Today I finished handing over the last of the keys and paperwork (bar one piece that I missed) for the St John unit I’ve been attached to/running the last three years. Amoungst other things this had left my keychain looking horribly empty in my opinion but also potentially means that I’m free (at least until I return to Hampshire and find they need a new county commander or something…)

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve also been through the finishing events of my time at university, namely my final exam on Wednesday the 3rd (not my best experience), the VOSCARS where the society unfortunately didn’t win (beaten by stuff like stop the war…) but I came away with a small award for an outstanding contribution to volunteering (an award for over 100 hours of volunteering, personally I managed 336 hours, with 97.5 of them being in the first month of uni), again on the 3rd.

Following these events I was then given one day to rest up prior to The End (Friday 5th June). I’m still undecided as to whether this year was more or less successful than the previous year. It could just be that my perspective of it was different as this time I ended up as duty manager to in theory running the event. Luckily for me however all the St John personnel involved were experienced members and well acquainted with both the university in general and the event and casualty types specifically. In addition to the 10 first aiders on site (including a nurse and student nurse) and a St John ambulance crew we also had a doctor provided by the SU once again for half the night and this year the head of Colchester ambulance service as an NHS paramedic to back us up. Even so we ended up with 37 Patient Report forms filled in, probably saw around 50 people over all and sent 4 people off to A&E in ambulances, up from last year. As I said, luckily everyone knew what they were doing so all I had to do was listen into the radio (for a change we were using one of the campus patrol officers radios which was quite fun) and even got to pop off to the scene of a few things and do some treatment myself (something I technically shouldn’t have done as duty manager). Had there been fewer experienced people and more of our new members however, (in the end we didn’t have a single on of our new members on the duty) it would have probably been a much worse night for me to try and command.

Wasn’t much to learn from this year other than possibly increasing staffing levels a bit to make things easier on us and getting in a more powerful radio/additional radios. We do however now seem to be best mates with the paramedic who reportedly enjoyed himself on the night (despite of our new unit hero, possum boy) and seemed quite impressed with what we were doing/managing.

Finally before today's sorrow of returning keys the next night (Saturday 6th June) saw the Summer ball, a more classy and formal end to the year. Being my final year I only worked half the shift and didn’t see much before gaining free entry. I had a good time and was able to see several friends possibly for the last time, but it didn’t really seem like it would have been worth the £38, although if I’d paid and entered earlier I might have made it onto some of the rides.

The backlogs will return shortly until I have something else interesting to talk about, as it is beyond the events mentioned here my time at uni seems to have just fizzled out and run out of steam, maybe the job hunt will amuse me instead (or V festival should be good).

QOTD:

‘We are so screwed’ junior tactician shortly before being executed by the Commissariat.

Additionally, a picture of what happened to our break room in the closing hours of the end.