Monday 17-04-2023 - 15:33

The Event Award - Tea Party

Recognising a brilliant event organised by a society or volunteering team. This event doesn’t have to be large-scale with a huge budget. We are just as interested in smaller scale events – as long as they made a difference to attendees. We’re looking for real innovation and a fantastic experience for attendees.

The Tea Party is a project which plans Christmas and Easter parties for older members of our local community. When inviting the older people to the tea party they also promote other volunteering projects so that their guests may choose to be as involved with the University in other ways, forming a new bond between the student volunteers and older people in the local community.

The tea party has been an essential part of the community in Bangor. The tea party was the first volunteering project run by Bangor University and started in 1952 therefore, this year was the 70th anniversary for this project.

 

The Wellbeing Award - Connect

Recognizing those individuals, societies, or projects that have championed student wellbeing. Student volunteering and societies provide a crucial space for students to feel comfortable, do what they love and make friends – and this award celebrates the importance that has on wellbeing.

Connect is a volunteering project that invites students of all backgrounds to a safe space this allows them to explore their thoughts and feelings surrounding different topics or have a chat about events in their life. Connect also hosts weekly events such as mindfulness colouring, walks and other wellness activities to help students relax and de-stress. These activities decrease social anxiety when they attempt to talk about sensitive topics such as how they’re settling into university life.

If students are shy or nervous about attending, they can be paired with a buddy who gets to know them so when they attend the session, they are more comfortable, participation is encouraged however, it is not mandatory so many of the students choose to sit on the side-line and listen to different conversations instead of being an active participant. They are also welcome to join online, if they are more comfortable with this, as they can choose to have their camera on, their microphone on, or just type out their responses. This is so they can slowly build their confidence and hopefully, they will begin to start socialising more in sessions.

Further info about no.of noms and awards dinner:

We received over 340 nominations from student societies and groups across the UK and you were longlisted as one of the top 12 for your category. You can find out more about your fellow nominees here.  

So what next? Our student leader and sector specialist judging panels are meeting over the next few weeks to identify a winner and runners up for each category. We're hosting an in-person awards event on Tuesday 23rd May at 3Sixty Reading Students' Union and we would love to see you there