As part of the changes we've been working on throughout the summer, we are investing in new resources and systems to work towards improving our communication with student leaders and overall response times.

We are happy to announce that we have recently launched a new software for our student groups called Freshdesk!

This software operates very similarly to the University's ServiceDesk, and will serve as the sole communication hub for our student groups, as well as the knowledge base. With the introduction of this software, we are also implementing a new email address; to contact us via email, please now use studentgroups@roehamptonsu.com 

Freshdesk allows student leaders to have all the information on how to run their groups, as well as a way to communicate with us, in one place. Here are some other great things you can do through Freshdesk:

• Forums: Allows you to share your ideas and questions with our team as well as other student leaders. Sometimes your own experience proves to be the best answer, and with forums, you can now help answer other leaders' questions!
• Knowledge Base: Similar to our old Committee Hub, you can find step-by-step guides on our processes as well as tips on how to run your student group.
• Tickets: Communications through Freshdesk is ticket-based. This allows us to categorise your queries and supports our team in responding more effectively. This also allows you to re-visit old tickets, as well as keep track of your queries more efficiently.

Another exciting thing we've recently implemented is a new training format that ensures the initial preparation of our leaders is more complete than ever before! Part of this includes a new Student Group Form which puts all of our different processes in one single place, saving our leaders the stress of finding and submitting several different forms.

We've also implemented a brand-new risk assessment training, which aims to support our student leaders' learning on this process and make this step of their induction easier to understand and follow. This new training also comes with a new risk assessment template, which was improved based on feedback we've received from previous student group leaders, as well as our own experience reviewing these documents. Our leaders can now expect a more accessible form that helps them ensure their events are as safe as possible. Finally, we've added a new events checklist to our Risk Assessment knowledge page; this checklist aims to help our leaders identify things that could go wrong throughout their activities or things they need to prepare for ahead of their events, making the process of writing their risk assessments an easier task!

We hope these changes help make your experience as a student leader more enjoyable. We cannot wait to see what our Groups come up with this year!