Hi Everyone,
I don’t do too many blog posts or formal updates normally because I’m just all systems go and do verbal ones; but in lieu of what’s going on it probably makes sense to do a full and proper update.
Concerning things mandated to me via our last UGM such like SU nights out and music variety unfortunately has had COVID prevent nights out in their normal format prevented. What can be said however was because of the difficulties faced we did produce a wider variation of venue based events like the Comedy and Film nights, Quizzes, Live Sports with the big LED screens.
Societies
In respect to things I’m currently working on, I know societies have been asking about space, its use and activity. As a result, I formally asked the Vice Chancellor at Senate about the use of space and improvements and received this response:
“In the context of the pandemic and the frequently changing government advice, it is difficult to determine the intervals at which circumstances and guidance on campus may need to change. We will, first and foremost, make arrangements on the basis of the prevailing government guidance. However, in periods of no change in guidance, we will also continue to enhance and evolve arrangements where suitable on the basis of student, staff and partner feedback on our processes and activities.”
In all; the university will seek to improve conditions for societies as and when possible as long as government advice to the university allows them to or at least does not prohibit those improvements. It is a positive answer, as the university is not against wanting to help but at current government rules are preventing much expansion of opportunity.
That segues nicely into that we’ve been able to launch society takeovers in K2 on Thursdays. Since announcing this we’ve had a great response from societies booking in to do socials and although we’ve had a temporary setback with the first floor closure, we should be able to hopefully see what we can do to keep societies active and see where we can help things continue should we reopen.
I have also been having development plan meetings with the majority of societies over the last between August and September. If any society wants to have a development
plan meeting, a follow up meeting or just want to have a catchup meeting then I can always make time for that to happen.
We also now have new society storage space in the SU. We now have a new room with dedicated lockers for societies to store equipment or materials they need for their activities.
Freebies Survey
I launched a survey about the freebies we give out which is still live and I will likely do a repost of it at some point soon.
Preferred names changes
I have worked on a preferred name change procedure for trans students so that their display name can be different to avoid deadnaming. There is a procedure that exists locally for our university that is normally for changing maiden names and things like that and that is in the process of being made available for trans students. Teams at current has no way for “nicknames” or localised integrated name changing but that is being actively input to push Microsoft to do this from our University.
Work with Part Time Officers
We have also worked on more Part Time Officer support and involvement in some of the meetings we attend as Full time Officers to help with representation.
Grad Card Scheme
I have begun work on a Grad card scheme that will allow students to come back to their SU when they become alumni they can still interact with SU. At current we want to have a whole host of little bonuses and information with it and there will be further updates later on about this as it progresses.
Anti-Racist SU commitment
Finally, we as your Full-Time Officer are working on a full commitment on being an Anti-Racist Union. We have goals that we have all already been actively working on in respect to our portfolios as well as together as a team. I have been working on an annual review item commitment for the Senior staff at the university to discuss directly with the
Students’ Union, equality training to go forward to Society Committees amongst other things and the full list alongside the statement from us will available very soon.
Thank you for reading my report and if you need to get in touch with me please email me at su.communityofficer@keele.ac.uk