Hey everyone,
It’s been a while since my last update. I know you’ve been focussing a lot on exams and coursework and as the last week of assessment slowly draws to an end, I hope that you will take time to relax and fully re-charge before semester two. Wherever ISB may take you, remember to drink water, eat your veg, the whole thing, you know.
But mostly… I want to tell you what’s been happening in Activities before the holidays and through this part of January.
Of course, the two areas I’ve been mostly focussing on have been Societies and environmental work. There are also SU-wide projects that I am leading/taking part in on the side. In semester two I’m aiming to do more regarding skills development and part-time jobs, this semester has been unpredictably busy meaning I haven’t been able to work on it as much as I wished to.
In terms of Societies, through semester one I worked constantly on looking at all the processes that could and had to be improved within the area, overdue changes and things needed a big revamp or even an overhaul. Now that these plans are formulated, I’m proud to present to you…
The Societies Reform Package.
This comprises of the bundle of changes I want to see implemented in the societies area. Some of the things will be easier to implement than others, some may become a reality after I step down as Activities Officer, but nevertheless, I want to show to you what I’ve been working on, so we together can start building that legacy work.
Handover
This is now at the finishing stage and will be put to you all in a General Meeting for approval. The key things about this are:
- Reducing the amount of paperwork for former committee and new committee during handover
- A new Development Plan that reflects the work from previous committee so that, in case there is not a chance of the outgoing and incoming committees meeting, the incoming committee will still have a direction to follow when they start
- Societies will not have to hand in their constitution anymore as we’ve realised they are hardly ever being updated, are duplicating efforts and are just a box-ticking exercise.
- We are investigating at the possibility of creating a generic risk assessment that we give to all societies, with you only having to update it for specific activities throughout the year.
- The timeline will be altered to make it more suitable for your needs. There’s nothing worse than having to think about your society work during the summer exams!!
Event Planners
Quite simply, we want to know what’s going on in your groups because we want to make sure that you’re supported as much as possible and that you have all the tools available to succeed. However, we are asking a lot from you, and we just need to trust you more. The Event Planner tends to be what makes life really difficult for committees, especially for events that have a fast turnaround but cannot go through strict event planners, which have to be submitted three weeks in advance. I am proposing the introduction of a fast-track procedure that will allow you to put on ticketed events in a swift way. This, in my view, is the pathway to a future that sees the purpose of event planners altered.
I have also worked on updating the Finance Form that has to be attached to the Event Planner – a lot of students have found it confusing and I want to make sure it’s as easy as possible for you to fill in.
Executive Committee
The larger plan includes a complete overhaul of the current Exec structure. However, this cannot be done overnight and the changes I’m proposing are a pathway to a new vision for the Exec.
- The role of the Chair will be substituted with that of a Societies Development Officer, in the larger scheme, there would be two. The role of the chair has always been loosely defined and the remit varied widely according to who held the position. I am planning to make this position extremely important with the functioning of the Societies area: the two Development Officers would meet with the Activities Officer weekly, would be highly knowledgeable of the internal structures of the SU and the area, and would mainly work on the internal development of societies within the SU and the University.
- The role of Publicity Coordinator will be swapped with that of the Outreach and Partnership Officer. This role would be primarily tasked with reaching out to businesses, NGOs and companies in Bath, linking us up with the local community and working on potential sponsorships, venue partnerships, both for the area and for individual groups/bundle of groups. This would refine the role of the Publicity Coordinator which has been neglected in the past, and whose remit has never been defined heavily.
- The role of the Postgraduate Rep will be deleted, as the role can easily fit into the existing structures of the Postgraduate Association.
- The role of the Area Reps deserves a bigger discussion that I’m hoping to initiate with you. In my belief, the roles and responsibilities of the Area Reps (such as chairing Area GMs and keeping in regular touch with the societies within that area) can be taken up by either the officer or a rotating member of any society within that area. Phasing Area Reps out, however it’s not a task I want to tackle overnight and will need your help and ideas on whether this should be going ahead.
Tier System, Reward and Recognition
Student feedback around the Tier System has been, let’s face it, mostly negative. It appears that the only time when the Tier System is really looked at is during handover, and the amount of societies who complete their ribbons (or those that actually report completing the ribbons) is way lower than it should be (as all Blue and Orange Tier societies should complete their ribbons). This system feels like an imposition rather than a chance for development, and I strongly believe we should be allowing you to develop at your own pace and as much as you want. Rather than imposing arbitrary goals, you can set your own goals. This is what I want to see happening:
- The current Tier System would be completely deleted and replaced with a new system that is more performance-based than requirement-based. What does this mean?
- Societies would not be divided into Green, Blue, and Orange societies. From that moment on, budgets would be allocated to societies that charge for membership (as usual), and storage allocation will be discussed on a case-to-case basis. I am also reviewing and looking at how we handle rollovers at the end of the year.
- There will be a generic list of actions a society may do during the year (such as ‘organising an event with another Society’) and each action will be allocated a number of points. If and when a society completes that task/action/event, you will fill a quick form saying the event has happened, and we will add the points to your society. This will end up in a scoreboard.
- Scoreboard leads will recognise the society of the month and so on. We still need to work out what that exactly would entail but the idea is to connect the achievements of your society to you being recognised more properly and regularly.
- The cool thing is that nobody would chase you about completing your ribbons anymore. You will be able to fully choose the path you want your society to take.
Constitutional Stuff
Your society should not be disaffiliated just because it falls short of the arbitrary threshold of 30 members. The plan is to move this to a performance-based evaluation. Therefore, should the society fall under 30 members by the fifth week of term, they would be flagged, and their performance would be reviewed according to some indicators - such as event regularity, popularity, or general activity of the society. I don’t think it’s fair to disaffiliate a group that has performed well but has not reached the members.
- Faith and Cultural Societies
Faith & Cultural Societies are a particular type of group and their importance in our SU is often undervalued. These groups deserve and need to exist for a huge variety of reasons, and the support they give to their membership is often unique. Therefore, I don’t think they should go through the regular mechanisms of affiliation, and I believe that their affiliation should be handled by the Faith and Cultural Council, which also includes the International Students Association.
- Affiliations and Disaffiliations
A huge amount of Students’ Unions does not follow the same affiliation process as we do. Most of them use the Executive Committee and the Societies Staff to allow new societies to join, and on a more informal basis. Maybe we, too, should be moving towards that system. This way, we can free up the General Meeting in December where we can actually talk about the direction of our Societies!
At the moment, the SU is only able to cater for those groups that are fully affiliated to the SU. This means that some groups, which may only require some support from us but not that much, decide to not go for affiliation because the requirements and the burden of that would simply be too much. I want the SU to cater for those groups as well, those who sit between being an independent group and a fully affiliated society. Who knows, there may be some societies who currently don’t need all the services that we can provide and would like to scale back!
Online Resources
- Ugh. That page needs a revamp and a half. I want you to be able to find quick tutorials, video links, and your role resources quickly, smoothly, and without having to navigate for hours on end without finding what you fully need. I want to kick start the process whereby this happens, and the resources page can become a place where you can find support and help outside of office hours or when you need something quickly.
- I also intend to start an online community forum where you can ask questions to your fellow committees, sharing tips and maybe find grounds for collaborations as well.
Importantly, I need your feedback on this ahead of our big meeting I'll set up for February. What do you think? What are your ideas? Do you broadly agree? Disagree? Drop a comment, send me an email, a message on Facebook, this is ultimately for you because I want you to have the best experience you can have while running your society. This is at the early stages for the most part, but I think it would be the shake-up this area really needs.
Always available for anything at all,
Stay awesome etc
Franci x
