This year we celebrate the 60th anniversary of our Student Led Volunteering Projects, formerly known as HUSSO (Hull University Social Services Organisation). Founded by Derek Forster in 1961, this term is a fond memory for all who have been involved within the Volunteering projects that have been offered throughout the years! As our projects have developed and incorporate more offers than for a social services means, we have decided to bring it into the modern era, and following with our mission to include students into the heart of everything, we have renamed to Student Led Volunteering Projects. Our current leaders are pleased with the change and we hope that this will make it more of a clear transparent offer for prospective students, and encourage more students to get involved in volunteering and setting up their own projects.
We are also looking at where Student Led Volunteering has sat historically within the union, with plenty about it changing throughout its 60 years of existence! I am looking to encourage and incorporate Student Led Volunteer Project leads into Union affairs like they historically did, with taking up a seat within the Activities Zone, and upon Union Council within the representational role. With this deep dive into the history of HUSSO, we have been reaching out to alumni, with the support of the University Alumni Team. If anyone would like to share more stories of their time volunteering then please fill out our Google form! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HD-00jIfB0TDflZCNj5k-OZVfijn7BqdqudaTORmwoQ/edit these stories will be a fantastic, and useful insight into what motivated students to join HUSSO, what their experiences within it were and what a difference it made to their experience at University, and careers. Stories are being released each month, with help from our Student led Newspaper; The Hullfire. These are also being shared by our marketing team and added to the monthly University of Hull alumni bulletin so we reach everyone that would love to hear these fascinating accounts. To read our first alumni instalment visit the Student Media website here.
These stories are going to help use create the timeline of HUSSO’s history, and along with support from two research students who are very eager to get their hands on the HUSSO archives that lie within the History Centre, we are in talks of moving these over to our on campus library when we possibly can. These archives, along with the stories are helping us to piece together the 60 years of HUSSO history from its humble beginnings to today and hopefully we will be able to display this as a celebratory exhibit within the Student’s Union building! We are collaborating with the Students Futures team and hosting a Q&A volunteering careers event as part of this celebration! This will take place virtually on Wednesday 17th March from 2pm – pop a hold in your diaries for now and we’ll release more information and tickets soon via our website. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, we will be looking to host an in person celebration when restrictions may be lifted enough for us to get together with staff, students, and alumni to see our exhibit and celebrate the 60 years of amazing work our students, past and present, have done to help out the local communities!
I for one cannot wait to celebrate these achievements, and toast to another 60 years!
Ellis Leonard, President of Activities
