Make exercise more encouraged
Anonymous submitted on
Tuesday 15th January 2019
Complete
As a student who has recently been diagnosed with diabetes, exercise is an extremely important part of my life. As a university, I think more effort should be made in making exercise cheaper and more accessible. The gym is a high cost, most sports societies are high cost and things like Zumba and yoga are at cost too. I think it would be beneficial to run cheap or free sessions for people who can’t afford to pay for the right to exercise.
Responses
Here, you can view the complete set of official responses from the sabbatical officers regarding this submission.
Students' Union replied on
Tuesday 28th May 2019 4:23pm
Hi Anonymous,
Thank you for your submission and for highlighting an important issue with which I am in full agreement. Making sports accessible is one of the key aspects of my role and together with the staff and students at SUSU and Sport and Wellbeing we are always looking at ways to do this.
SUSU allocates £200,000 a year towards sports clubs in grants which are intended to help with the running costs of these clubs and make them more financially accessible to students. Although it isn't always the case, many of our affiliated clubs actually have very low fees such as Zumba+ society which offers lessons at £3 each for members (£10 a year), or £5 for non-members. Zumba+ Society is also a good example of a sports club that uses SUSU spaces, so doesn't require Sport and Wellbeing membership to join. I would recommend looking into the variety of clubs on offer at susu.org/sports/.
SUSU have been working alongside Sport and Wellbeing on ways to make sport more accessible, and at the start of the year S&W agreed to add more value to the Sports Pass membership option as well as giving a commitment to allow students to split up the payment of annual membership as soon as their IT systems allow. We posted a blog update about this in 2018: blogs.susu.org/blog/2018/07/27/sport-and-wellbeing-memberships-an-update/
Additionally, over the exam season both SUSU and Sport and Wellbeing have offered free fitness sessions to students. SUSU have a range of equipment and activities available on a regular basis, and S&W have made their fitness classes free for all students during this time. More info can be found here: facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2396667333991942&set=a.1524987927826558&type=3&theater. Although SUSU's sessions are only in place for summer for now, free sport is a key part of the work that my successor, Olivia, plans to carry out and I have already identified budget available to support this in the next financial year so hopefully free sport will be on offer from SUSU permanently from next academic year.
Hopefully that helps explain the current situation, and as always feel free to get in touch with me for more information!
Best wishes,
Steve Gore, VP Sports
Actions
Forwarded to Sports Development
Friday 18th Jan 2019 1:09pm
Comments
Let's keep this space positive and respectful! Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions, but please remember to keep the conversation friendly and avoid any offensive comments.