Firsts and Lasts, a thank you to our welcome helpers

“Firsts and Lasts”

A Thank You To Our Volunteers

As anticipated these past two weeks have been absolutely insane. Welcome week and the orientation of new students is a massive operation and is an integral part of the integration process into University for new and returning students.

The sabbatical officers’ role during this period is multi-faceted and diverse from aiding in the writing of the strategy and priorities for the week and approving the entertainments to meeting new students and physically carrying ‘that tiny Thai girl’s’ 36 kilo suitcase up 4 flights of stairs. Oh and did I mention helping to support and orchestrate five-hundred student volunteers moving in thousands of fresh-faced student recruits?    

In practice this means spending up to 18 hours a day on campus, not finding time for lunch, forfeiting a couple of weekends, running around from one end of campus to the other, dealing with upset parents, overworked staff and sometimes lost and confused or lonely or drunk students. Sounds awful doesn’t it?

It isn’t.

There is a reason why so many students return to University two weeks early in order to volunteer their time and energy. In part, it is students’ and young people’s desire to give something back and be part of a community, share knowledge, hospitality and welcome weary travellers from far and near to their new home. It is also one of the most rewarding experiences we and our volunteers have enjoyed. Sadly, this year will be the last time I can personally be involved as the end of my term is this summer.

Every year I am so impressed with the sheer physical and mental effort that our student volunteers put in, supported by our dedicated staff who also give up their own time to ensure that our welcome stands are staffed by a friendly face to answer questions. Kent Union volunteers always do it with a smile on their face. Sadly, the effort that these volunteers put in is not universally recognised across campus and attitudes are not what one might expect.  I hope that in the future we will be able to educate this minority to appreciate the collective effort of these volunteers.

A cynic might say that welcome week (freshers’ week) is just a disorganised piss-up, that if Kent Union didn’t train and recruit welcome helpers, students would settle in just fine but I beg to differ. On Monday I received an e-mail from a rather distressed student who was finding the experience a bit daunting to say the least. Campus was noisy, housemates hadn’t introduced themselves, there hadn’t been a friendly welcome volunteer to carry their bags and reassure them and somehow their door had been missed during the door knocking for the evening events. Somehow they had found my e-mail address to put a message in a bottle. I introduced them to some of the bubbliest and outgoing volunteers I could think of that evening. What struck me hardest was that with all the effort that student had put in to get as far as the University, they may have ended up calling it a day and going home had there not been some friendly faces to welcome them.  As well as welcome the 17 year old student from the Canary Islands who’s class back home had been 3 students now in a year-group of 4,000+, or the student returning to study after 10 years and feeling a bit odd being back on campus.  Thanks guys.

Another major challenge during this period is the Welcome fayre where we put up some big tents and invite all our student groups to attack the new students with sign-up sheets, flyers, free sweets and amazing opportunities. In addition this year the training of the society and volunteering groups committees had undergone a massive redesign as well as seeing the launch of a new 30 Page handbook for societies I had written. (Link to training blog)

To cut a long blog short, the fayre, the training and the handbook were all a massive success. I continued my ongoing campaign of saying “yes” wherever possible and in this case this meant over 250 groups, 5 stage performances, a naked picnic and a tank on campus... in the interest of decency I decided to upload footage of the tank which the Military history society were kind enough to let me ride to Parkwood in! FUN!

To end on a serious note, apart from inspiring Military history society and helping them to recruit new members and helping naturist society to sign up new potential members and me losing some hair over the whole thing, saying yes to things opens minds to possibilities. If a small group of volunteers can get a tank on campus... what else can they achieve?

Say yes to something that makes you feel a bit edgy.

And a special hello and welcome to My Cousin Lauren, the second Budd at University, and at Kent.