Another year, another festive season, and another birthday for Coole Insight!
18th December 2018 feels like a lifetime ago, so much as happened both personally and
professionally involving tears, disappointment, shock, jubilation, happiness, relief, more
tears, and lots of travelling amongst a gazillion other things… but above anything else it has
been a lot of hard work, collaboration, and a journey of rediscovering my why!
So here we are at the end of 2024, which has been the most eventful year of the lot, and in
the most positive of ways, here’s why:
26 Students’ Unions and IHE Student Organisations joined or continued with the
Student Officer Support Programme (SOSP) for 24/25, despite significant cuts to
their budgets – This was a real win as it maintained the same level of registrations
that we had in 23/24. This was a huge confidence boost as it showed that our clients
were willing to put value above cost.
Our interim capacity support offer has grown and helped to fill gaps in students’
unions which have been created through cost saving exercises. We have provided
CEO / Change Director level appointments alongside managerial and coordinator
level student voice capacity almost instantaneously to the SU’s that needed support.
Our partnership with Accreditate has taken off, and we are providing advice training
and capacity directly to students’ unions.
We agreed to support an ACUI scholarship, which involves an SU Professional from
the United States visiting university campuses in London in 2025.
We launched a Mental Health First Aid qualification specifically for students’ unions
and student facing staff roles.
In partnership with SU Professionals, launched a brand-new platform to support
talent management and recruitment in the student movement – The SU Showcase.
The icing on the cake was winning Established Business of the Year for the South
West which symbolises what has been a challenging, fulfilling, and rewarding journey
over the last six years.
Whilst it is important to shout about our success, I actually want to focus on the amazing
people that make the work we do at Coole Insight possible, including our wonderful client
base, some of whom have been with us since we set up in 2018. It is an absolute pleasure
and a privilege to now be in position to ‘give something back’ to the sector I was made in,
and I can’t wait award our new project grant of £2,000 to an SU Professional, or trip to ACUI
Region VIII Conference in 2025.
The SU Showcase is being built to help ALL of the talent in the sector to be seen more
easily, to help students’ unions save money on recruitment, and to help retain those who go
on to other careers to perhaps come back in the future as external trustees, so they can give
back too.
We will also continue to sponsor events and provide as much financial support as we can to
our SU colleagues across the UK, Ireland, the US, and anywhere else in the world that is
committed to developing students’ unions, and the people within them.
We are excited about the opportunities that 2025 will bring, and we look forward to doing
everything we can to get the right thing done by you, your organisation, and the wonderful
movement that is, and has always been central to trying to create a more just, fairer, and
more equitable world.
Have a wonderful break, and all of us at Coole Insight look forward to seeing you in the new
year!
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