President role not just target practice for Douglas

This year’s elected President of the Borders College Students’ Association (BCSA) is enjoying all kinds of success in both his College and sporting capacities, with each role complementing the other.

Former HND Coaching and Developing Sport student Douglas Jardine (aged 25 from Peebles) is a keen archer who has been Head Coach for 2 Scottish university archery teams, competed at international events with the Scottish Archery team, and spent a time as Scottish Student Sport (SSS) archery chair.  As well as having been elected as the BCSA President, Scottish Archery recently announced his appointment as manager of the senior team for the outdoor season, describing Douglas as “an experienced archer and a qualified coach (who) will be a great asset to the team.”

He was supported by the Student’s Association himself in the 2017/18 academic session when BCSA and the College sports department funded the College’s BUCS and SSS memberships (the British and Scottish Student Sport bodies respectively). This enabled Douglas to formally represent Borders College in the SSS archery league. Douglas was also awarded an ‘Aspire Fund’ grant by the College last year, which helped to cover the costs of travelling to various locations across Scotland to compete in the league (the Aspire Fund was set up to provide students with extra financial support to help develop a talent or grow skills and/or experience in an area of expertise).

All this success follows on from Douglas collecting Borders College’s first Healthy Body Healthy Mind award at the SSS Awards over the summer, something he intends to progress by raising the award from one star to two.

Douglas’s involvement in sport puts him in a strong position to take on the coming year as BCSA President:

“Part of my manifesto for the year is to make sport and physical activity available to all students, so that was a part of my motivation to become President. I expect my experience in coaching as well as helping to organise archery events to come in useful over the next year when I intend to introduce more sport and physical activities for our student body, based on what they want.

“I also hope to get BCSA to a place where it is well-known and sustainable, while continuing to build on our established mental health campaign ‘Smash the Stigma’.”

Douglas is a motivated individual who finds reward in supporting and developing his peers whilst offering them consistency, making him well-suited to his roles within both the Students’ Association and Scottish Archery. He also looks forward to representing Borders College on the SSS Development Committee this year, where he hopes to play a part in recruiting more member colleges.
Borders College extends its congratulations and support to Douglas for the busy year ahead, and looks forward to finding out what he will achieve next.