[3] The current University of Manchester Students' Union Exec Team contains eight full-time sabbatical officers.

The building went under major redevelopment in 2012 which included a renovation of the foyer and meeting rooms, the addition of the new Café[4] and the introduction of a new store and sandwich shop.

In October 2012, the university announced that it would be awarding £4 million to the Students' Union in order to make further building improvements.

It has hosted such big names as Ian Brown, Muse, Prince, Kylie Minogue, The Stranglers, Super Furry Animals, Deftones, Pink Floyd, The Cure, The Coral, Blur, Oasis, George Clinton, Nirvana, Manic Street Preachers, The Libertines, The Ramones, Billy Talent, Fightstar, Lost Prophets, Babyshambles, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Supergrass, It Bites and Death Cab for Cutie.

There are many student-run activities which involve thousands of students in various roles including media, community volunteering fundraising for charity and over 250 societies.

University of Manchester Students' Union is notable for regularly organising and hosting what is reportedly the largest student-led festival in Europe.

[6] This is a triannual event where approximately 6000 students are invited to the Students' Union to enjoy a multi-venue music and arts night utilising rooms throughout the Steve Biko Building and the adjacent Manchester Academy 1 building, to mark the end of most University of Manchester undergraduate exams and a special "Freshers" edition in September.

RAG also runs many "challenge" events such as sponsored expeditions to Mt Kilimanjaro, Everest Base Camp and the Great Wall of China.

Space in the Union basement was originally converted into a fully functioning broadcast studio and production suite.

[12] Fuse Fm was briefly denied its Spring 2008 licence to broadcast, due to the startup of community radio station RockTalk.

There are large Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Baháʼí Faith societies, which hold regular events and meetings.

The university also has a strong Drama tradition and former students include Meera Syal, Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall and Ben Elton.

[17] Other academic societies combine leisure and learning to create events and to build a community of members interested in particular areas or subjects.

An-Najah rejected the motion and all the accusations: "Neither the University nor its Student Council is a terrorist organisation, and the implication that they are is insulting."

They added that the motion is: "defamatory because it repeatedly implies that ANU and its Student Council promotes, facilitates or has links with terrorism.

[23] The twinning would have ended in March 2010, in accordance with University of Manchester Students' Union Bye-Laws;[24] however the sign was renewed by a decision of the executive team and remained.

[26] A students' union and refectory building existed at Owens College on the site afterwards used for the Christie Library (1898).

In 1960-65 the same architect was responsible for a new refectory and staff house on the Burlington Street site (a building which included the Moberly Tower hall of residence).

Two hundred anti-nuclear protestors were outside the student union, and one sprayed Heseltine with red paint, from a detergent bottle concealed in a plastic bag.

Heseltine entered the building but student protesters prevented him from getting him into the venue to speak, for fifty minutes.

Student chants, littered with vile obscenities, interrupted Heseltine's ten minute speech, from around thirty protesters.

Fifty demonstrators had stopped traffic by laying down on the main road outside, including the Rev Alfred Willetts.

[33][34] Also on Friday 19 November 1983, 1,500 peace demonstrators had gathered at the University of Birmingham, where Heseltine was to speak, with two eggs hitting his car.

Inside, he was persistently heckled in his hour long speech, and Barry Blinko, of the Socialist Worker Students Society, took to the stage, shouting for two whole minutes.