Earlier this year, we launched a new community spotlight series, led by your Community and Volunteering Officer, Charlotte Colombo. These spotlights cover some of the brilliant volunteering opportunities you can get involved with, in and around Southampton, alongside your studies.

Today’s spotlight is on local charity, Yellow Door.

What is Yellow Door?

Established in 1985, Yellow Door is a registered charity providing supportive and preventative services in response to domestic and sexual abuse. We offer a range of specialist therapeutic, advocacy and community outreach initiatives to support children, young people, women, men and families across Southampton and western … Read the rest

From bake sales, to smoothie giveaways and event catering – you’ll need a Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene certificate to make these events happen! The training will give you knowledge of how to make sure all food is safe, prepared correctly and stored correctly. This certificate can be achieved for FREE via the Union’s online learning platform.

To receive this certificate elsewhere, you would need to spend at least £20 per person. However, with our help, the training can be completed at no cost to you or to your society! We’ve recently helped over 50 student volunteers to gain … Read the rest

Among all the many things we offer you, did you know that one of them is your very own student run cinema?! Union Films is based in the centre of the Union building and is run entirely for your enjoyment by members of the Union Films student group!

The Cinema is conveniently situated on Level 3 of the Union, so you can buy all sorts of treats from Bar 3 Diner before you head to watch some of the latest films and classic throwbacks that everyone knows and loves. If that’s still not enough to tempt you, we recently installed … Read the rest

Record Breakers are looking for volunteers to engage with children during the Summer Reading Challenge at Winchester Discovery Centre.

During the summer, reading levels can drop. The Summer Reading Challenge aims to prevent this drop by challenging children to read six books during the summer break. Volunteers will engage with the children about the books they read and encourage them to complete the challenge!
For more information contact masuyo.coward@hants.gov.uk 01962 873693 www.hants.gov.uk/wdc… Read the rest

Students here at SUSU have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for activity days for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Southampton Hub has recently launched their Branch Up programme, which aims to provide activity days to children in the local area. These children will be partnered on a one-to-one basis with student volunteers from the University of Southampton, with the first activity day taking place on Saturday 14 March. Branch Up was originally set up by students in Oxford and has recently expanded to Southampton and London.

Branch Up is a community volunteering project led by Southampton students and supported … Read the rest

Do you need any help with your election campaign? #YourSkills offers FREE training sessions providing transferable skills, important campaigning tips (like designing posters and public speaking) and help in getting your campaign team organised. Each session is run by trained volunteers so you know you’ll be in good hands!

The February-March schedule includes some of the usual sessions such as Don’t Worry, Be Happy!, Definitely Maybe, Pushy or Pushover? and Getting it Done. These training sessions are open to everyone, not just student volunteers: all you need to do is follow the links to book onto … Read the rest

Fancy going behind the scenes of local businesses? Or gaining skills and work experience to add to your CV? Well you can do both by becoming BEES!

The Business Ethics and Environmental Students (BEES) team are about to head down to Portswood amongst other places, in order to audit local businesses on their sustainability practices, and we need your help to do so!

Our student volunteers provide free sustainability auditing services to local organisations, then suggest improvements on their ethical and environmental practices and help with implementing the best solutions for the company. This may sound like jargon … Read the rest

Thank you very much, to all the brilliant volunteers who helped out with Blackout on Friday night.

Now in its third year, the event was another great success. Blackout 2014 was it biggest it has ever been with Winchester joining the other campuses and taking part for the first time ever.  The Blackout campaign aims to raise awareness about how much energy we use and how we can reduce it;  by switching of all unnecessary electronic items for the night we can become more aware about how much energy we use and if it is really worth it. Results from … Read the rest

Over the last two weeks, SUSU has trained the single biggest cohort of volunteers in the union. You might not see them winning on the pitch, or shaking buckets on the red brick, but they’re in your lectures, your labs and your seminars working to make sure your student education is the best is can be. We’re talking about the 302 volunteers who are your course reps, and the newest members of #teameducation.

67% of your elected course reps attended Inductions and Workshops to help prepare them for their roles. As well as learning more about how their role … Read the rest

Whether you’ve tried Your Skills before and haven’t had enough or you’re new to the concept, there’s a host of different programmes available for you to try. Your Skills offers FREE training sessions providing transferable skills, important study tips (like time management and organisation skills) and tips for applying for graduate jobs like CV writing and much more. Each session is run by trained volunteers so you know you’ll be in good hands!

The November schedule includes Don’t Worry, Be Happy!, Definitely Maybe, Make Your Contacts Count and I Have a Dream. These training sessions are … Read the rest