LTSU on tour – Birmingham
From the 27th to the 29th of June, LTSU went down to Birmingham! Centred around the NUS and Birmingham attractions, this blog contains the exciting events that LTSU got up to this week.
As a returning officer, spending the week (well a few days in the week) in Birmingham with our new (not officially started) Vice President was great. Luckily it wasn’t just us who got to visit the city of a thousand trades with our CEO, Bar Supervisor and new Communication and Engagement Coordinator. However, this blog will be from our perspective as officers rather than our fantastic team though they will feature in a couple of the stories we share.
Day 1
Firstly, as a side note, Kelsey is terrible at car journeys as she fell asleep within the first 10 minutes, which made a long lonely drive in the backseat for me… kidding. I didn’t mind, as Kelsey talks loads throughout the week in Birmingham. – As president, I can confirm as I slept through the journey, and I would not say I talk that much. That’s debatable??.
Our first stop on our tour of Birmingham was the amazing Birmingham City University Students’ Union (BCUSU). This tour stop allowed us to meet with the old and new sabbatical team, some of whom Kelsey had met prior. For Caitlin, it was a chance to see how other Students’ Union work – although it was a bit overwhelming at first, it was nice to chat and clarify tips as a new officer. We spoke about some details and new ideas for the year before getting to the most important part... food.
The team took us to the Eagle and Ball, their super chill student bar, where we could enjoy some food and chat more about their past year and upcoming projects. We have to say the chicken strips were iconic, but we think our bar supervisor would recommend the mac and cheese. Huge shout out and thank you to the BCUSU team for letting us pick your brains ??and your food for an enjoyable day in Birmingham.
The day did not end there; across the road was another Students’ Union, AstonSU – where we headed over to chat with their commercial team and find out a bit more about how we could implement some new ideas in our student bar, Kelsey managed to sneak away briefly and catch up with Aston President, whom she had met the prior year – it was great to have a quick talk and mention a couple of ideas on which we could use the support and knowledge.
As a sabbatical, paying attention to our surroundings was really important, especially at AstonSU. What we really paid attention to was the HUGGGGEEE deckchair in the reception, which we thought about borrowing but unfortunately, we couldn’t shift it. We did, however nearly get stuck on the chair. But it is still on our radar to get our own SU branded deckchair.
The last thing we did on day one was a little bit of sightseeing – we went to the not-so-famous… Bull of Birmingham??. Kelsey and Caitlin had no clue this existed (and we’re sure other people don’t either!) but this was a big disappointment to our CEO, Lisa, who used to work in the SUs in Birmingham – she thought we would be a lot more fascinated than we were ??. We made sure to snap a few pictures?? to remember our time at this so-called “tourist attraction” but for us two, it was simply still a bull twice the size of a normal one.
To be continued...
For part 2 click here >>> LTSU On Tour - Birmingham Day 2