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

SLT Ally

Rori Raquib (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- 6 December

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 January to discuss Educated by Tara Westover 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 are planning an evening trip to Left Bank soon and at Christmas we ran a brilliant social with free Pizza in the Winter Tent which was a lot of fun with various games and lots of chatting between colleagues. 

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.

Pocast- 28 Dates Later by Grace Cambell

In Grace Campbell’s 28 Days Later, Grace is running her own experiment to change the narrative around modern dating and how we find love. Across 28 dates in 2 months comedian Grace is only picking people who are the total opposite of her type. Each date is miced up and then Grace sits with her two best friends to chat about them afterwards. From foot fetishes and sugar daddies to polyamorists and players, this is dating with a difference! 

This one is hilarious and you can give it a listen on Spotify or Apple to find out if Grace finds that special someone.

Activity- Left Bank Yoga & Brunch

On Sunday 15 October at 9am, Yoga Instructor Bryony May is running a Yoga & Brunch - where you are invited to flow into your Sunday with an energising Vinyasa sequence and vegan brunch (made by Frawl) held in the breathtaking setting of Left Bank Leeds. All levels of yoga practices are welcome!

To find out more, click here. 

Wellbeing- SOUL Wellness Hub

SOUL Wellness Hub is a space where holistic well-being, healing, and vibrant community living seamlessly blend. From transformative workshops to soothing sauna sessions, deliciously nutritious meals, and a vibrant community of like-hearted souls, SOUL Wellness Hub has something to entice everyone of all inclinations. 

Big thank you to Alison Anthony for the recommendation!

Click here to head over to their website and find out more.

Shop- Roller Girl Gang

Roller Girl Gang is not only a shop, but they also run different sessions where you can learn the very basics of roller skating through to different dance moves and skating around town. They also run Friday Night Socials and Roller Discos where you can come along to skate with friends or meet new people!

"​We are on a mission to make roller skating as accessible as possible so more people can experience the benefits of roller skating - a feeling of connection, increased confidence, increased physical activity and mental wellbeing, to name a few.  Roller Girl Gang have had the privilege of seeing thousands of folks start their roller skate journey and go on to live more fulfilled lives."

Click here to head to their website and find out more.

Women's Collective Playlist

Big shout out to Alison Anthony for this suggestion! 

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!

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.