Goodbye Adam Pike, Hello Alex Dwek

Reflecting on his time as Chair, Adam says that he was motivated by two factors: "First, a genuine sense of duty to dedicate a year (or two) of service to the Jewish community, and second, a sense of compulsion that UJS was in desperate need of reform."

He continued, "Looking at UJS as an organisation today, I believe that J-Soc, Jewish students and the community can see the outcome of two years' hard work. In my election in December 2007, I promised to deliver a four point plan: Structural reform, transform UJS events, inspiring leadership and activism, and an overhaul of the website."

Under Adam's leadership, the UJS team structure has reformed to reflect the core positions and needs of a J-Soc committee. As Adam explains, "We set the needs of J-Soc at the very heart of UJS' mission." To this end, UJS has doubled J-Soc funding over the past two years and increased the number of J-Socs UJS supports financially from 17 in 2007 to over 45 in 2010.

On the events side, many students enjoyed the UJS Big Weekend that brought together students for Friday Night Dinner with the Israeli Ambassador, Student Awards and Career Networking. These events now form part of UJS 'signature' programmes that he feels "builds on our partnership with J-Soc and makes our events open and relevant to all".

The upgrade to the UJS website has been the most visible. Since the launch of www.ujs.org.uk in October 2009, over 4,500 tickets have been sold online. Despite this, Adam maintains that the main success of the website was to "empower the J-Socs and give them ownership of their own affairs". As such, most J-Socs have access to the UJS back-office with a unique log-in where they can manage and communicate with their members, put tickets online and keep track of sales, all independently of UJS. He says that the website and database upgrade sought to answer the central question: "What is the compelling reason for J-Soc and Jewish students to wish to interact with UJS."

He finished by saying, "UJS' achievements are shared. I would like to thank in particular Daniel Marcus, Maurice Helfgott and Richard Verber for their guidance, support and energy, along with the past two UJS teams, J-Soc committees, Jewish students, UJS-Hillel, UJS Advisory Board and our other key stakeholders - UJIA & CST."

Adam will be joining Deloitte in Operations Consulting from August.