Week One

I've been a sabbatical officer for one week now, and it's been a very exciting week!

Last Wednesday we went down to the Cheshire campuses to have some photos taken and meet the staff down there. Thursday and Friday we were in the Manchester building with introductions to the staff and departments that we can resource.

The highlight of the week was the sabbatical residential, held in a lovely cottage in the Lake District. We were told to meet at the Pencil Museum in Keswick at 12:45pm on Saturday, wearing the rubber gloves that were provided. We had to complete various tasks to gain points; and what do points make? These tasks included the whole team running a pub, and a scene from a comic book where Alex (VP Student Activities Manchester) was about to be run over by a train driven by Joe (VP SA Cheshire)!

Sunday saw us attempting to solve a Lego puzzle without talking to each other. We'd each been given a part of the task and each part had to be adhered to. We got there in the end.

Our next problem was transporting an egg along the nearby stream by building a vessel out of tin foil, straws, a part of toilet roll holder, cupcake holders and string. We were split into two teams and would race against each other to get our boat to the finishing line. My team built a pasty shaped boat with the egg packaged inside, whereas the other team built a raft with the egg perched on top. Chaos ensued!

On Monday we left the cottage and onto a Go Ape adventure trail, through trees and so on. All completed the course in good time, although some had scrapes and bruises from landing very amusingly at the end of the zip lines, onto the bark shreds provided. Back at home on Monday night, I slept like a rock!

On Tuesday we headed to Preston to attend the NUS regional reception. This was a good opportunity to make contacts and colleagues from other unions in the North West and to get up to speed with NUS's Funding Our Future campaign. Obviously, no NUS event would be complete without a stop at the pub before we left.

So work has started in earnest, and I'm lovin' it!

JR