Women's Collective

The Women's Collective seeks to spread LUU values - inclusive, empowering and fun - by engaging and promoting the voice of LUU staff who identify as women. 

NETWORK SUPPORT 

Co-Leader

Emily Noble (She/Her), Student Opportunities Project Lead, Student Activities

Co-Leader

Katie Fox (They/She), HR Officer (Learning & Development), People Team

SLT Ally

Jessica Garnham (She/Her), Director of Communications

Want to join the Network?

Women's Wrap-Up

Every other week, a newsletter is sent out to Network members. This newsletter shares any updates, events or recommendations. Sometimes, these newsletters are themed on awareness days, such as Palentine's Day, International Women's Day and SLT Takeover.

In this biweekly newsletter, we look at:

Click here to have a read- 29 November

What We Do

Safe Space

Our Safe Spaces are a welcoming and inclusive space for members to come along and chat about certain subjects that affect all those who identify as women. In the past we have talked about menstrual cycles, harassment and the gender pay gap. We are always open to suggestions for topics. In these sessions we tend to use grounding exercises and meditation at the end to ensure that no one is leaving feeling stressed or upset by what has been discussed. 

Book Club

Every other month we meet to discuss the Book Club choice which leaves plenty of time for all kinds of readers! We are always open to suggestions from anyone across the organisation as our Book Club is open to all Women’s collective members and ally’s so anyone can come along! In the past we have read Olive by Emma Gannon, His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie and most recently Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. We will next be meeting in November to discuss How the Pill Changes Everything: Your Brain on Birth Control by Sarah E Hill, Nan McNamara, et al. so get yourself a copy and come along to share your thoughts! 

Arts and Crafts

Our Arts and Crafts sessions are our most popular to members! We recently made Origami birds and penguins, and plan to make pompom earrings next! We are always open to volunteers who want to teach our members anything crafty so please do let us know if you’d like to run a session! 

Network Talks

These talks are a great way for our members to listen to and chat to empowering and inspiring women. For International Women’s Day we ran a Q&A about Women in Leadership whereby some of our female SLT members of staff talked about their career path and how they got into their roles. They also discussed challenges they had faced as women and answered some brilliant questions from our members. We have plans for more talks from other inspiring women coming up, we also usually offer free cakes and biscuits at our talks so don’t miss out on this! 

Member's Meeting

Our members' meetings offer a way for all members to meet with the co-leaders and SLT ally of the Women’s Collective to discuss how they think the Collective is doing and what else they would like to see from the network to improve. We tend to run these meetings in a hybrid style and share a padlet with different discussion pointers beforehand. So, if you are unable to attend the meeting you can still leave feedback on the padlet. Our network would be nothing without our members so we are always keen to hear ideas for improvements! 

Network Socials

The Fun bit! The whole point of our staff networks is for members to meet colleagues from other teams and our network socials are a great way to do this. These socials tend to be open to anyone in any network or even just staff who are interested in joining a network. We have taken a lunchtime trip down to Leeds Art Gallery, we've gone to Leeds Grand Theatre to watch Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, and we are currently working with the other Staff Networks to plan a Winter Social.

Network Calendar

Take a look to see what the Network has planned for this month! To see the calendar for the year, click here.

Recommendations

We have had so many recommendations shared with us that we thought it would be rude not to share! Have a look to see what the Network's current recommendations are.  

We will be updating this bi-monthly so please send in your recommendations! All recent recommendations will be shared in our newsletter.

Women's Collective Playlist

With everyone's Empowering songs (head over to Share Your Thoughts to see them), and with music recommendations in the past, we have gathered them all together to create a new, shiny playlist!

Click here to give it a listen!

Frances Ha (2012)

Directed by Noah Baumbach, starring Greta Gerwig.

“I saw this film at Belgrave as part of a Greta Gerwig festival. In my opinion there hasn't been a film that has so accurately portrayed being a woman in her 20s other than this one. Dives into friendship, romance, and career anxieties faced by Frances, a free-wheeling creative spirit who is trying to stay afloat and stick to her guns whilst everyone else moves on around her. “

The Piece Hall, Halifax

The Piece Hall is nestled within a dramatic landscape of rolling hills and wooded valleys at the centre of the West Yorkshire town of Halifax. It is full of a number of independent stores and yummy places to eat and you should definitely give it a go in these lovely summer months when it has longer opening hours of 9am-11pm. 

You can find out more information on this here. 

Tūmau Pea - Olivia Foa'i

​​Olivia Foa’i is a singer, songwriter and dancer who has had a lifelong career of championing her Pacific Island roots- having been part of the Polynesian band,Te Vaka, singing the opening song "Tulou Tagaloa" for Disney's Moana and being featured in the film’s soundtrack, and writing the Tokelauan theme song, "Mai Anamua", for the award winning documentary "Pacific Mother".

Releasing Tūmau Pea in 2023, she explores both her modern and Pacific Island influences:

“For me this album has been a search for meaning and meaningful things that last. In a world where much is fast and temporary, I found inspiration in the long term, the patient, the wholesome, the fulfilling” - Olivia Foa’i

To give it a listen, click here. 

Young Woman and the Sea

Based on the extraordinary true story of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel, Daisy Ridley stars as the accomplished swimmer who was born to immigrant parents in New York City in 1905. Through the steadfast support of her older sister and supportive trainers, she overcame adversity and the animosity of a patriarchal society to rise through the ranks of the Olympic swimming team and complete the staggering achievement – a 21-mile trek from France to England.

Have a recommendation you would like to share, or a song to add to the playlist? Click here to fill in a quick form.

Want to see past recommendations? Click here to head over to the archive.