Funding approved for the Photographic Society, Water Polo Club and Sub-Aqua Club

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Did you know that your affiliated club or society can apply for funding from the Union? This funding isn’t designed to cover the day-to-day running costs of the group (this should be covered by membership fees, fundraising or from other sources) but it can be provided to cover the costs of resources, specific pieces of equipment or trips that wouldn’t otherwise be able to be provided.

We recently approved some new capital funding awards to the Photographic Society, Water Polo Club and Sub-Aqua Club. This means they have some exciting new equipment coming their way which will help to improve their club’s experience long-term. Let’s find out more…

Photographic Society – David Evans (President)

“The camera was necessary as it would then go alongside our ‘full-frame’ Nikon camera, the D800. Having a professional level Canon and Nikon camera would then give the majority of people within our club a chance to use this higher end kit, as typically once you are within a branded ecosystem you tend to stay there (so pretty much people with their own Canon camera would have no lenses to use with our professional Nikon body).

The image quality between typical ‘entry level’ cameras (with smaller APS-C sized sensors) and ‘full-frame’ sensors is phenomenal. Having the two full-frame cameras for our society members to use gives them a great opportunity to shoot professional level images for portfolio work that could see them gain important steps towards a creative career path.”

Here are some fantastic examples of the sort of portfolio work that be achieved using the Canon 6D, taken on Marieke Wandel’s personal camera –

Water Polo Club – Philip Cumner (President)

“Our current goals have been deteriorating slowly over the past few years. It’s become noticeable in the woodwork and netting – the wood is beginning to chip and the paint is coming off, and the net is becoming worse and worse at its own job of stopping the ball from travelling through it. The netting in particular has been a bit of a running joke over the past few years. So I decided to put through a funding request for new goals that a good friend helped me with in the second round of funding before Christmas.

I initially received no feedback which confused me but then Stephen Gore (VP Sports) informed me that they had actually gone through to a higher body within SUSU due to its high price. This was exciting news so the same friend of mine and I started working on the specific details of the goals we wanted and the specific model we desired.

Not only are the new goals now plastic, so should last a lot longer than our current goals, but they sit completely in the water with hooks into the side, whereas our current ones back posts hook into the sides. This means that the goalkeeper has more freedom to move inside the goal where they wouldn’t have been able to in our current ones due to the side of the pool sitting inside the goal too.”

Photo credit: Southampton University Water Polo Club Facebook page

Sub-Aqua Club – Jamie Hill (Treasurer)

“The new dry suits were necessary because out of the nine we had, four had broken beyond repair (after 20 years of use). The reason we couldn’t fund them ourselves was because they are around £450 each which when we wanted 6 is more than we could afford as a club.

When we get them, the new suits will improve our club because it means that more people will be able to go diving. As I said above, they’re an expensive piece of kit and so most people don’t own one. But to go diving in the UK outside of July-September, you have to be wearing one otherwise you’ll get very cold!”

Check out some photos from the club below!