Hello prospective PLUS Award achievers! I’m Avellina, a final year Biology student and 2021/22 PLUS Award achiever.
Many students understand that the Bristol PLUS Award is an employability award that rewards you for going above and beyond your degree. We know that it boosts our CV and makes us stand out to future employers… but there are also secret, unknown benefits that you’ll only uncover upon starting the Award process!
Towards the end of term, as many of us were beginning to wind down for the winter break, the Careers Service, in collaboration with the SU Volunteering Team, were busy organising a Winter Tea Party for some of Bristol’s elderly residents.
This initiative, one of the Service’s community engagement activities, saw them take over the Richmond Building’s Carpenter Room and share some festive cheer in the form of food, chat, and entertainment.
The Winter Tea Party welcomed fifty members of the community from Parkway Methodist Church, Brunelcare, and St. Monica’s Trust; together with a number of student volunteers and society representatives who supported the guests and helped ensure they had an enjoyable afternoon.
Want to find out more about the Outstanding PLUS Awards? Let’s get all your questions answered.
What are the Outstanding PLUS Awards?
Launched last academic year, the Outstanding PLUS Awards (OPA) reward Bristol PLUS Award achievers who have gone above and beyond in their PLUS Award activity. The OPA is so sought after because there are just eight winners every year – one winner per category.
The Bristol PLUS Award rewards students for participating in extracurricular activities alongside their studies, and provides a framework to articulate their skills and experiences to employers.
Last year we launched the Outstanding PLUS Awards (OPA), to reward students who went the extra mile in their PLUS Award activity. In this final edition of our four-part OPA blog series, we will be breaking down the Resilience and Wellbeing Champion categories to show the spectrum of activities that can be used towards both categories.
Resilience
This category is all about demonstrating how you persevered or adapted to challenges whilst in pursuit of your PLUS Award.
A personal challenge is a broad concept and can encompass many situations. The highest scoring nominations reflected on how they responded to challenges, and how those challenges impacted their PLUS Award journey: (more…)
Wondering how to reach your 70 hours of experience for your Bristol PLUS Award? There is a huge range of activities you could get involved in to develop your skills and build those hours!
We caught up with Lizzie McGechie (Applied Anatomy BSc) who achieved her Bristol PLUS Award in December 2021. Lizzie also took part in the Outstanding PLUS Awards, receiving an Honourable Mention last year for her nomination in the Everyday Hero category.
For her PLUS experience, Lizzie used her role as a netball coach for UoB squads. Sports leadership roles can be a great way to achieve your 70 hours PLUS experience, and there are many roles that can count, including coaching, refereeing, kit management, or organising intramural teams.
,The Bristol PLUS Award gives you the chance to get rewarded for your extra-curricular activities and learn to articulate your skills to employers. Last year, we also launched the Outstanding PLUS Awards (OPA), to recognise PLUS achievers who went above and beyond in one of 8 categories.
In this post, we’re taking a closer look at the Everyday Hero and Innovation categories.
Everyday Hero
This category is all about showing evidence of you being reliable and consistent in your work and inspiring others with your energy and enthusiasm.
Elizabeth McGechie, Year 3 Applied Anatomy BSc, Netball Coach
The qualities of an outstanding Everyday Hero can come across in any PLUS Award activity. Here’s what some of last year’s nominees did:
The Bristol PLUS Award rewards students for taking part in extra-curricular activities during their studies. In 2021/22 academic year, we launched the Outstanding PLUS Awards (OPA), which allows PLUS Award achievers to nominate themselves for going above and beyond during their PLUS activity.
Bristol PLUS Award achiever and Outstanding PLUS Award nominee Violet Allmark achieved her 70 hours of PLUS activity through working as a freelance drag performer and taking on a student leadership role as chair of Bristol Theatre Department Society InterACT.
Violet was a freelance performer with drag cabaret ‘The House of Savalon’ during their residency at award-winning Bristol LGBTQ+ venue Queenshilling, proud sponsors of Bristol University LGBTQ+ society.
Violet performing as Etta Boy, at The House of Savalon
‘My freelance work, as part of the House of Savalon’s three month residency at Queenshilling, gave me the opportunity to develop my artistic costume-making practice, and improve my time management and organisational skills. I spent hours preparing for my acts: sourcing, making and editing my own costumes, props and audio.
In addition, the regular feedback sessions enhanced my personal reflection skills on my own performances as well as my communication skills through constructive feedback
The House of Savalon at the Queen Shilling
Kickstarting my drag career this year has led to such amazing performance opportunities, such as performing last week before Divina de Campo at the Creative Youth Network Station and even internationally in Woody’s Bar Toronto, where I was tipped during my performance by a queen recently announced to be on Season 3 of Canada Drag Race and I was even in the presence of the show’s ‘version’ of Ru Paul: Brook Lynn Hytes.’
Violet also developed new skills and experience by chairing the committee of InterAct, the theatre department’s society.
Bristol PLUS Award students undertake a huge range of activities, and develop an abundance of skills and experiences. The Outstanding PLUS Awards launched in 2021-22 to further celebrate students for making outstanding personal contributions, whatever their chosen activity.
In this blog, we’re looking at two of the Award categories, and some examples of nominees from our very first Outstanding PLUS Awards cohort.
If you’re interested in finding out more about what our Outstanding PLUS Awards students got up to, check out the other related posts on our blog and you can find more information on our webpage.
We caught up with Lizzie McGechie (Applied Anatomy BSc) who achieved her Bristol PLUS Award in December 2021. Lizzie also took part in the Outstanding PLUS Awards, receiving an Honourable Mention last year for her nomination in the Everyday Hero category. 
