Students’ Union Sports Impact Report 2024

Union Officers
Introduction from Students' Union Officer Team As the Students’ Union, we believe that sports play a vital role in bringing students together as a community. Engaging in sports helps students develop transferable skills, improves their mental health, and keeps them active. This year has been remarkable in achieving these benefits. With the new structure of sport launching in 2024/25 due to the merger with St George’s, University of London, we are excited to expand these opportunities to even more students. We encourage everyone to stay active, embrace the spirit of teamwork, and enjoy the countless benefits that sports bring to our university life. Keep active and join us in making this year even more extraordinary!

 

A foreword from Susannah Quinsee I am delighted to see the progress that has been made with our sports provision at City over the past year and working in partnership with the Students’ Union (SU) has been a core part of this. Moving sport to the Students’ Union is part of our strategic commitment to place students at the heart of everything we do.

We recognise the positive contribution that participation in sport makes to ensuring students feel part of a university community. I’m really excited about the impressive growth in social sport activities that the SU has promoted to get more students active, as well as upholding our commitments to support students through the cost of living crisis with access to more free sessions. Preparing our students for the world of work is a central pillar of the University strategy and the increased opportunities for students to develop leadership roles and other skills through participation in sport aligns with our graduate attributes. Sport enables students to be active, healthy and build new connections which are a vital part of ensuring students succeed.

We’ve got a good foundation to build on this for the future and I look forward to our ongoing partnership with the SU to deliver opportunities for all students to thrive through a range of sporting activities.
Susannah Quinsee

 

 

 

Club Sport

Many of our sports teams compete in British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) leagues or the London Universities Sports Leagues (LUSL) and play against teams from other universities on either Wednesday afternoons or weekends. Club Sport is the competitive side of the union’s sport and physical activity offer for students.

Clubs

18 clubs in 23/24

Growing

26 sports teams in 22-23 and now 28 teams in 23-24, 32 teams in 24/25

Gender

53% male students. 42% female students

Status

59% Home students, 37% overseas

Overall Members

415 sports club members overall

Year of Study

1st Year (49.3%)
2nd Year (28%)
3rd Year (14.9%)

 

CityActive

CityActive is our non-competitive social sport programme. It is a great way to meet new friends from other courses , try new activities in a fun and friendly environment and get active!

Increase

In 2023/24 we delivered x2 more sessions per a week than in 2022/23.

Attendees

4202 individual students attended CityActive sessions across the year.

New Classes

Launched new classes including BoxFit, Pickleball, Women’s Only Dodgeball, Yoga, rounders

Cost of living

Delivered 36 free sessions across both terms
 (18 in Term 1, 18 in Term 2 and 5 in term 3)

Opportunities

Created employment opportunities for students through the recruitment of three student activators to facilitate CityActive sessions

Wellbeing

Delivered bespoke sessions to support student wellbeing and inclusion e.g. Yoga and Pride Spin

Individual Athletes 

The Students’ Union supported 17 individual student members spanning Taekwondo, Swimming, Athletics, Tennis, Fencing & much more with a total of 6 medals gained across these events (2 Gold, 2 Silver & 2 Bronze – all in Taekwondo)

Asma Deris

1st year Biochemical Engineering
Silver in C-Class women’s WT Kukkiwon Individual Patterns at Winter BUCS Championships
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Silver in C-Class women’s WT Kukkiwon Individual Patterns at Spring BUCS championships
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Gold in C-Class women’s WT individual Poomsae patterns International Championships hosted by BUTL
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Gold as part of the City- KCL inter-university team Poomsae International Championships hosted by BUTL


Jayavarshini Sankaran

AETA Open English Taekwondo Championships - competed for patterns and sparring UKTA UK Taekwondo Championship Bronze for patterns & bronze for sparring
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BUCS Taekwondo Competition (Autumn) - Bronze for sparring
Impact Team Patterns Competition 
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Gold for team patterns - ITF England National Championship (Official National Association for ITF TKD) - Silver for patterns, silver for sparring
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The Warrior Open 2024 - Silver for patterns -
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BUTL Taekwondo University World Championship - competed for patterns and sparring - Nominated


Laurence Libero

Gold in ITF sparring and a bronze in WT sparring at Winter BUCS Championships resulting in automatic qualification for the EUSA European Universities Games


Asma

Individual student testimonial

At City, Asma has recieved support to pursue her Taekwondo ambitions. The Students' Union, especially Julie Haggar, Sports Coordinator, have all provided a welcoming and supportive environment. The Union also took care of the costs for Asma's competition entries and travel. Asma shares, "I couldn't be more grateful."

Read Asma's Story

Club testimonial

Hockey players at City, University of London have teamed up to raise money for an important charity. This year, the team’s committee chose a charity that one of its co-captains had a personal connection to.

Read The Hockey Team's Story

City Hockey Club

Student Development

Number of students attending courses
Two students participated in HEVO courses and became sports activators for our CityActive Volleyball Sessions. Now, we’re aiming to place three of our current Captains in Coaching/Refereeing courses, specifically for Netball and Volleyball. Our goal is to provide more student opportunities and enhance skill development.

Number of captains first aid trained
24 students have been first aid trained across 13 clubs.

 

Campaigns

Odd Socks
We ran an Odd Socks Campaign on W/C Monday 13th November 2023 to spread kindness & celebrate what makes each person unique in line with Anti-Bullying week – eight clubs got involved with the campaign.

Rainbow Laces
“Lace up to Keep it up” is a campaign run by Stonewall from 25th November to 11th December to highlight continued support of LGBTQ+ inclusion in sport, fitness & physical activity – we managed to get eight clubs to once again support the campaign.

International Women’s Day
We celebrated this on 8th March to recognise all of our amazing women involved in sport with the Wolfpack ranging from referees to coaches to volunteers to staff etc. - we highlighted our student athletes on the day.
 

Varsity

Our annual Varsity series is our annual competition against Kingston University. City and Kingston battle it out across a two day sporting spectacle held at City Sport and Kingston University. City and Kingston went head-to-head in a number of different sports including Basketball, Table Tennis, Volleyball, American Football, Netball, Fencing, Rugby and much much more.

838 people attended VarCity across the two days – 422 people purchased a free ticket & 214 sports participants on Day One & 202 people attended Day Two.

Intramural
City Hindu Soc won the Intramural Societies Football tournament, we had five societies competing in this Anime Soc, HinduSoc, SkiSoc, Women’s Futsal & Tamil Soc & Kingston had seven societies.

City 15.5 to 5.5 Kingston
12.5 to 0.5 to City after Day One & 5-3 to Kingston on Day Two.

 

Varsity Replay

Where Next?

  • Student Development
    Providing coaching and refereeing opportunities for students to enable them to upskill and provide income opportunities for our own students rather than outsourcing
  • Growing CityActive programme
    We aim to build on the success of the CityActive programme by expanding the programme across City's multiple sites and in Tooting. The programme will aim to provide students more opportunities to build community and get active.
  • Social leagues
    We have listened to insight and feedback from students and plans are in place to hold a weekly intramural indoor football session for the 2024/25 season
  • City St George’s (St George’s Hospital)
    We are excited for the merger with St Georges’ university and hope that this will provide more sporting opportunities and active sessions for the wider student body

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