Chair

Lucy Smith

Nottingham

Hi everyone! I’m Lucy a member of SNoGS (Nottingham SSAGO), a current student at Nottingham, and I have been your national SSAGO publicity officer for the last two years (you may find me wandering around events filming TikTok’s). In the past I served as SNoGS secretary in 2023-2024, publicity officer for TPR 2025, and publicity officer and secretary for Goose Ball 2025.

SSAGO is a massive part of my university life, not just because of the events, although like many of us, I also measure time in rallies. But what has kept me engaged in SSAGO is the community; SSAGO is a place where I feel at home.

Why chair?

I’ve love my role as national publicity officer, but something else I love is being part of Team Pink, and working so closely with such a great group of people. I like to think I have done well over my two terms; I feel I have grown as a person and now feel ready to step up to the role of chair. Having been on Team Pink for two years, I know I understand what the role of chair demands. From the time commitment, dedication, the difficult conversations, but also the fun you get to have while on Pink! I know it isn’t an easy role, I have seen all sides of it in the last two years, but I am more than open to the challenge.

 

Working with Pink

As chair I would love to work with incoming Pink to:

• Hold onto what’s working from the last two years, and develop new strategies for working as a team where needed, as with new committees, new dynamics form.
• Ensure responsibilities are clear and manageable at the start of the year to make sure we can start the year as we mean to go on.
• Provide support around their roles, not just at the start of their term, but through their whole year on Pink. Handovers from past exec are great, but I know I still had questions after 10 months in my role!
• And to maintain a high level of communication between the whole team, and encourage helping each other out in their roles when personal lives get busy.

As chair I am also keen to spread the message that being on Pink is a positive and rewarding experience. There’s a lot of negative stigma around being on Team Pink, but it really is enjoyable; you learn so much and have the opportunity to work with so many great people, to get SSAGO where the membership wants it to be.

 

Being chair and working with events

National and local events are such an important part of SSAGO, and I am very passionate about them (you won’t find me skipping a rally)! Support for events can come from our Events Officer, from wider Team Pink, but also from committees of past events. In my term as chair I am keen to support events through the following:

• Work with Events officer to ensure clearer expectations and timelines for events.

• Making it easier for committees to feel like they can access support from Pink.
• Reinforcing the idea that you can run a great event without sacrificing your wellbeing.

During my time as publicity, I put together publicity guides for rally and ball committees, if they were in need of support, I would love to work with others (Pink, past and present event committees) to put something similar together to. I’d like to hope that having these resources public will also allow clubs who are thinking about bidding for events have more of an idea of what they are getting involved in, and so they know what has worked in the past, and what hasn’t.

Communication

Communication in general, but specifically communication with SSAGO works best when members understand why decisions are made, and not just what the decisions are.

As Chair, I would aim to:

• Make communication clearer and more consistent with members, specifically reps so they can feed back to their clubs.
• Ensure important information is easily accessible.
• Encourage open and respectful discussions.

My time as coordinator for Nightline required clear and open communication with volunteers, and the SU when dealing with sensitive issues. This is something I plan to continue into my term as chair; transparency ensures trust.

 

Liaising with our partner organisations

SSAGO doesn’t exist in isolation. We have relationships with Scouting, Guiding, SAGGA, and other international student scouting/guiding organisations. I want to make sure these relationships are kept clear and strong, working closely with the Liaisons Officer to ensure this, as well as our international project lead. And despite the breadth of relationships we actively maintain, it is important to me that SSAGO remains student led. Working with the Charities Officer is also key during the next year to ensure we are registered as a charity as soon as we can be.

 

Cross-club communication

Being from a club in the Midlands region, we are lucky enough to have regional events, like freshers camps! From these positive experiences, I would love to work with regions who hold less frequent events to run more, from daytrips to weekend camps. Working with more experienced clubs in regions to support newer clubs is important too. I know one of my favourite aspects of SSAGO is all the new friends I have made and people I have met, and I would love others to have access to the same opportunities as frequently if attending national events is difficult for some clubs, as I know it can be.

 

MILS

As I often caption my personal Instagram posts where I share pictures post rally/ball, MILS (man I love SSAGO). I am not just passionate about keeping SSAGO running, I want to keep SSAGO thriving, so it can go on to bring as much enjoyment and opportunities to peoples university experiences as it has mine.

If elected, I will always strive to lead SSAGO with passion, enthusiasm, open communication, and with a willingness to learn.