Election address:

I’m Madeleine, a maths student and current karate club president.  As a queer and autistic person, I have experienced first-hand some of the difficulties faced by people with protected characteristics, and hope to improve everyone’s experience with university sports, as increasing inclusion improves sports for everyone. I have also completed several relevant trainings for this role from both Girl Guiding and the Sports Union, including active bystander training, safe space (a Girl Guiding wellbeing centric course), first aid, ConcussEd and several discrimination in sports sessions provided by the SU.

Manifesto:

If elected, my goals for the year would be as follows:

• Encourage clubs to run gender inclusive sessions, especially for recreational sports. For casual training, having sessions that anyone could attend offers a more welcoming environment to trans and gender non-conforming students. Currently, having to pick a clear “male” or “female” session when it’s just for fun can alienate LGBT+ members of the student body, and discourage them from taking part in sports. (Competition practise would be excluded from this for most sports due to BUCS regulations)
• Encourage at least one sober social a month, as many people do not drink by personal choice, religious reasons, or due to their age. Having all socials focused around drinking is exclusionary and unapproachable for many, as well as being expensive!
• Continue campaigns such as Movember for men’s mental health awareness, Rainbow Laces for LGBT+ History Month,  National Women in Sports Day, and Black History Month. Part of this would also involve the ability for students to feedback their own experiences of discrimination in sports, and allow improvements at both club and SU level.
• Encourage clubs to make their sessions more accessible, whether by offering detailed descriptions of what each session entails to support neurodiverse students, making adaptations to training for people with disabilities or injuries that make their normal training style challenging, or by making social media posts include ALT texts for those using text to speech software 
• Organise stress busters, mental health awareness campaigns and sessions, and encourage clubs to run relaxed socials during exam periods and deadline season