Hi everyone, I'm Brandon and this year I'll be your Students' Union President. I started my time at BNU enrolled on a totally different course than the one I completed, I swapped over from a Sports Development course to an Education Studies course with a foundation year. My first year at uni was such a blur from moving halfway across the country to High Wycombe all the way from Leeds (yes, I’m a northerner!) to then throwing myself into everything the Student’s Union had to offer.
It all started by getting involved in the Bucks Men’s Rugby team, where I became the winning try-scorer at our annual Varsity against Roehampton. I like to remind everyone that this not only won us the game, but the whole of Varsity that year. I also became a student rep for my course and accrued over 200 hours of volunteering through the rugby team, all in my first year.
My first year created the foundations to what I would end up achieving during my time as a student. Not only was I a student rep, but I also became a student trustee, joined the leadership academy, was President of Bucks Men’s Rugby, and went on to win Club of the Year and Campaigner of the Year at the Students' Union annual Athletic Union Dinner and Union Awards. Being involved in all the great things the Students' Union had to offer really opened up the idea of running for the role of Vice President of Education and Welfare (VPEW). It felt like a natural next step and I was chuffed to have been voted in by the other members of the Students’ Union back in 2022.
Fast forward to today, and I've spent the last year as your VPEW, leading on multiple campaigns which had a significant positive impact on our members at the Union. From the working to combat the cost-of-living crisis for our students by introducing a budget guide, securing free meals across three of our campuses, and collecting feedback from our members to better understand how the cost-of-living crisis was impating them and what we could do to support them. I also worked on various mental health and wellbeing initiatives alongside the rest of the team. Seeing the positive impact the Students' Union work was having on our members really gave me the confidence to push myself even further by running for the President role in the last election and I'm beyond chuffed to have won.
I'm really excited to see what the coming year has in store and all the great work we'll be doing going forward.
- Brandon Tester, Students' Union President 2023-24