Over the summer we've rebuilt our website, reconfigured our building and rebranded the Union.
Over the past 18 months we've been on a huge journey as a Students' Union. We've totally redeveloped our democratic processes, introducing a new constitution in the process, we've launched our four year strategic plan that defines what we want to achieve by 2020 (and somehow avoided naming it 20:20 Vision) and we've undertaken a major face-lift of the Union.
New Site.
That's culminated in the launch of our new website, replacing the old and dysfunctional site with a clean, responsive and modern website that's easier for students to navigate and use.
SU President, Education & Campaigns, Natasha Barrett said of the change: "We've had plenty of feedback that the old site was feeling outdated and that it was difficult for people to find what they were looking for. I'm really excited about the change and can't wait for students to start using it on a daily basis."
Navigation of the site was a big issue, so we went ahead and fixed the broken and unusable one level menu systems and introduced side bars and breadcrumbs (yes, that's a Wikipedia link) to make it that bit easier to find what you're looking for, be it a sports club membership or the names of our trustees.
Another major change is the introduction of a system eloquently titled 'Single Sign On' which affects the way students log in to the website. No longer do you have separate accounts for the College and SU, instead it is now all powered through one system allowing you to seamlessly move between Campus Connect and our website.
The major advantage of this is that it allows us to ensure all the data on our systems is always up to date with the correct memberships applied so that you have full access to clubs, societies and events at all times.
With anything, the site is not perfect and we're constantly finding and fixing bugs. If you come across anything that looks odd or doesn't work then drop us an email and we'll have a look at getting it fixed.
New Brand.
Back in June students voted overwhelmingly for Route 1 as part of our rebrand and we've been delighted to roll out our new look and feel over the past couple of weeks.
Your feedback was essential in crafting how we look and the name we use going forward. Again, you were unanimous when asked if we should rename to Royal Holloway Students' Union, replacing our previous clunky moniker of Students' Union, Royal Holloway, University of London (along with the awful SURHUL acronym).
We've reflected the change in name with our new 'RHSU' marque which is more flexible, bolder and impactful than previous incarnations. You'll be seeing a lot more of this during your time at Royal Holloway as we incorporate it into all elements of our work and collaborative projects.
New Union.
During the summer we were hard at work reconfiguring the Students' Union building, with the creation of a central Union Helpdesk key to the work we carried out. This new one-stop-shop aims to provide a seamless service to students, doing away with the previous multiple points of contact that dominated the SU building.
Now, all student services are available in one location with our back office function moved out of the way but still easily accessible for when you need support. Further to this we've given the whole place a lick of paint and introduced more seating areas so you've got plenty of places to chill out.
What do you think of the changes? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook or via email today.