As you know we recently held our annual Festival of Student Governance event in partnership with the Association of Colleges, and supported by the Blagrave Trust. Each year we welcome young people from colleges across the country to our bespoke training event as part of the country’s largest further education event.
We spoke with some of the delegates to get their impressions of the event and will be releasing some feature articles in the coming days to share their insight.
Today we hear all about James Tinson’s experience
My name is James Tinson and i’m the Student Union President and a Student Governor for Derby College. Recently I attended the Festival of Student Governance as a delegate. I was expecting a somewhat familiar Workshop and informative event, so it definitely was different, and in a good, as well as exhilarating way.
I actually felt engaged and involved, listened to, regularly spoken with and acknowledged, which I can say from other events in the past; is not always something you’d see, so it really was brilliant for me.
I found the networking dinner and guest speakers incredibly electrifying. I regret not having gotten fully stuck in, but nonetheless, I met a lot of amazing individuals and discovered so much more about the other student governors out there, and discovering what they were all doing in their own colleges.
The guest speakers specifically were incredibly awe-inspiring, all proving and providing solid proof that anything we ourselves set out to achieve can, and will, inevitably be within our reach, so long as we all keep trying our best and constantly aware of the opportunities that present themselves.
The facilitators and Unloc staff were very kind and informative, extremely understanding as well as forthcoming, it was also very well balanced with guidelines as well. We were informed immediately of things to consider and remember, so it wasn’t difficult knowing what was expected of us in the realms of behaviour.
The experience of the Association of Colleges Annual Conference was that it even managed to surpass all I’d experienced and witnessed the first day. It broadened my awareness even more so, around what can and should be when we have the abilities that we so luckily have been provided by our peers; that there are truly many, many individuals out there who wholeheartedly wish and aspire to provide us all with fairer opportunities to succeed.
I also found the exercises and workshops on Day 2 extremely eye opening, in the same sense that guest speakers provided further strong inspiration to myself and I’m sure many others present.
The exercises, provided me with a better sense of understanding and newly found confidence of the ways I can perform the duties expected of me, not only how to do those duties, but to also ensure we are heard and listened to.
I took a lot away from the event, be it ways I could be engaging the day to day of my role or how to be successful in more mature environments like board meetings.
The event also provided me with the final piece of confidence that I’d found myself lacking as of late in my role, allowing me the motive and extra assurance of how I can make full use of the platform provided to me, as well as the bridge to creating an even more supportive and engaging environment for Students.
