Palentine’s Day celebrations 2024 were a huge hit, thanks to all of you who attended our events at LCC and LCF campuses!

Wondering what Palentine’s Day is all about? Let us shed some light! Palentine’s Day is an event we celebrate in the SU Advice Team as a part of our BuddyUp! initiative and is a celebration of friendship!

If you don’t already know, BuddyUp! is where we help students make new friends at UAL. It's a 1-2-1 friend matching system where you can sign up with a few preferences, and we'll introduce you to a new friend at UAL by email! We also have Buddy Channels which are Microsoft Teams networks where you can chat, share and network with other UAL students who self-identify as belonging to the same community as you. Sign up to either or both of these initiatives.

For this year’s festivities, the SU Advice team and your Sabbatical Officers took to our LCC Darkroom Bar on Tuesday 13^th February and this year's event was even bigger and better than the last. We had arts and crafts stations galore, with origami, friendship bracelet making, and postcard writing. We loved seeing you using the opportunity to get creative and write positive messages to friends and loved ones.

There was also a cosy board games corner where we saw students come to socialise and mingle. And do remember that these board games are available at Darkroom for you to use when you visit!

Along with this we had freebies dotted around the bar, from love heart sweets to herb plant pots!

Finally, we got to host our Advice Team raffle and the lucky winners got prizes including Chilly’s reusable water bottles, bee-friendly seed packets and vouchers to use at the Darkroom bar!

We also wanted to say a huge thanks to the LCC library for donating some books to allow us to facilitate a mystery date with a book on the day. This was a huge hit, and the books flew off the shelves! The LCC library has also now got a permanent wellbeing area, featuring a jigsaw puzzle board, crafting items like knitting and origami, as well as wellbeing books! If you want to check this out, ask the staff at the front desk. You can keep up to date with the UAL libraries by following their Instagram and checking out what services they offer.

But the fun didn’t stop there! On Valentine’s Day, the Advice and Sabbatical Officer teams set up in LCF’s SU office for more arts and crafts and love-themed snacks! It was truly a joy to get to share this with you at your campuses and spread the love.

Hot chocolates, jammy dodgers and more bracelet making made the LCF celebrations very special and we're so grateful to all those who came along.

The SU Advice Team run BuddyUp! as well as providing advice to students on internal UAL processes such as extenuating circumstances, academic misconduct, complaints, and housing issues! If you feel like you’d benefit from speaking with a member of our team about these issues you can read more about our services and book an appointment.

Did you join us for Palentine's Day? Would you come to a future event like this one? Let us know! Whether you attended or not, if you have any feedback on our Palentine’s Day event please send it through to buddyup@su.arts.ac.uk.

We can’t wait to see you again for Palentine’s 2025!