Carnage and Molecules

So this is my very first post on The Herald blogs section and it will be a first of many I’m sure!

I imagine if you’re reading this you probably have some idea about who I am and/or the organisation and people that I represent. But if not, I’ll put it to you in a nutshell. Here goes…

My name is Darren Jones, I’m a 21 year old graduate of the Human Biosciences from the University of Plymouth and am the elected President and Chair of the Board for the University of Plymouth Students’ Union (UPSU). UPSU is what it says on the tin, a union for students. We are located on campus at the University and have many areas of partnership with it but we are politically independent.
UPSU is here to do two main things (as I see it):

• To represent students, their opinions, their problems, their frustrations and their celebrations to the University, the community, the council, national bodies, the media and to Parliament.

• To enhance the student experience whilst here at the University. Our vision at UPSU is to ‘Transform lives Through Experience’ and we are all passionate about working to do just that. This experience building may be based around sports, politics, dance, media, volunteering, socialising in our venue, campaigning, feeling empowered with support to achieve one’s own goals – to name just a few.
So who are ‘we’? UPSU is a student led organisation with its Executive Officers being elected every year in February. The five executive officers include the President (me!), the Deputy President and three Vice Presidents in Sport, Education & Welfare and Activities & Communications. It is our job to ensure that the union is being run in the way that it should be, in the way that we feel it should be for the benefit of our members (students), in a way that is responsible for the £3 million we turn over every year and in a way that secures our vision for the future.
As a board of trustees (remembering that UPSU is a charity) we employ a Senior Management Team and a total staff team of up to 200 people during term time (including student staff) to advise the Board and to ‘run’ the organisation on our behalf. Staff are accountable to the General Manager, who is accountable to the Board and we are accountable to the Student Parliament – which has the power to remove us from Office if we are particularly bad!
So there we go…a little more than a nutshell but still, in my opinion, not justification enough for the amazing work that all of our staff, our students and our volunteers do on a daily basis.
So be prepared to see more of UPSU in the community over the year ahead and beyond and certainly here at www.thisisplymouth.co.uk and in print every Friday on the comments page under “UPSU in the Community”.

We’re already making the headlines (I say headlines….we were in the paper a couple of times) with our massive disapproval of the organised pub crawl company ‘Carnage’ coming to Plymouth (Click here to read this article) and with a ‘mini interview’ with yours truly (although politics isn’t that scary…honest) (Click here for this one).

And remember, to all those student types out there, you are automatically a member of UPSU when you become a student of the University of Plymouth so make sure you us you union to its full advantage.

For more information about UPSU please visit www.upsu.com or email me on president@upsu.com and I’ll get back with an answer / comment as quickly as I can.