Day 3 of Freshers week - 2pm

Ok - Freshers Fayre has started. Had a bit of a panic first thing making sure that Junction11 had a PA and were broadcasting where they needed to and then set up doing the Exec stall with lots of pretty pictures and stuff. I've been chatting to Sports Clubs about what training they would like this year and generally chatting to Freshers to discuss the Union and what it can offer them.

Yesterday afternoon I was checking stuff in Spark and having my photo taken - lots - by a Sparky which was quite fun if a little strange! It keeps coming :)

Day two of Freshers week: 11am

Yesterday was manic - I was... photocopying leaflets which I later handed out at an academic welcome, fielding questions at reception, trying to sort out Junction11 over Freshers Fayre, checking some of the pages in Spark, learning how to use the bar tills and chatting to lots of different people about the Union. I decided to stay in and not go to Scott Mills so I can have energy for the rest of the evening.

So far today - checked the forums, answered some policy questions and been interviewed for Spark.

Flipping FTPs, Mum in the Midlands and Careers Management

Aaagh! It’s started – International students are back and the reality of Freshers week has struck home. The handbook’s done, the Ents are booked, the training sessions are being written and each time I move a piece of paper onto the ‘done’ pile it reveals another 6 things to be worked on. It’s been really nice actually meeting students in the flesh though – I’ve had loads of contact with various people over e-mail, texts and so on, but it’s nice to be able to smile at and see the person you’re helping.

Yesterday saw me publish Spark for the first time – and it was scary! Having to deal with File Transfer Programmes (FTPs) that didn’t work on the Spark computers, learning how Mac programmes worked and of course trying to make sensible judgments about our Equal Opportunities Policy. I did really enjoy it in the end and had my best mate to help read it through (cheers Edward!) and I know it will get easier.

My parents have now moved up to the Midlands – which hasn’t really sunk in yet and I spent a weekend there helping them settle a little bit as well as seeing my Uncle’s inauguration ceremony for his new Parish and visiting my Granny. I’m trying to keep an eye on all my family stuff whilst delivering for the Union – its not always easy but I think I’m getting there!

More training planning and so on – I’m looking forward to saying “I did this session” rather than just “I will do it…” before too long. I want to see some of my work in action!

I went to a day on Careers Management with lots of University people in suits and also Andrew Lewis who did a great talk on making sure Careers Management is more personal to students. I thought this very helpful and hope that the University do follow up on their *revolutionary* plans to make the scheme about students as individuals. The photo is of our group in an exercise - I'm looking perplexed but my hair's cool in it!


This week RUSU has been stopping me... sleeping

SEANUS!

Yesterday I met with the rest of the SEANUS (South East Area NUS) Executive and we made decisions that affect 150,000 students. How very exciting and incredibly scary!

A lot of the focus of the 4 hour meeting was of course the planning of the year and the campaigns that we will be running. SEANUS is primarily a campaigning body – concerned with improving the life of students across the South East of England.

The main campaign for the year is on South East Weighting – it costs almost as much to live in the South East as it does in London and many students may consider the Northern Universities more favourably because of this, especially post-graduates. We want to see Universities in the SE prosper, and a greater number of students from less well off families being able to access Higher Education. This campaign is going to be a long one and so the primary focus at the moment is researching the discrepancies between regions to move towards a point of action later in the year or maybe even later. We’re confident we can win on this but that means preparation.

SEANUS are encouraging institutions within the area to consider their support of International Students, beginning with a survey of English language Support and campaign to make sure institutions are investing in it.

The Executive are also investigating Rights at Work, supporting the NUS’ Student Activities campaign and also Fairtrade and ethical practices within Students Unions. For this last campaign I’ve been asked to produce a guide to ethical consumerism within Students Unions, something I’m passionate about as those of you who know me will recognise.

I submitted a suggestion that the Executive look at doing some co-ordinated days of action across the region to encourage students and groups to work with each other in different institutions. This fed really nicely into an item from Bubble – SEANUS convenor – about doing a co-ordinated RAGs day. A member of the Exec will be getting in touch with RAGs groups in the area to make decisions about this – but the day should appear between the 25^th November (a day of action opposing violence against women) and 1^st December (World AIDS day).

We’re hoping to increase the number of Further Education Institutions with active student representation and are co-ordinating this with Ellie Russell, NUS’ Vice-President of Further Education (see previous post about NUS campaigns for how cool I think she is).

The SEANUS website needs updating and executive members have been directed to do this. We’re hoping to elect representatives for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual students, Students with Disabilities and Further Education students at the next SEANUS Council at the end of October.

The other piece of ‘regional housekeeping’ was that of expenses. We decided that for the moment at least Sabbatical Officer on SEANUS should pay their own travel while other students who don’t get a wage will have all expenses paid.

We discussed the decision within the NEC to hold a National Demonstration and its implications. There’s a bit of a divide within the movement as to whether the finances of the organisation could allow such an event, but equally it’s important for student rights to be defended and our voice to be heard. We also chatted about the international students festival and the consensus seemed to be that we agreed with it in principal but the way the organisers were suggesting involvement (paying £1000!) and went about telling people about it was not entirely well received.

A lot of this stuff was about planning and researching and so may not seem very ‘sexy’. It is important that we know our facts and can make our campaigns work, and that does mean lots of preparation and getting things right. I have high hopes for the year ahead and for the success of SEANUS.

FE Colleges and campaigning for student activities

This week I've been working on all the things I said I would be - the chat with Paul Roberts was really useful and has given us some aims. I saw Francesca Bingley on Monday and fleshed out some ideas for Spark training. I sent an e-mail around the STADIA (see earlier posts for what STADIA is) with the idea of doing a one afternoon introduction to the paper for Freshers. The idea is that instead of the first thing a Fresher goes to being a planning meeting they get a chance to produce something immediate. This has got a lot of support from Fran and various Media and Activities Sabbs across the UK, many of whom want to replicate it if it's successful. It's nice for Reading to be leading the way on something else!

Yesterday the other Sabbs and I went to the NUS Campaigns Launch in London.This was a fantastic event and really helped me place the aims of the NUS NEC (National Executive Committee) in relation to both RUSU and the South East Area.

The three main priority campaigns for the year can be found on the NUS website soon, but they cover anonymous marking, the importance (and drastic neglect) of Further Education Colleges and also Student Activities. I'm hoping that RUSU will be supporting all three of these campaigns but I want to discuss the last two particularly.

As a Higher Education institution you may think its weird for Reading University Students to be campaigning for better support within FE colleges. In fact, better and more active FE students lead to better and more active HE students. For so many people at Reading it is the activities offered to them by the Union that become the happiest times at Uni. This may be their games for the Netball Team or the friends they made through RUDS. We can only provide this becasue of our funding from the University Block Grant and - more fruitfully - the our commercial services. We can run a democratic, supportive and representative organisation - though obviously we still never have enough money! At RUSU we represent 16,000 students through 6 Sabbatical and 6 Part Time Officers, have a regular student council and clear staff structure to support us. We run a Nightclub, Bar, Cafe and Shop to finance this. Compare Thames Valley Students Union's Reading campus - as many students to represent but no commercial services to support it and only a Single Sabbatical officer. I think FEs can be vibrant and active places - but considering most FE Unions only receive 2p of every £100 that their parent organisations have it is no surprise that they can't work fully. And can I add that Ellie Russel the VP Further Education delivered one of the most rousing and fantastic speeches I have ever heard. And she's a lovely person too damn it!

The Student Activities Campaign recognises that most people involved in the Union do so not through a hobby, sport or volunteer opportunity. On this year's Sabbatical team we have 2 ex Nightliners, 2 JCR heads, 2 Junction11 presenters, a Sports club president, a Society President, a Course Rep and a previous Part-Time Officer. That's all student activities leading the way into the Union. We are proud of our sports teams and our community action. The University loves to showcase our Sports and describe the benefits of our volunteers - but we need to protect these things. We need to protect our Wednesday afternoons so that students can compete in sports and other activities, make sure the University Sports Centre is for University Students first and local residents second. We need to make sure our activities are accessible to all no matter their race, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender, marital or child status. I'm passionate about student activities - that's why I love my job and I want to protect the environment at RUSU that allows them to happen and happen fully.

I'm pledging now to support these campaigns through both my role on RUSU and through SEANUS - and if I don't hold me up on it at Council, e-mail me and come to my office and shout.