It is safe to say that the UEA Student Union has been the subject of many controversies over the years, particularly in recent months. With many of their actions coming under fire, the positives rarely outweigh the negatives. However, Activities and Opportunities Officer, Olivia Hunt is one of the few unproblematic officers taking charge in the Union. Elected into her role in March, Hunt has been a positive force for change and a key representative in creating stability amongst sport clubs and societies. 

Aiming to fulfill her manifesto by the end of the academic year, Hunt has made a name for herself across campus and was a pivotal figure in handling the ‘Sportspark Incident’ in October. Upon the unexpected passing of a UEA student, Hunt was keen to handle the situation as delicately as possible. “I reached out to my FTO team and then directly to my CEO to say ‘we don’t know who it is yet- if it’s a student we need to make sure we’re ready to go tomorrow with some sort of protocols,” Hunt says of her first call of action, unaware of what protocols were in place for the circumstances.  

After news broke from the press that the fatality was a student, Hunt explains that she told Jumara Stone, CEO of the SU that she wanted to be involved, believing that she could “deliver very quickly what’s the right protocol”. As part of the protocol, the student’s name was ran through MSL: “at that point we could see that he was part of multiple clubs and societies.” Hunt describes the student as a “BNOC” which only encouraged her to “take the lead” of the incident more.  

Working with the FTO’s, the team produced a statement released on Instagram that was later taken down the following morning. “Whilst we got confirmation that we could use his name, it didn’t extend to social media,” Hunt clears the air by adding “we didn’t know this at the time.” As a result, Hunt faced the wrath of many whilst “managing people’s grief and trying to get an outcome to a situation where we were completely in the dark over what we were doing.” 

Despite the circumstances, Hunt isn’t eager to blame others. Instead, she effortlessly finds the silver-lining. “It’s been really lovely to see how the community have come together in all of this… Seeing people do the fundraising- the amount of money they have raised is phenomenal.” Hunt’s sense of pride cannot be disguised when community is to be discussed. “We really just want to come together for this”, she says. As an evident team player, it seems that Hunt’s strong suit has become a predominant part of the grieving process for many across campus.  

When she’s not helping campus grieve, Hunt is busy ticking off each of her manifesto 

pledges. Having already achieved most of them, Hunt discusses her aim for financial transparency. With previous Activities and Opportunities Officer’s making a start on this project, none had ever fulfilled the pledge, often making mistakes with Hunt describing it as “never perfect”. After creating a table on every Sports website, students are now able to break down the costs of joining a club. The ‘Real Cost of Sport’ initiative displays how much students will pay in the Autumn and Spring semesters alongside overall costs that are broken down into how much they would cost a student per week.  

“I think people need to know, for example Cheerleading, that I’m going to pay my uniform upfront and I’m going to pay my comp fees in January so that I can budget better.” Hunt’s initiative comes at a time where students need it most. With the cost of living crisis affecting more students by the day, unexpected costs leave students with less accessibility to join clubs. Bringing a sense of financial transparency to sport not only allows for better financial responsibility amongst students, but also makes sport on campus inclusive.  

It appears that inclusivity is what Hunt strives for. As part of her manifesto, the aim for scholarship fairness was imperative. Having “agreed with Sport that the A&O will sit on the scholarship     panel”, this is a change that will see “more consideration” for other sports. 

Previous scholarships were made for the “conventional” sports such as netball, football and rugby, without a thought for other sports. Hunt saw this as an opportunity to break the cycle, providing a wider range of 

options for scholarships. Positive in her vision, she was able to “push for a dance scholar”. With the person being offered a scholarship, Hunt says “it’s nice to know that in the future there is a student representative in that space that can advocate for the other.”  

Hunt’s ‘Sport for the Mind’ initiative was created when she “recognised that there was a gap of looking after committee members specifically”. With many students suffering from conflict in their committees, which is often expressed on ‘Concrete Confessions’ or to the SU, Hunt found that many students “don’t know how to deal with it”. Feeling that students didn’t know where to go nor get support from, ‘Sport for the Mind’ will provide team placements for those struggling, enabling students to meet with others in similar situations. Acting as a “support group”, Hunt describes it as a way of “knowing the right way to signpost people.” The initiative aims to produces a flow chart that assists in pointing students in the right direction with the best approach to deal with the situation, no matter the circumstances. 

It’s expected that this will help as the SU look at a potential rebrand of the Welfare Officer role. “The welfare role is seen as a therapy person and that’s not what it should be.” With the role set as a way of signposting people, the reality is evidently different. With Welfare officers lacking the appropriate training and experience to deal with extremely pressing matters, Hunt has been privy to complaints from Welfare officers “being phoned at 10 o’clock at night and ‘trauma-dumped’.” 

With a palpable concern for her colleagues, she brands the situation as “not fair”. Clear boundaries need to be set for the role, in which communication with students is key. If anything, this tells us that the wellbeing services across campus are insufficient, lacking the support that students truly need.  

Bringing the spotlight to students, Hunt is working on the development of TV screen promotion. As a collaboration between clubs and societies, Hunt’s marketing concept focuses on “recognition”, gathering footage and clips from the collective and displaying them across campus. Hunt wants students to “feel a sense of importance because at the end of the day, university is about students and I think that a lot of the time it’s quite commercial”. With full accessibility to the screens, the Hive will the main place showcasing the extra-curricular activities that UEA has to offer. However, in building a closer relationship between the SU and UEA Sport, Hunt is looking to bring the spotlight into the Sportspark too.  

In line with Hunt’s media promotion, the SU is about to begin a partnership with the live streaming service ‘Joymo’. As a project that’s been in the works for quite some time, Hunt has been brought in to seal the deal on a service that is guaranteed popularity on campus. Starting by live streaming inside court games, students and parents will be able to stream campus matches via the app. “It’s not just for you to watch your friends,” Hunt says “but it’s also for you as an athlete to go back and watch your own performance.”  

If the SU can take one positive from providing a live streaming service for students, it’s the fact that next year’s Derby Day will be an even more exciting experience. Having already had her first Derby Day meeting, Hunt is “really keen to change Derby Day”. Wanting to make the day more of a “community”, it’s clear that Hunt wants to rival Essex not just in sport, but rather atmosphere. Looking for a “sport festival-type vibe”, the change would see “people giving out free stuff and pop-up food vans”. Claiming rightfully so that “everyone loves a freebie”, Hunt’s agenda is clear: UEA needs more than the expectation of winning. “It’s no secret that UEA win and we are a stronger sporting side, but I think that the concern is how this effects Essex and their involvement in Derby Day.”  

Currently, UEA have won Derby Day for ten consecutive years in a row. As a result, our relationship with Essex ceases to exist, which is something Hunt wants to repair proposing the idea that UEA and Essex “scrap the overall winner and change it to be winners of your sport.” In a hope of taking away the “Essex lose, Essex lose” atmosphere, the concept would “create the perfect party celebration of people coming together for sport.” With the idea being supported heavily, it is now in the hands of Essex as they contemplate the potential change.  

However, with this year’s point scoring system sparking controversy amongst clubs, Hunt claims that “from a student perspective” it was “harsh” to value clubs in a hierarchy of points, adding: “I don’t think it was the correct way for students to feel about their sport.” Although the argument remains that the original scoring would see UEA take a simple victory from Essex, Hunt believes that the focus should be “how can we make this a better atmosphere, a better community, with people coming together to just genuinely enjoy it?” 

In spite of the continuous feeling that the SU lacks any care for what students want, Olivia Hunt is the epitome of what students of UEA need in a Student Union. Amongst all of the points she is working hard to fulfil to students, her biggest project of all is being “reactive to what people actually want.” Hunt makes it very clear in our conversation that she “can very much shape and change priorities. Through the changes and impact she has already made in her time as Activities and Opportunities Officer, she is a student political figure that carries out on their promises. If I wasn’t certain before, I am by the end of our conversation when she proves in so many words why she was made for this role: “At the end of the day I’m elected into this role to represent students and that’s what this should be. It shouldn’t be about me, it should be about everyone else.”