In which a satisfied Nickers reports

This week’s been Sparkling. Spark training, Spark publishing and meetings about the newspaper – so I’ll be working extra hard on the other volunteer groups next week so they all feel loved :) If you’re from Junction11, Nightline or RAGs and feel neglected just come and ask me for a hug.

The “RU Ready… for Spark in a day?” event on Wednesday went fantastically. Fran, Gav, Nathania, Caz, Nick, Kat, Vid, Ellie, Karen and all the other Editors who I’ve forgotten (sorry) did a brilliant job at introducing the paper to Freshers and keeping the energy levels high. In all about 45 students attended the event – if each person writes just one article a week that means 15 pages (about half) of the paper will be produced by Wednesday’s trainees. This week’s Spark includes 8 whole pages written by Freshers for Freshers. Student activities – indeed the Students’ Union as a whole – is about involvement and having a go. The pullout looks brilliant and rewards the hard work put in by both journalists and editors. The feedback was very positive too - It’s this stuff which gets me excited about my job!

I’m also doing lots of work on the By-election which is coming very soon. Week 3 will see Hustings, talks for and against NUS affiliation and the publicity for candidates kicking off. For Freshers especially this will be an exciting time – a chance to elect Officers and see the democratic foundations of the Union in affect.

I’ve been out and about a fair bit this week – Monday with the LGBT, Wednesday and Thursday at the Union and so I think sitting in with a cocoa this weekend sounds really rather nice! I must be getting old (23 next week…)

"Of ships and shoes of ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings..."

Saturday - and the dust is settling at last! Thursday and Friday have both happened since my last blog on Wednesday - as they tend to most weeks.

Went to the Union on Wednesday night - good to see people having an excellent time as before and I liked the slideshow :) Getting the message across that the Union is much more than just the bars and cheesy-chips is really important, and I'm amazed at how much importance people are willing to put on small day to day things compared to the (on-going) fight for a free education or the need for secure student housing. I helped out behind Mojos and at the cloakroom - was tiring stuff and whilst I've always appreciated the student staff I think I do even more so now.

I was publishing the paper on Thursday which was fun whilst juggling my time on the Executive and MASIV stalls - I want to say a big cheers to all the Exec who covered for me and telling me to take a break when I was frazzled and extra special thanks to Bill Smith, Michelle Hewings, Gemma Yusuf, Emily Beardsmore (Vice-chair of Council) and Dave Ball (a student trainer) who were all there as volunteers and made the life of the Sabbs much easier.

I had a few drinks after work with some of the Freshers fayre helpers which ended up being the pub quiz, but I left and went home to sleep before the Karaoke being a very worn out Nickers by that stage.

Friday was quieter than the other two days, but it was really nice to have Gemma Tumelty, the National Secretary of NUS down to help out with the Fayre. Sian Davies was also down on Wednesday to give a hand with the SWD (Students with Disabilties) stall. They're both lovely so it was nice to see them again and gave me a bit of a boost.

I'm in the office even though it's saturday so I can do some paperwork and also so I could help out (vaguelly) with the Junction11 meeting - really I just tried to look pretty and didn't :) Next week I've got Spark training, my first trip to Bulmershe and a whole lot more - love it!

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.

My Bank Holiday weekend - where neither are present.

Actually this isn't just about my Bank Holiday, in fact it's much more about the Training I went on last week. From Tuesday through to Thursday afternoon I was in Winchester. My last visit there ended in rather unpleasant drunken exploits so I was slightly nervous, but the session was absolutely fantastic. The course was called 'Training the Trainer' and was run by NUS as part of its 'National Student Learning Programme' or NSLP. The concept is that students are taught generic training skills - like different learning styles and when it's appropriate to use certain games and so on. Even though I've a long history in running activities for Young People and students through my Youth Work background and so on, it was incredibly useful (you might be able to hear my enthusiasm!). Andrew Lewis, VP Education also took part and I'm trying to send another delegate to a later session.

After three intensive days I decided to return home to London for the last time ever *sniff sniff* as my parents are moving up to Chester in a few weeks (picture to the left is my front door at home...) While here on Friday I wrote a paper for Nightline and also one on the subject of the RUSU Forums. The Forums are taking up a lot of officer time at the moment and I think that I should be meeting with University staff and volunteers to work out ways of improving things for our development groups rather than spending an hour each day making sure no-one's breaking the rules. I really like the way the forums work and the service they provide, but it's too easy for people to nip on anonymously and badmouth people before disappearing again. The trick will be to allow Students their free speech without phantom posters making the forums unpleasant places for people - especially Freshers - to visit.

I'm back on Tuesday and have a meeting with Paul Roberts, head of Nightline. I also plan to get some definite arrangements for student Media training sorted using my newly found NUS network buddies and get a skeleton plan for next year's RU Ready? Scheme before NUS Campaign launch on Thursday. Then it's Reading Pride on Saturday followed by a party in Cardiff... I should sleep at some stage shouldn't I?

Stalls, Spark and The US Constitution

Hey RUSU-land. Since last Thursday I've been catching up with a lot of the Student Groups - trying to do some fun stuff with RAGs (more details to follow if I can pull it all off - but it'll be groovy :D), I've also been working more on governance issues with Nightline. After a very pleasant meeting with Francesca Bingley (Spark editor) yesterday we have some clear ideas and goals for training in particular and the development of Spark in general.

I'm co-ordinating the Executive stall at Freshers Fayre and chatting to Part Time Officers and others to see if they are happy to volunteer. It will be nice to have a clear focus for Freshers about what the Union is and who the Executive are. This also isn't easy to pull off - so I'm working hard on it!

I've also got the task of giving RUSU's constitution and Regulations a bit of an overhaul - which is slow work but will make it more accessible. On average I'm halving the word count for each section and will add 'quick reference guides' at the back as well. The reason for the Blog title is that the original (before amendments) US Constitution was 4,500 words long. The current RUSU constitution is over 6,000. A little perspective might be needed...

48 Hours in Hatfield

I spent Monday until Wednesday at 'Activities in Action', an NUS training programme in Hatfield. Some of the stuff I'd come across before, but some of the techniques on, for example, doing research was really useful. With the 'RU Ready...' scheme being set up this year its particularly important that I get as much information as possible from students, so I've all kinds of ideas for Training Needs Analysis schemes and the like.

The networking was also really useful - I ended up chatting with a guy from York RAGs who is a sabbatical officer about the organisation, and he was really helpful and supportive. I also got to chat to National Nightline's general secretary about the way that organisation is moving which was quite exciting. I also got invited up to Edinburgh for Hogmanay by one of the NUS Scotland officers - though I'm not entirely sure he realised what he was saying at that late a stage of the evening. Overall I found the session useful - though hard work and I was very tired by the time I got back!

I also got some new glasses on Wednesday but no-one's noticed until I told them. I think they're really nice though...

I spent most of today fondling a slinky in the shape of a fish, though all for the good of Union volunteers.

I attended a Stadia* event called 'Planning a training programme' which is going to be dead useful for all the 'RU Ready...' stuff that's going on. I'm looking forward to coming back and getting out some flipchart paper and chatting to the programme stakeholders (edited from Stockholders... I was tired when I posted) about making Training Need Analysis forms and the like.

While there I chatted informally about M.AS.I.V. - and again people were amazed at the scheme. Reading's certainly leading the accreditation sector with this project - all the other Union's want to nick it for their students! Even the NUS guy said he'd pop down to chat about it - cool as chips.

I was supposed to be networking with a Sabb from Kington Union but he cancelled so I had a very nice drink with my friend Emma, who also happens to be VP Education at Kings College London - the world of NUS is actually far too incestuous!

*Stadia are a group that do lots of support for student activities.

Totally addicted to html.

I've spent all of today working on a new gateway for the Volunteer section of the website - and I'm pretty happy with it too! I've been educated in the basics of html and decided to make things complicated for myself by stretching what I knew. No broken links or images though... all good. Once it's finished (along with the rest of the website clean-up) you'll be able to see it.

In the last couple of weeks I've also been doing lots of stuff on the 'RU Ready... to advertise' handbook for all those Publicity Officers and communication secretaries in student groups. This will be available in the autumn term.

On which note, though we're still sorting out training for the Autumn term it looks like we'll be covering Publicity, budgets and Event Planning. Spring will be more committee centred as its the main handover period for groups.

I'm off on Training from Thursday to next Thursday in London (with a weekend at home I'll admit).

This week RUSU has stopped me from... reading 'Flights of the Mind'

<- A drunken picture of yours truly (my Mum doesn't like this photo - she says I'm less green in real life)

Okay - the background bit. I'm Nick Smith - but Nickers is easier to remember. I'm VP Development at reading University Student's Union - which basically means I'm there to support volunteer groups like student media and fundraisers and stuff. This blog is an attempt to tell you guys what I'm up to.

I'm the first ever VP Development so it's quite scary - but I was a part time officer last year so know the ropes a bit. I was awarded a Bachelor of the Arts for English in the First Degree last month (so I graduated) which means I can put letters after my name.

More updating as I have stuff to say!