My name is Fran and I’m a second year American Studies student. For those of you long-term readers, you will recognise my name (and maybe my face) from last year’s SGO team and you’d be right! Because I loved my first year in the SGO so much, I am going into my second year as an SGO Projects Officer.

A little about me…I took two gap years between school and university – during which I worked lots and travelled lots; one was definitely more fun than the other! I spent three months solo travelling around the world during my gap years, exploring some of South East Asia, then heading to the Southern Hemisphere to visit Australia and New Zealand. The experience is unlike anything I had done before and it also taught me a lot about myself. I cannot recommend travelling enough, it certainly gives you a renewed perspective on life and made the adjustment to university easier because I’d already been away from my family and friends for an extended period of time. One of my biggest challenges is staying sustainable whilst travelling, so things like using shampoo bars and having a refillable water bottle with me are great ways of doing that. Given my love of travel and exploring, I wrote a few blog posts about sustainably travelling; one about actually sustainably travelling and the other about travelling without leaving the house which was the only option for a lot of people this summer.

Before joining the SGO my previous work experience was mainly working in retail and also working for a London-based events company which I helped run events nationwide. I have always enjoy engaging with people, so retail was a natural fit for me and my job in events was centred around participant engagement basically all people related. My intention last year was to use those skills to improve each event that I run, based on the experience of those who attend, and my goal is the same for the events that I run this year. I love working in and with the community, which for me looks like lots of volunteering, both in the UK and abroad. Chris (one of last year’s SGOers) wrote a post all about Volunteering and Sustainability, so go and have a read if you’re interested.

Last year in the SGO I was focusing on creating posts and publishing blogs that usually came under the umbrella of Acting Together (#actingtogether). Some of what I did was running a workshop teaching people how to upcycle a t-shirt into a bag and I ran the same workshop during the Eco-Students Societies Christmas event. In addition to some of posts linked above I also wrote a blog post series about Eco-Conscious Local Businesses including Lost Sheep Coffee and The Veg Box Café and another one titled ‘It’s not all on you’. Head to our blog to have a read of some of my work from last year!

This year I have decided to try something new and challenge myself with the title of Learning for the Future (#learningforthefuture). So, this year I will be more focused on embedding sustainability into the curriculum so you might see my face during lectures and I’m the person to talk to if you or your module co-ordinator is interested in incorporating some sustainability! Another aspect of Learning for the Future I am keen to shine some light on is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If you read my first introducing post, you will read that I wanted to make the SDGs more readily understood. As I said before the SDGs are a great framework for people who would like to make some changes as you can focus on one goal and start making that change. Given that, I will be creating content that aims to educate people on what the SDGs are, what they mean, the progress we are making on them and what you can do to help. If you’re interested in following the work that we do then check out our Instagram @cccusustainability, our Facebook CCCU Sustainability and our blog which can be found here