Club Spotlight: The 93% Club nottingham

As many of you know, The 93% Club’s reach spreads far across the UK, with over 50 clubs representing our #StateSchoolProud message.

To recognize the incredible work of our clubs and the people behind their efforts, we’ll be featuring some of the clubs in our showcase series.

Our next club in focus is The 93% Club Nottingham, which represents the student community of the University of Nottingham. I sat down with Ben Beresford (He/Him) the club’s president to discuss their experiences as committee members of the club, and individual experiences as huge advocates for social mobility.

I ASKED BEN TO INTRODUCE HIMSELF AND GIVE ME A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE 93% CLUB NOTTINGHAM.

The 93% Club Nottingham was founded in 2020, a year which many students deem as a ‘Covid year’ of university, with most students' experiences being impacted by restrictions from the Covid-19 pandemic. Ben explained to me how he was one of these students whose university experience was limited by the effects of online university. At the time, The 93% Club was able to provide a social outlet and a way to connect with like-minded people, something which became increasingly harder when students were limited to building connections online.

After being part of the society since its introduction, Ben explained that he decided to run through society president in his fourth year. He felt that prior experiences with the club had helped him build the knowledge and expertise to help lead Nottingham’s branch for the 2023/24 academic year.

Ben and the team’s vision for The 93% Club Nottingham was to remain focused on the The 93% Club’s core mission statement, but also vary the offerings given to students. With a selection of not only social events which provide state-educated students with a safe space to interact with their state-educated peers such as quiz nights and meals out, but also events which focus on the development of students both academically and professionally, with a core idea of wanting to help upskill members.

These events are displayed all across the branch's social channels, where the committee can be seen taking a very hands-on approach to assisting and interacting with their approximately 150 student members.

The club endeavours to provide a very personalised experience to its club members, with opportunities provided to help meet the needs of every member who signs up for the club. Ben described how he hopes to diversify The 93% Club Nottingham from other branches nationwide, with individual and personal guidance to club members found through events such as CV clinics and other forms of developmental workshops.

This reach extends not only to the students of the University of Nottingham but also to state schools around the local area, arranged and championed by the team's outreach officer, Paige Daniels (She/Her).

This outreach venture has seen the club’s committee give assemblies to current Year 11 students who were applying to universities, introducing The 93% Club to them and also providing insight into the application process.

In addition to assemblies, the committee also have provided some specific sessions relating to the application process for studying in both medicine and law, courses which often require application examinations. As there were volunteer members who had studied both subjects, they were able to discuss how they found these examinations and their own experiences with studying these courses.

This goal of outreach was another important aspect of how Ben and his team ran the club and seemed to be something he was proud to have completed. This, supplemented by a variety of other events run by the club which we discussed later, really represented just how hard the team at Nottingham were working.

I ASKED BEN TO TALK TO ME ABOUT THE EXPERIENCES THAT HE HAS HAD WITH HIS FELLOW COMMITTEE MEMBERS WHO MADE UP THE 93% CLUB NOTTINGHAM.

The 93% Club Nottingham’s committee is currently made up of Ben as the president, supported by a treasurer, events officer, careers office, publicity officer, outreach officer, welfare officer, general secretary, external relations officer and two first-year representatives.

Ben described the team as a close-knit team, with every member giving their all to providing some great tangible results for the society.

Ben told me that even the first time that the committee came together for Nottingham’s freshers fair, they were able to work together effortlessly, bringing an initiative strategy alive for the fair to grab student attention.

This idea was a stall-based raffle, with the prizes consisting of some important household items (soap, pots, pans etc.), which had become essential during the current cost of living crisis, which proved to be an initiative which drew people to their stalls and the club had a significant amount of signups as a result.

WE THEN DISCUSSED WHAT INSPIRED BEN TO GET INVOLVED WITH THE 93% CLUB IN THE FIRST PLACE.

In our conversation, Ben addressed the fact that he was first introduced to The 93% Club through a national online event in collaboration with the law firm ‘Pinsent Masons’, which covered the topic of practising law in the North of England.

As someone who had considered the option of perhaps working regionally in the future, this more catered approach to addressing the careers market across different parts of the nation resonated with him. It may have also driven his more personalised approach to leadership for The 93% Club Nottingham, and catering for all of his student member’s needs.

After attending this event, Ben decided to sign up for the (at the time) newly founded branch of The 93% Club in Nottingham and stayed regularly up to date with what was happening in the branch throughout his time at university before becoming the society’s president upon returning from his year abroad.

Ben decided to take this role after seeing how well the society had grown in Nottingham and wanting to be part of helping facilitate this growth even further throughout his fourth year.

WE WANT TO SHOWCASE CLUBS THAT HAVE GONE ABOVE AND BEYOND IN THEIR COMMITMENT TO SUPPORTING STATE-EDUCATED STUDENTS. I ASKED BEN HOW HE THOUGHT THE 93% CLUB NOTTINGHAM HAD ACHIEVED THIS.

In addition to the outreach project as mentioned above, there were plenty of events being held by this branch of the club to discuss. The team at Nottingham has remained committed to varying the types of offerings they provide this year, with their events often blending both the fun aspect of socials, with the hugely important career development and networking. This was best exemplified in the society’s Christmas social, organised by events officer Scarlett Lane (She/Her) and general secretary Rhyanna Williams (She/Her), which provided a chance to not only have a Christmas dinner but also an environment of networking and building connections.

One of the pillar events ran this year by the team at Nottingham was a CV masterclass workshop, where the whole committee got involved and helped formulate a hugely beneficial event for society members.

Ben described that the team made a real effort to carry out one-on-one CV reviews during this masterclass, with the committee members training themselves to be able to facilitate specific CV-related feedback for any members who wanted to attend.

To get involved, all that the student members needed to do was to bring it a copy of their CV, and after attending the workshop, they could pass this CV on to the committee for them to review and provide some tangible feedback within the next two weeks. In total, the committee reviewed and analysed over fifteen CVs, with the students being delighted with being provided such thorough support.

The team at Nottingham was then able to successfully follow up this CV masterclass workshop with a recent mock interview session, where committee members were able to conduct mock interviews, one-on-one, with student members. This once again exemplified the committee'’s ethos of all getting involved to provide a truly worthwhile experience and helping provide some great tailored feedback for those who choose to attend.

These endeavours allowed the committee to meet their specific goal of providing a more personalised approach to running the club, helping provide students with invaluable insight as to how to improve both their CV and interview skills.

Ben described a mentality throughout Nottingham’s committee of truly wanting to upskill its next generation of members, helping them elevate the way they approach interviews, applications and networking.

Another supplementary session provided by the team over at Nottingham was a personalised professional headshot session, as a way of not only improving students’ applications but also helping boost their LinkedIn presence.

The team was also proud of a collaborative venture with Nottingham’s Trading and Investment Society, and its Maths Society. This event was an application event covering routes to get into a finance position. This was pulled together by the team’s careers officer, Ceyhan Balioglu (He/Him).

I THEN ASKED BEN WHAT WE CAN SEE NEXT FROM THE TEAM AT THE 93% CLUB NOTTINGHAM.

After seeing success in the more tailored approach of running events, Ben and the team at Nottingham hope to continue to provide some more tailored sessions to encourage engagement with student members.

Their recent interview workshop was planned as part of an ‘Assessment Centre Series’ of events, helping students get ready for applying for graduate schemes, mock essays and interviews. The society's upcoming schedule continues to be themed around this idea of upskilling students for their application process.

These sessions had been carefully handpicked by the team to try and line up with the application cycle. This meant that the first university term (before Christmas) was more application-based to align with the initial application steps, with this term being more about the hiring process, lining up with the average application deadlines.

This aligned events calendar was something which seemed unique to the team at Nottingham, and once again supported their overall goal of tailoring what they did directly with the practical needs of their students, providing a truly beneficial impact for their members.

FINALLY, I ASKED BEN WHY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM SHOULD GET INVOLVED WITH THIS BRANCH OF THE 93% CLUB.

Ben and the rest of the team at The 93% Club Nottingham seemed truly passionate about what they did.

They believed that the students of the University of Nottingham should get involved with The 93% Club Nottingham as their team is truly passionate about getting students into top professional roles and attaining those top professional opportunities, and they feel that students attending their session can truly benefit and be inspired.

Something that Ben seemed extremely passionate about was getting state-educated students represented in professional space. This is something echoed by myself and the rest of the national team, but also by many of our incredible student leaders across the United Kingdom.

Another brilliant aspect of the team over at Nottingham is how willing they all are to get involved as much as they can, to help make their intended personal experience a reality, with the committee’s mindset being that they want to make sure that getting involved with the club is worthwhile.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Ben Beresford and the team at The 93% Club Nottingham for taking the time to shine a spotlight on their branch of The 93% Club network!

I am also looking forward to the next club spotlight which will be coming your way in the coming weeks, with the end goal to spotlight the individual efforts being made by our incredible student volunteers across the United Kingdom.