HEY!
I’m Jethro, currently a 3rd year Global Popular Music student and also president of the Spoken Word Society.
I’m running for Co-President of Activities and Events because I want to give back to the community that has changed my life during my time at SOAS.
My Roles:
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Being a friendly and approachable figure - My main focus is to help empower students to organise the kind of events that they want to see at SOAS – events that REPRESENT YOU, your community and your interests.
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Doing the admin – although my personal tastes and interests (music, spoken word, arts activism) will certainly influence what kind of events I plan to organise, I want to stress that my job will mainly involve doing the boring stuff, and I will be prioritising your interests over my own, ensuring I am a GOOD LISTENER.
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Making events AS WAVEY AS POSSIBLE – realising that this does not entail that they are focused around drinking alcohol… If you elect me, I will make a vow to go teetotal for the entirety of my time as sabbatical officer, as this will allow me to focus more on making it wavey for everyone else.
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Respecting sports - I’ll be straightforward and say that I am not a sporty person. I love watching sports but have always shyed away from playing them myself. If elected, I would make it a top priority to collaborate with the sports societies both through participation and promotion – I’d like to MAKE SPORTS ACCESSIBLE to those who struggle with confidence by encouraging plenty of casual ‘drop-in’ sessions, and letting the sports experts take the lead in continuing the incredible SOAS teams so that we continue to compete with other universities
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Maintaining a hard line on prejudice – I want to ensure that all events are safe for students here, which means stepping back and listening to concerns that people have, ensuring DIVERSITY is always encouraged, and not claiming that I’m an expert on it either. That said, I plan on taking an unforgiving approach to discrimination here at SOAS and know when to put my foot down if I see this happening.
A quick note on mental health:
Destigmatising mental health is at the core of my philosophy in relation to events here at SOAS. When it comes to attending events, and indeed organising them, sometimes things can get too much for people. I don’t want people to think of others as ‘flakey’ or ‘unreliable’ if they miss an event or struggle getting something organised. As a student community it’s important we WORK TOGETHER, so that we can lean on other people in times of difficulty and still get the results we want from what we organise.
So I want to make sure that AS MANY OF US GET INVOLVED AS POSSIBLE – so that nobody ever feels that it’s all on them. Which means keeping our incredible societies going through thick and thin.