlighting to celebrate the University’s athletes in a way that befits the time and dedication they put in.

One conversation currently being had across campus is about transgender rights and inclusion policies. How would you ensure that trans students continue to be included in sports at Warwick, particularly in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling? And how do you plan to promote diversity and accessibility in sport more widely too?

I believe sport at Warwick should be open, welcoming, and accessible to everyone. Recent national rulings within the Supreme Court have raised important considerations for sports moving forwards, but my steadfast commitment is on making sure that every student feels able to participate fully in our sporting community.

I’ll work closely with students and clubs to promote an environment built on respect, fairness, and inclusion. Sport is at its best when it brings people together — and I’ll do everything I can to make sure Warwick Sport continues to be a space where everyone feels they belong.

In a wider context, formal Presidential training sessions on how to build an exec culture, which then informs the culture of a society, would help to bring about a more inclusive environment for students involved in sports at the university.

Sports clubs at Warwick have often been the focus of criticism and scrutiny for dangerous and non-inclusive socials, including circling and ‘initiations’ (adoptions). An investigation for the upcoming Boar print found that 40% of students felt pressured to take part in sports socials, and only 50% had to sign an agreement form before adoptions. How would you ensure that execs create a safe environment for their club members at these events? 

Several years ago, the University brought circling into the SU and implemented safeguarding guidelines for clubs to follow within the venue. Encouraging and designing a similar system for adoptions with societies, bringing them into an organised and official space, would help significantly with fears surrounding the current systems and assist with safeguarding of students.

While this would be opt-in, and clubs could still host adoptions elsewhere if they so choose, I will formalise a short adoptions training for socials and mandate agreement forms to ensure that student safety is maintained.

Further, by expanding the current appeal of sober socials and organising dedicated spaces at the University for clubs to be able to host such events, it would bring about a more inclusive and safer environment for students.

Communication between the VP Sports and sports clubs and their members is key to ensuring an open and transparent dialogue. How do you plan on ensuring students have a sufficient way of voicing their opinions and problems with you?

A rigorously maintained inbox for emails is the first step to ensuring that students can actively voice their problems. Furthermore, by ensuring that President’s Forums are expanded upon and that one-on-one meetings are continuously offered, planned and held throughout the year between clubs, we can build a comprehensive picture of the needs of each individual club and build an SU that fights the corner of every student.

By ensuring that Sports President emails and Teams announcements are launched consistently each week, we can maintain a strong system of dissemination of key information.

Finally, by being openly transparent about financial and administrative decision-making, we would ensure that clubs have adequate information to voice concerns and maintain two-way communication.

During the Spring Elections, the sole candidate for the VP Sports position was criticised for having a so-called ‘joke candidacy’. What can you say to the Warwick student community to show your candidacy isn’t a ‘joke’ one, and that you have what it takes to become the next VP Sports? 

I have been President of Warwick Barbell for two years, and I worked to get our Varsity competition sanctioned and brought the University of Birmingham into the competition. Under my tenure, we tripled participation of women and non-binary members through a system of executive committee accessibility training, and I have worked extensively within SU systems to bring all of this to fruition.

During this time, I have seen firsthand the current issues faced by sports clubs across the university in terms of organisation, communication, and costs, and have come up with extensive plans to address these issues and build sports at Warwick to be more affordable, more united, and more enjoyable than ever before.

You can read Ring​’s manifesto here. Voting in the SU Summer Elections opened on Monday 26 May, and will remain open until 12pm midday on Friday 30 May, with results published shortly after.