Coming to the end of my first year in the SGO, my main takeaway is my new obsession: wigeons. But how did it get to this point?

At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this role. I had an interest in sustainability, but no idea how to translate this into a job. I came in with a love for sustainable shopping and thrifting and tried to convey this through one of my early blogs where I not so subtly explained why I hate labubus. I was then faced with the rather daunting reality that I had to write more blogs, and organise events, and make social media content, all whilst branching out from my labubu-hate related topics. My fellow SGO officers were my next source of inspiration on where to go from here in my environmental journey.

From my first induction session I’ve been nothing but supported by the girls I work with and encouraged to absolutely throw myself into this job. They have inspired me throughout the year, and I continue to admire their passion for what they care about, and where they want to see change not only in the university, but also in the world; I’m really going to miss them.

One of the first events I supported this year was a fundraiser for bat conservation, led by my fellow SGO Maddie. Once I got over the initial awkwardness of approaching people I didn’t know in Touchdown, trying to sell them bat badges and give them five different zines, I found that I really enjoyed the event, especially as it gave me an opportunity to connect with people and discuss environmental and conservationist topics. From this pop-up event, I decided that animal conservation was something that I wanted to explore more, and to get more students on campus to care about. In response to this, I wrote a blog about bulls, looking at all they ways in which they are mistreated, and what we need to do to overcome this. This was a humble start to getting more students to care about animal conservation, but I still wanted to do more.

A few months ago, in one of our team meetings, I was asked what I was working on. “I’m thinking about birds”. This was transcribed exactly in the meeting notes by my favourite manager Bethany and is not my proudest moment. I’m even more embarrassed to admit how long I was genuinely just loosely thinking about birds, trying to work out how to get people more aware of our local bird populations.

This thinking about birds became a list of birds, and eventually a bingo board of birds. Enter Giant Bird Bingo. My pride and joy, and also a self-imposed humiliation ritual in which I try to convince anyone within a mile radius of me to participate. This has resulted in me being spotted on campus and having ‘BIRD BINGO’ shouted at me, which was a new experience to say the least.

Through making and running Bird Bingo, I have learnt a lot about the local wildlife in the Kent area, and am now surprisingly good at bird watching, which definitely was not a skill I thought I would be developing until I was at least 45. But through interacting with so many students and staff who genuinely enjoyed participating in the activity, I also learnt lots about what works to get engagement with sustainable issues. I found that a lot of people knew many of the birds on the board, which was hugely reassuring in the sense that people actually do care about the wildlife within their area. It also helped to show me what birds were less known about, and where more could be done to promote conservation and information on our local wildlife.

So, I now care a lot about wigeons, having discovered them through my work for Bird Bingo and quickly becoming obsessed with them. In fact, making an infographic entirely about wigeons for our social media was the only thing keeping me sane in the middle of all of my deadlines. But it’s not just these ducks I’ve become passionate about this year. Being a part of the SGO has allowed me to develop sustainability within my interests and course skills, by running sustainable photography workshops, and exploring more environmentally friendly art practices that I can incorporate within my own work. I’ve made content on feminism within film and photography, and even tried handmaking paper with seeds in, because why not? Through the SGO, not only have I discovered new issues that I care about, but I’ve also been able to nourish my pre-existing interests and find ways to make my life greener.

Being part of the Student Green Office has been such a valuable experience for me. It has allowed me to develop my confidence massively and has given me a space to explore and research so many issues that I am interested in, and hopefully to make a change and begin fighting these problems. I plan to be back next year (hopefully with more bird related content), and I am so excited to return. I’ll see you soon!

By Emilia Hollingdale, SGO Projects Officer 2025-