Welcome back to Keele and to my 3rd UGM report of this 2022/2023 academic year. I've been busy working on loads of different projects, policies, and campaigns since our last UGM, continue reading if you’d like to learn more. Let me know if you have any questions about my report at su.communityofficer@keele.ac.uk and enjoy!
Manifesto Updates:
1. Society Voice and Engagement:
1.1 Societies of Keele and Tom Tries
Societies can still sign up or request for Tom Tries and Societies of Keele. Currently as you’ve probably seen we have started sharing societies who have signed up on stories, so look out for more of every Monday and Wednesday. See last year's campaign at Societies of Keele (keelesu.com). If your society has yet to sign up, please do with this link Microsoft Forms.
1.2 Representing Music Societies
Continuing from my last report Music societies continue to have facility problems with their current space in Barnes Bar and we are in communications with University Estates about this. Through Key Fund we will hopefully be able to purchase music instruments from the music department so our music societies can have their own independent equipment.
2. Sustainability:
2.1 Edible Campus
All stakeholders met again and we are now in the final phases before more fruit trees and berries are planted around halls of accommodation for students to pick. This will give students a free access to fruit on campus.
2.2 Keele Students’ Union Strategic Sustainability Action Plan
The Keele SU Sustainable Strategic Plan was passed by board in December and was reviewed by managers in February. The plan is now current and is being acted upon from recycling at the SU, The Weigh to Go Shop, Meatless Monday deals, to bringing back a coffee cup scheme. You can keep up to date with the plan and other sustainable actions through the website which will be updated soon!
2.3 Great Donate and On Campus Charity Shop
During Winter Welcome we ran 2 more Great Donate stalls making more than £150 this time around which was amazing, thank you to everyone who engaged and our great volunteers! In terms of finding the program a permanent space and with the closure of the post office this space and ST5 are now open for something new, and I am continuing to work with estates in promoting the idea of an on-campus charity shop. Hopefully by the end of my term the University will have pushed this program forward.
2.4 Veganuary Campaign
We ran a successfully Veganuary campaign last month with online awareness posts about veganism, the cost of living, and recipes. We ran events from a live cooking show, we gave away free vegan meal kits, and ran a sustainability forum to get students’ perspectives on how sustainable the SU and University are and what needs to change. Most students perceived the University as more sustainable and stated the SU and University should focus on a second-hand shop/scheme, food waste, and accommodation environmental impact.
3. Student Experience:
No updates for now.
Team Strategic Aims:
1. Student Safety and Wellbeing:
Nothing to report as of now.
2. Access and Inclusivity:
2.1 Diversity Festival March 2023
Diversity festival is going ahead well, with more than 20 stalls already booked many of those free food stalls and even a barber! Diversity Festival will be held in the SU Ballroom and Blueprint on March 9th from 5 till 7:30pm. If you or your student group are interested in having a stall, doing a performance, activity, or serving food let me know at su.communityofficer@keele.ac.uk. All religion, belief, and culture and some performance societies have been invited so make sure to check your society emails.
2.2 Ramadan
This Ramadan the officers and I will be liaising with the Muslim Chaplain and Islamic Society on what events they need support in and what we can do as a joint SU and University for this year. This includes helping with the organising of the Grand Iftar, an awareness campaign, and any other events and activities that come out of consulting students and staff.
3. Quality Education:
Nothing to report
4. Cost of Living:
4.1 Free Meal Kits
As part of Veganuary we gave away free meal kits for students, and these were received super well with all meal kits being collected within an hour. The Welfare Officer and I will be looking into funding pathways to fund more free meal kits to combat the cost-of-living crisis so students can cook community meals for themselves and 2-3 others for free. Let us know what meals you’d like to see!
See section Sustainability 2.3
5. A fair and sustainable world:
5.1 Keele SU Global Crisis Framework
As stated in my last report some injustices were spotted in the SU framework during the Qatar campaign, we ran during the World Cup. From this the officer team and I met to discuss our next steps and we came up with the Global Crisis Framework. This document is a guideline to what the SU response should be to different crisis around the world that matters to students. When we receive a request to do something for a campaign from staff, students, community members, or ourselves we will have students vote on it and then the crisis relevancy to students will be analysed and an adequate campaign will result from that. With the implementation of this guideline the SU will be kept accountable in its response to important student impacting crisis and will be mandated to act.
Outstanding UGM Motions:
Check out our Policy Document here which includes all our passed UGM policies Policy-Document-February-2022.pdf (keelesu.com)
1. Food Options on Campus
A motion was passed to increase food options on campus specially to fit the needs of every student's diet including more options such as Halal and Kosher. I will be surveying what food options we currently supply on campus soon and then will advise our different food providers what the best path for the future is.
2. Accessibility on Campus
Last UGM we held a table discussion about accessibility on campus and we are currently communicating with estates about completing the list of accessibility issues that were mentioned during the session one such issue with the Sustainability bungalow not being accessible to all students for example.
You can find my report and the other full time officer reports at Full-Time Student Officers (keelesu.com).