Launch of ‘£s back to you’ Campaign

When students spend more money in SUSU’s commerical services, your union is able to invest more back in the areas that directly benefit students.

This year we’ve seen an increase in turnover for our commercial areas of roughly £150,000 – this is due to more students using SUSU’s facilities on a day-to-day basis. At the start of this academic year, I talked about how students could be at the heart of our commercial activity by remembering how each pound spent in SUSU goes back to students.

The increased activity that we’ve seen in students using SUSU this year allowed us to increase funding to student groups by over £22,600 in January – and we look set to see even further increases for next year’s budget.

We were also able to bring down the price of Grad Ball tickets by £10, create an innovations fund of £25,000 for any group to apply for, and create a new Student Life Zone Coordinator position among many other things.

This week, we’ve launched a new graphic at the very entrance to SUSU to remind students this year and in the future that every area of SUSU helps students – either directly (like the advice centre) or indirectly (like Shop profits helping fund the advice centre). Click here to see a front on view of the graphic.

Firstly, 10p from every £1 that students spend in SUSU will go directly to funding student activities across all of our zones. Secondly, choosing SUSU allows us to employ hundreds of student staff each year – helping to reduce student poverty across Southampton. Finally, we are doing our best to only work with ethical suppliers, so you can be sure that each £1 you spend in SUSU are going to good causes and ensuring that suppliers aren’t taken advantage of.

So remember that when you’re choosing to pick up a sandwich from the SUSU shop or pop to the Stag’s to start your night, you’re helping run over 300 student groups, and defend the rights of 22,000 students… and we thank you for it!

David Gilani – Union President