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Hi, my name is Evie Franks-Durr and I am running for Vice President of STAR for 2026/27. I’m currently a first year Fine Art with Contemporary Cultural Theory student from southeast London. This is my second year in Leeds – I did my art foundation course at Leeds Arts University last year and loved Leeds so much I decided to stay! I only found STAR this year, searching for community focused societies and immediately joined, attending the Wednesday Conversation Club sessions each week, and recently leading a session. I have found Conversation Club not only fulfilling in terms of being able to regularly support language development for refugees in the local community, but also has been the best way to build relationships with other students who just fundamentally care a lot about people. In other words: making friends with genuine, lovely people! This year has demonstrated to me that STAR is an amazing society to be working with, having also partaken in other ways, such as the bike repair workshop qualifying the ability to volunteer with the Bike Repair Scheme. I would love to take on the new role of Vice President - being in the meeting for the upcoming Societies of Sanctuary Scheme for example, demonstrated that this work will be a challenge with this being a completely new scheme to develop - but that is why it is so important. Having the opportunity to really push STAR’s outreach and working with the President and such a great team to do so is something I really look forward to. I am currently working on part of our commission for the LUU Galleries and have also had discussions about hosting a collaboration similar to the event a London STAR Society did with their Law Society: a speakers’ event for students of immigration lawyers. Developing more connections with other societies and reaching out to students to get more people involved with STAR is something I think would be great to focus on next year. I think this relationship of students with refugees in the community is vital, particularly in terms of just facilitating a conversation between different groups of people is something very important to keep advocating for in the current social climate!