This year’s candidates for Wellbeing and Sports Officer are Annie Henderson, Daisy Newton, El Andrade May, Fed de Feo, Haydn Geary, Nick Ellerton, and Usoshi Chakraborty.
We haven’t yet heard from Nick, Fed, or El, so stay tuned for updates on them. Get to know the others below.
Be sure to check online for candidates’ full manifestos, and keep an eye out for further coverage on other officer positions. Voting starts Monday 13th at 10am and closes Thursday 16th, and we’ll bring you the results on Friday night!
Firstly, what should we know about you? Is there anything you’re proud of, any experience you’ve had, or skills that might help you in this position?
Usoshi Chakraborty: “Before coming here for university, I was working as a freelancer in India as well as a software engineer there. I also have experience in the corporate world where I held a managerial position, so I have that experience of connecting with the clients.
“I was the table tennis champion in my school, but after that, I didn’t play it, but now I’m working at the Wednesday football club, and in India, people love cricket very much. So I mean, I always loved sports and that’s how perhaps I have become interested in running for the sports officer role, but the wellbeing aspect also makes me want to go for it. I want to help people improve their wellbeing.”
Haydn Geary: “I’m really proud of coming to university with no Dutch knowledge at all, and now being at an advanced level. Some of the other stuff that I’ve started whilst at university is pole dancing, I really enjoy that, although I’m not the best at it by any means!
“I’ve also enjoyed doing Taekwondo, which I did when I was a kid and started back up at uni. I’m proud of the fact that although we had the first two years that were really rough [because of COVID], I really threw myself into final year, even though I knew I would be busy with extra academic pressure, I tried to make the best out of what I had.
“I’ve experience this year being on Gospel Choir committee – I’m not one of the leaders there, but I have had to take some of the leadership roles at points. I’m passionate about getting stuff done and I’m really determined, so I think that definitely sets you up well for leadership stuff.”
Annie Henderson: “I’ve been part of Trampolining since day one, so I’ve done five years at Trampolining four of them on committee and three of them I’ve actually been club captain, which is a university record.
“In that time there have been a lot of challenges thrown at me: the first year I was club captain was COVID, so obviously I had to change how everything was done, then last year I was kind of recovering from COVID, and this year we’ve been able to develop as a club. We’ve just run a competition for 370 people and 15 unis and that was very successful and we ended up finishing third, which we’re very proud of.”
Daisy Newton: “I think my proudest moment has been becoming club captain of the hockey club this year, and the hockey club’s brought me so much over the past four years. It’s not only friends but support and relief in terms of just playing. We’ve got 250 members and for them to vote me was probably one of the proudest moments of my uni experience.
“My leadership definitely has improved, I can delegate tasks better and I work a lot more effectively. I think, before, I always had to take everything on my shoulders and be a bit of a control freak but now I’m definitely more willing to use other people for their skill sets and I’m aware that I can’t always do everything.
“I’m also comfortable with just speaking to people and communicating my ideas clearly, something that I definitely wasn’t as happy doing before. When I’m leading 250 girls I’ve got to be able to just shout and make them listen to me somehow, you know.”
Elaborate on your manifesto.
Usoshi: “I’m an Asian student, and I feel like the students in the same situation can feel that loneliness. I think that if the university can create more opportunities for us to create some teambuilding activities or something like that, people can get together and be connected with people of a similar mind, which will create much more inclusivity, I think.
“Wellbeing is a key feature everywhere nowadays – in the corporate sector, in companies, in their schools, colleges, universities, everywhere – and wellbeing of mind and health is much more important than anything else. Through sports and fitness, everybody can achieve that. I want to promote the sports facilities that are here more.”
Hadyn: “Part of my manifesto comes from not being able to do a lot for my first two years during COVID. I saw how much that sucked, and want to make sure it continues to get better for the next generation of students.
“My big thing is about making sports and mental health-care accessible for all. I’m campaigning to get more money from the university so sports clubs can reduce their prices. I know that it’s difficult for clubs to reduce them on their own, even though they would like to. On the mental health side, I want to make sure that people in crisis have a place to go because at the moment the services are really based on people who have long-standing problems, but if you’ve got something that goes wrong then you don’t have many places to turn to right away, and I want to change that. I think combining those two sides [competition and wellbeing] of sports is key.
“Someone who can represent the smaller, less competitive stuff is really important for Wellbeing and Sport. The bigger club stuff is really important for a lot of people, and black and gold pride and everything is great, but making sure that the smaller stuff doesn’t get forgotten is really important.”
Annie: “The take home message from our manifesto, I guess, is to make sport inclusive and accessible to everybody.
“There’s a few ways of doing this. One is that sports are really expensive at the moment, especially with the cost-of-living crisis, so, to cut costs [we can] increase the travel funding, decrease gym memberships for club sport members, and a car boot sale for clubs to sell off their old equipment and kit to new people coming in or current members.
“I feel like some sports communities can be a very tight bubble which is amazing when you’re inside, but once it’s shut after Freshers week it can be quite hard or intimidating to join in. I want to try and open up that bubble and have some give-it-a-go sessions or more social sports throughout the year. I want to make it more inclusive by reinstating the women’s sessions at the gym and by continuing the LGBTQ+ and trans swimming and gym sessions, as well as making a money pot exclusively for clubs to apply to to make their club more accessible. For example, in trampolining we’ve just got some money to get some steps up to our trampolines so that students with disabilities can access them, but we had to hunt high and low for that money.
“You can form friendship, bonds, everything through sport, so I wanted to have Wednesday afternoons off for all students. I also want to help streamline the SAMS service -at the moment people reach out, which can take quite a lot of courage and strength, but it could be up to ten weeks before they can talk to an actual person.
“I know that Ewan has been working really hard with Sport Sheffield and the SU and everyone to create a five year development plan. I’ve been involved as a student in that, and I will definitely try and keep my policies in line with that and develop it out so that we continue the change that he’s hoping for.”
Daisy: “The policy I’m most excited about is creating more spaces for sports networking – so within hockey we made a networking group this year with hockey clubs, the city council, and England hockey to try to help us tackle problems that we were facing together, and it’s been so beneficial.
“We’re starting to get volunteering sorted in schools and access to more coaches for our performance squads like it’s been so beneficial. I want to open that up to all sports clubs and make it available for them to form a networking group within Sheffield if they’d like. I also want to improve access to mental health resources, like, I’m sure we’ve all signed up to SAMS once and they’re just so over subscribed, it takes a couple weeks for them to reply and then there’s nothing for weeks. I want to make a portfolio of really easily accessible mental health resources for people who’ve suffered hate crimes, harassment, and that kind of thing so that people get the support they need.”
Why do you fit the role, and why should people vote for you?
Usoshi: “I want to promote our sports facilities, take care of students’ wellbeing, promote the group activities, team building activities, social events, and students’ cultural events so that people can come together and they can mix with each other and not feel alone. My slogan is: inquiring minds and creating healthy physical wellbeing. I would like to tell everybody that health is wealth, so pause to consider and promote your health, and everything else should come last. That’s a message from me to everybody.”
Haydn: “I think people should vote for me because there’s lots of people this year who are campaigning for sports and wellbeing in an inclusivity focused way, which I am too obviously, but I think I offer something unique. I focus on getting people involved in the local community and have experience of the smaller as well as the bigger side of sports, and I’m really passionate about making sure the mental health-care we have here is really available to everyone.”
Annie: “I’m an outgoing and friendly person so I feel like I’m an approachable person for people to come up to if they do have changes or problems within sports. Sports made such a big impact on my life at university. I had a really rubbish first semester and without trampolining and black and gold I probably would have dropped out.
“Those experiences in sport are something that I can lean on, and hopefully make true for all the students – make them want to stay, and feel like they belong here.”
Daisy: “I love how green the city is and how friendly everyone is. I just fell in love with Sheffield and couldn’t leave.
“I’m just really enthusiastic and passionate about this role. The things I said I want to do, I will make sure I do. I’ve chosen things that I think are realistic to do within the time frame, and I just want people to feel represented in this union, to have someone, an officer that they feel they can go and speak to without issues. I hope that I can be that person.”