LUU – Achievements

Retail

Our retail operations attract almost 1 million customers each year and are a major reason for students to visit the Union.  This year we have:

Developed and rebranded our convenience store to offer a range of local and speciality foods alongside a value offer, delivering an annual turnover of £2.5million.

Expanded and rebranded our University clothing unit Gear, to deliver a sales turnover of £250K this year. Gear is the sole supplier of University of Leeds branded merchandise.

Developed our new Salad Box concept offering fresh salads and baguettes in response to student feedback.

We have also developed our Hidden Café as a concept that can potentially be expanded across campus.

Bars

LUU’s bars offer a service throughout the day from coffees and breakfast through lunch and into the evening with a range of entertainments to suit our diversity of members. They generated over 0.5 million transactions last year generating an annual sales turnover of over £2 million.

The two bars offer a distinctly different offer; the Old Bar offering a more traditional pub atmosphere of sport and real ales whilst the Terrace offers a more café bar atmosphere for students to relax in. Both bars run a food offer which generates £0.5 million sales across both Bars.

Out of term, the Terrace hosts receptions for graduations, conferences held on campus and events for other external organisations.

Venues

LUU puts on a host of major events every year to ensure all our students have a great range of entertainment to choose from Fruity each Friday to our Summer Ball at the end of the year. Our 3 nightclubs generate sales of over £1.2 million annually.

Over 2,000 students attend Fruity every Friday during term time.

Almost 5,000 students attended our annual Summer Ball, held on campus.

We host 30 gigs each year from Tine Tempah to Frank Turner.

Our technical team also run an equipment hire business, generating over £30K annually in income.

Volunteering & Community

Each and every year we are blown away by the selflessness and dedication of our student volunteers, and this year was no exception. They give up their precious time for the benefit of others and the local community

• 3,064 student volunteers gave their time this year.
• 5,000 hours of volunteer time was pledged to Action. If paid the minimum wage, our volunteers would have earned nearly £25,000!

• 2,500 potential lifesavers were recruited to the stem cell register thanks to the 23 recruitment events run by Leeds Marrow – that’s a third of all-sign-ups amongst UK universities!

Employability

As an organisation dedicated to giving our members opportunities, we not only employed students to work with us, but through training gave them the tools to achieve great things after graduation.

• Our fantastic Joblink service just celebrated it’s 10th anniversary! This year, over 700 employers advertised through Joblink, and students received a total of £680,000 in pay from jobs found through the service.
• During the last decade, our job shop has grown to become the largest supplier of temporary staff for the University of Leeds.
• We’re immensely proud of our very own Steve Whiting, a key member of the Knowledge project, who was awarded the grand title of Student Employer of the Year by the National Association of Student Employment Services.

“I think students bring a lot to the table as employees. They want to use what they’re learning in education to change things for the better and make a difference”

Steve Whiting

Leadership & Representation

It’s through our elected Exec Officers and our reps on the ground that we continue to be recognised as the representative channel between students, the University of Leeds and any other external bodies.

• 1,000 student reps were supported to make changes in the Union, University and city of Leeds.
• School Reps, Course Reps and Departmental Societies made over 600 changes across all departments to make the University better for students. These included improved assessment and feedback, better employability and careers support, and better access to support for module selection.
• Out in the city, bus fares were reduced from campus to halls, and better home Internet provision was secured as a result of student action.
• 94% of students believe that arguments from students are effective in persuading the University to make change

Supporting Our Members

Each one of our 30,000 members is different – that’s why we love them. We strive to ensure our services, activities and events remain appropriate and accessible to all, and that support is there for everyone when they need it.

• 74,798 students visited our friendly Helpdesk, and our super Student Advice Centre supported 6,555 individuals.
• 3,000 students benefited from our “Relax” space during the gruelling exam periods.
• On behalf of our students, our advice centre gathered evidence against a rogue landlord that led to a successful prosecution. £37,000 was recovered in compensation.

Our People

By building a fun, high-performance culture, we’ve been able to achieve some truly amazing things this year. This is in no small part thanks to the unique people and personalities that make up our family.

• 3 million visits were made to our building to socialise, eat, vote and get support.
• It was another fantastic year for our hugely popular bars and clubs, with over 51,047 people attending our flagship club night Fruity.
• We opened a fancy new staff room as a thank you to all teams.
• The Sunday Times named the Union as one of their top 20 not-for-profit employers to work for.

Environmental Impact

As part of our strategic plan, we are striving to be sustainable in every way by monitoring and managing our environmental impact. This year we made significant changes to become greener than ever before.

• We reduced our steam use by 551,202kg – this saved is £16k on our heating bill, a 36% reduction from last year.
• We also reduced our electricity usage by 100,334kWh, saving us £6k on our electricity bill.
• We cut our carbon emissions by 11% from 2010/11.
• We fitted new energy efficient lighting and equipment.
• An online Green Guide was launched for our staff and members.

Read more about LUU’s impact