In which Nickers describes STADIA Conference with less detail than his other Blogs

I arrived at Liverpool having been at LGBT Conference for two days and stopping off overnight with my folks in Crewe, so started off at a slight disadvantage. The Coffee was of the usual NUS standards and shocked my system into the Student Activities Conference mood.

One of the nicest things about the event was being able to meet up with officers I’d met over the summer, particularly those from ‘Activities in Action’. This was very useful and allowed me to catch up with what lots of other people were doing in their Unions.

The pace of the conference was very good – lots of workshops and opportunities to chat which meant I learnt a lot. The workshops I attended were…

Refugee Issues – With RUSU’s STAR (Student Action for Refugees) group getting very enthusiastic and involved again I attended this workshop so I could support them.
PDP: Making it work for us – How Personal Development Plans can be used in Student Development and improving graduate employment prospects.
The powers that be – A very interesting talk from Graham Allcott, the director of Student Volunteering England who discussed policy changes in the sector.
Involving and Developing Students through Union Governance – After Volunteering, governance is my second favourite subject so I attended this. Was quite helpful – RUSU are way ahead on a lot of governance stuff talking to other Unions.
Rewarding Volunteers – a chance to have people praise the MASIV scheme and also to think about next term’s Volunteer’s party.

I must admit I was exhausted after 4 days of Conferences and so missed the last Workshop session on Tuesday… but the break did allow me to network at the social that evening and the 5th block didn’t have any workshops that jumped out at me.

As well as the workshops there were lots of network sessions, including a table network event where we all discussed a particular subject. I attended the one on community action with a view to setting up some projects for next term.

That was STADIA in a nutshell. I realise there isn't as much detail as normal but that's because a lot of the stuff will be used in the various meetings I have with staff rather than being democratic events in and of themselves. I'm always there for your questions though

Byee and happy break again!

Nickers x