By Rhydian Morris

The Annual Student Union awards took place this Saturday to an impressive crowd. The awards ceremony is a chance of the union to give gratitude to those individuals, sports and societies that have contributed to the union over the past year. This year had some of the highest participation in the amount of nominations written with over 650 nominations, 484 of those being nominations of societies and their respective committee members. The event was exceptionally well organised by the union, with special commendation needs to be given to Charlotte West and her staff for their commitment, which included handwriting name tags for all attendees.

The evening opened with a speech from this year’s union president Lewys Aron, who thanked everyone for attending and showed his appreciation for everyone who worked hard this year. Following a short interim for the buffet, the evening began with an exceptional performance by the musician’s societies Big Band, finishing on an impressive rendition of blues brothers pieces.

The University’s Vice Chancellor attended the event, and in his speech he praised the union and the student societies and sports for their efforts over the past year. The chancellor appeared very proud of the University’s recent award for best practice, achieved from a recent awards ceremony by The European Society for Quality Research – ESQR .

Following his speech the first half of the awards ceremony took place, with the winners and those highly commended being listed below:

Full Time Staff Member of the Year

Highly Commended: Steph Dalton

Winner: Martin Caldwell

Student Staff Member of the Year

Highly Commended: Laura Ball
Leah Waterridge
Sam Baggott

Joint Winners: Beth Owen
Andy Pover

Part-Time Officer of the Year

Highly Commended: Ditonmene Churchill-International Officer

Winner: Heather Wood-Women’s Officer

Subject Rep of the Year

Highly Commended: Haytham Whitear
April Rees

Winner: Adam Powell

College Rep of the Year

Highly Commended: Aimee Pink

Winner: Cecilie Wittnebel

Best Student Led Campaign

Highly Commended: Christian Union- Are you Satisfied?

Winner: ISOC- Charity Week

Best Student Led Event

Highly Commended: SUTV-Film Festival
Dance Society-Reflections

Winner: Shoreline Theatre-Sweeney Todd

Culture+Diversity

Highly Commended: ISOC- Islamic Awareness Week

Joint Winners: Beth Owen and Lauren Evans: Contribution to Welsh Culture

 

Following the first list of rewards were performances from both the Choral Society and Show Choir. Thoroughly impressive performances from both societies, but particular notice has to be made from some of the soloists performances in the Show Choir.

During the proceedings the seemingly annual tradition of the penis balloon was launched, which drifted around the room through the rest of the evening.

The second set of highly commended and winners are listed below:

Outstanding Contribution to Student Media

Highly Commended: Tim Morizet
Steve Day

Winner: Varsity Coverage Team

Sports Club of the Year

Highly Commended: Archery
Kickboxing

Winner: Netball

The following award is for the fundraising varsity, which was a scheme set up to encourage societies and sports to compete to raise the most money for charity. Over £25,000 was raised for charity in a combination of sports and societies, with societies raising over £12,000 and sports raising over £15,800.

Fundraising Varsity

Best Sports Club: Netball

Best Society: Islamic Society

Overall Winner: Sports

Best New Society

Highly Commended: Hindu

Winner: Postgraduate Research Society

Most Improved Society

Highly Commended: Physics
Marvel and DC

Winner: Shoreline Theatre

Society of the Year

Highly Commended: Gaming
Dance

Winner: Christian Union

Individual Contribution Awards

Aimee Eheenzeller
Dan Timmins
Chris Wilson
Geri Schmidts
Chloe Bryde
Joshua Hale
Ditonmene Churchill
Shona Johnson
Rebecca Morgan
Molly Dowrick
Tim Morizet

Following the awards the outgoing officers of Samuel Uche, Felix Mmeka and Lewys Aron made closing speeches on how rewarding the past year had been for them, and how sad it was that the year had come to an end.

Lewys Aron in his closing speech as president thanked his fellow officers and staff for the difficult and challenging year they have all faced with the move to a dual campus university. While he lamented that he might have not made always the correct decision, his goal throughout the year was to attempt to get the best experience for students, and all his decisions were based on that drive. The union has achieved much this year from reducing the limit on card transactions to £1, to ending Saturday exams for students from the next academic year. He recognised the drive and commitment of the officer’s and staff, and that this commitment helped them achieve the NUS Wales Award for best Student’s Union of 2016.

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