News for Glamlife

Police in Cardiff are appealing for information after two female joggers aged 20 and 35 were grabbed by an unknown male in Bute Park.

Both incidents were reported to South Wales Police yesterday having taken place at 8.45am on Thursday, May 10 and around 1.30am on Monday, May 14 in the vicinity of Blackweir. On both occasions the women, who were jogging alone, were grabbed from behind. On the first occasion the man ran off when they were disturbed by walkers on the Taff Trail. The older female has described to officers feeling shocked and worried about what could have happened. Neither women were injured.

Police believe the same person might be responsible due to the similarities in description, location and type of offence. He is described as wearing a black hooded top, black jogging bottoms, a grey hat and carrying a rucksack.

Officers are particularly keen to trace the driver of a large purple or red car driving over the new bridge near the Welsh College of Music and Drama at around 1.30pm to 1.45pm on Monday, May 14 as he might have important information.

Anyone who may have seen this man or has any other information is asked to contact Cardiff CID on 029 2052 7420 or Crimestopppers on 0800 555 111. For immediate sightings please dial 999.

PC Tim Davies Student Liaison Officer is reminding students to follow basic crime prevention advice and when possible travel in groups and to carry a personal attack alarm.

Visit the Glamlife Crime Prevention and Personal Safety Directory page.

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As part of the University of Glamorgan’s Lighting Design and Technology degree program, a work placement year is offered. Student James Siddle has gained a place at Sound Ideas, based in Kent, to work as a Lighting Design Technician from July 2012.

Since 1985, Sound Ideas have provided specialist integration services to the best residential properties in the world, offering services in lighting design, immersive cinemas, security systems, shading solutions, and of course integrated control to bring all these elements seamlessly together for a fully controllable, intuitive home control experience.

With offices in Faversham (Kent), and showrooms in both Mayfair (London) and Phuket (Thailand), Sound Ideas are able to offer their unique services internationally. Within a company of over 80 employees, James joins a small, but expanding lighting design department. Lighting design is an area which Sound Ideas aims to explore and offer to a greater extent to their clients in the future, with James being a part of this. He will assist the department with many duties, including lighting budgeting, luminaire schedules, lighting circuiting, lighting calculations, and hopes to have a creative input into the designs.

Sound Ideas will provide training, especially on residential lighting control systems.
James has a great interest in environmental lighting design, that is to say lighting not for a performance, and is the area in which he wishes his career to follow. He hopes a year’s real world experience will add infinite value to this developing career. This area of lighting is one which, outside of academic studies, James has limited experience, so has a great desire to learn and develop.

With a background in entertainment lighting, James is able to bring valued skills to the company, such as his knowledge of communication protocols in heavy use in entertainment, but new to the environmental lighting industry.

James will be offered visits to live sites at various stages of completion, and will be the first time he has worked on a real project of this nature, with real clients.
When James returns to Glamorgan in September 2013, he hopes to have new found skills and experience to assist and add to his third year of studies, graduating to work towards a career as an environmental lighting designer.

Most of us know that having just a degree is not enough for many employers.

You gain skills through work experience, your degree and life that can help you in this process. These skills are often referred to as 'soft skills’ and 'emotional intelligence’.

Whatever you call them, many employers want you to be able to demonstrate this.

To help you with this, here is a useful article on 'soft skills’, emotional intelligence’ and how you can improve these yourself through work experience, tips and guidance within the university.

There is an opportunity for final year students and graduates to work abroad. The Leonardo Outward programme, which is three months long, enables participants from Wales to study a language and undertake a work experience placement in another EU member state. It is funded by the EU and HEFCW and promoted in partnership by GO Wales and ectarc.

Current opportunities are in Spain (Barcelona), France (Bordeaux), Germany (Hamburg and Berlin) and possibly Italy (negotiations in progress).

Visit the ECTARC website for more information and to apply.

Accommodation Services invite you all to a FREE end of term BBQ to be held at the Hub on Friday 18th May

Please collect your ticket from the Accommodation Lodge from Friday 11th May. We hope you have had a good time living in halls and we have enjoyed having you here.

Good luck for the future from the Accommodation team.

To see what’s on the menu click here

Please note that due to staff training the International Student Support Service will be closed on the afternoon of Thursday 17th May 2012 (open as per normal hours in the morning).

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and we will re-open for normal working hours from 10am on Friday 18th May.

At the end of the academic year, many students leave their term time accommodation. To avoid problems for your neighbours and your landlord, and with getting your deposit back, here are some tips.

Your deposit

Before you move out, check the condition of the property against the original inventory. Ideally, do this with your landlord (or agent) present in order to avoid any disputes over damage.

If you think that there may be a dispute over damage, take photographic evidence of the property when you leave.

If possible, lock your room behind you. In rare cases, students in shared accommodation have been billed for damage done by housemates (or housemates’ guests) after they have left.

If your landlord or agency decides to withhold all or part of your bond and you do not agree, you should immediately contact the Tenancy Deposit Scheme with whom it is protected.

You can find more information in our old news item about disputes about deposits.

Getting rid of clutter and rubbish

As you move house, there will undoubtedly be things that will not make the move with you. Please dispose of any such items in a responsible and considerate way. Some items may be useful to others – Glamlife Marketplace, charity shops and websites like freecycle can be useful for this.

For items that you decide to throw away, try to minimise the impact on your neighbours. If you have a lot of waste, you can usually do two things:

• You can take all your household waste and recycling to a waste disposal site on any day of the week. Don’t leave dozens of bags on the kerb (and especially not for several days / weeks). If you leave large amounts of rubbish on your street, it’ll annoy your neighbours, and the Council could decide to fine your house – which could lead the landlord to making deductions from your deposit.
  • Rhondda Cynon Taf Household Waste Disposal Sites
  • Cardiff Household Waste and Recycling Centres

• For large items, you can arrange a special collection for free. This may have to be on the same day of the week as your usual waste collection, but with a little planning, any broken furniture / electronics can be disposed of without being left behind by refuse collection and without causing a nuisance to your neighbours.
  • Rhonnda Cynon Taf Special Collection – Large Items
  • Cardiff bulky household waste

Your bills and your rent

Accommodation Services have prepared a check list about bills and rent that can help you minimise hassle when you move out. For example, if you pay your rent by standing order, you may have to cancel it, or your bank will keep paying your landlord after the end of the tenancy. Also make sure to notify utilities companies, do final readings, and arrange for a final bill, or your landlord may delay repayment of your deposit (and/or deduct any bills from it). Worse, if utilities companies can’t reach you, they may be able to affect your credit rating.

Safety and security while moving

Moving in and out of accommodation is a hectic time – and sometimes, security issues arise.

• While moving, do not leave doors of your accommodation and your car / van unattended while they are open or unlocked. Opportunist thieves can be very quick if they happen to stumble upon an open front door or car. If friends or family are helping you move, make sure there is always one person watching your stuff / doors.
• Pack things smartly – don’t put all the books in one big box, or it will be too heavy. If there are heavy items, ask someone to help you carry them and don’t lift them on your own.

Useful links

You can find more useful information in newsletters written for students, like the spring term edition of Cardiff Digs Unity News.

The Moving to Private Accommodation section of the Student Halls website also contains useful information which applies to all students living in the private sector.

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A year and half ago Emma Woolf set herself the challenge in public to recover from anorexia. She started to write a weekly column for The Times and she came on this programme to talk about her decision to overcome her addiction to hunger and put on enough weight to allow her to conceive naturally. She has now put her writings into a book, An Apple a Day.

On Tuesday 1st May she joined Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey, with psychiatrist Dr Paul Robinson, a specialist in eating disorders, to talk about the notoriously difficult process of recovering from anorexia.

Listen again on BBC i-Player.

An Apple a Day by Emma Woolf, ISBN: 978-1-84953-249-5

Diverse Cymru are holding a volunteering opportunities evening with vacancies in the following areas:

- Social policy and funding – Reception – Finance – IT development – Administration – Minibus driver – BME mental health befriending – Homework club

The event will take place on Thursday 7th June, 2012, 5.30 – 7.30pm

at

Third Floor, Alexendra House

307-315 Cowbridge Road East
Canton
Cardiff
CF5 1JD

For further information please contact:

Annie Duddridge
annie@diversecymru.org.uk
02920 368 888

Beat Cymru – Beating Eating Disorders

Cardiff Self Help and Support Group

Open to sufferers and carers of those with an eating disorders

Meetings will take place every other Monday night between 6.15pm – 7.45pm at The Health Centre Building, 47, Park Place, Cardiff. CF10 3AT. For further information about the group please email: cardiffbeat@hotmail.com or call their information line on 07971378927 between 6 – 8pm on Sunday evenings only. The group does not run on Bank Holiday Mondays. Here is a calender for the group meeting dates. The group is facilitated by Amie, Nia and Ben. You can self refer if you are 18+ and suffer with or care for someone who is affected by an Eating Disorder.