#SPANC24 is just days away, and we’re so excited to welcome you to Bristol. Lots of people have spent time preparing our biggest national conference ever, including your current executive officers.

At our Annual General Meeting, you can elect your new leaders and question current ones. For further information about our AGM, click here.

So before the AGM, we’re sharing their reflections on the last year. That means you’ll know what executive officers have prioritised, where things have gone well, and where they would’ve done things differently in hindsight.

Read through, and come prepared to ask them questions at our AGM.

Matt Ward-Perkins, Chair

"As Chair I've focused on working with and empowering members of the Executive Committee and other officers to support their work. I'm proud of the work people across our officer team have done to deliver more events throughout the year than in previous years, helping to balance our activity beyond the National Conference.

Leading the team in preparation for SPANC has been challenging but incredibly rewarding, and I believe we effectively split responsibilities between our officers and trustees. As in previous years, we have found that maintaining engagement from the whole officer team is challenging, and I hope that the introduction of a Membership Officer role (if supported by this AGM) will help us better coordinate activities across our regions."

Ella Robinson, Training and Opportunities Officer

"I am most proud of directly supporting student papers this year, for example helping Redbrick’s funding campaign - it’s amazing to see the support people give to student journalism. As funding is an increasing issue facing student papers it would be amazing if you could fill in our survey here (you'll need to login with a Google account) so we can try and make student journalism more sustainable long-term. 

The most challenging aspect of the role this year has been not having time to do everything! I would recommend starting early next year - for example it would be brilliant to bring back the SPA mentor scheme which could be done in semester one before all the SPANC planning begins!"

Jess Walmsley, Conference and Events Officer

"As the events and conference officer I have spent the majority of my role looking at the logistics of both the national conference and regional events. This meant supporting our Regional officers reaching out to their publications and also facilitating our first in-person Irish event. This is probably my proudest achievement in the role as it meant networking with other editors in Dublin, putting together an event for 70 delegates and overall experiencing event planning in a completely new country! It was a pleasure to work with both Jack and Ella on this event.

One of the most challenging aspects of this role is working to multiple deadlines across many different aspects of the conference. You need to be organised, prepared and manage your time well. From speakers to decor, my role spans across various logistical challenges! I’d advise the next conference officer to have a dedicated SPA notebook and just embrace the tasks and make sure to choose the ones you know you’ll enjoy most! For example, I loved designing this year’s brochure."

Justine Noble, Communications Officer

"My year volunteering as the SPA’s Communications Officer has consisted of ups and downs. I’ve spent most of my time focusing on the SPA’s social media posts on Instagram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn because we did not manage to elect a Digital Media Officer this year.

I am most proud of these posts because of how our membership engagement with our social networks has skyrocketed. The most challenging aspect of this role has been keeping tabs on the tasks on which everyone else on the executive committee of the SPA is working for marketing and comms purposes. Next year I’d advise everyone send the comms officer a weekly message of what they need from them when it comes to marketing with all the information that needs to be included."