Supres

Wow – I actually cant believe I have finally caught up on the blog! I must thank First Great Western for their unending encouragement whilst I sit on a variety of their trains! Up until recently I knew it was important to write my blog but this week really has proved it, let me explain….

Over the weekend I have been poring over this small screen attempting to write up my report for the Annual General Meeting on Monday. Whilst I love my role as chair of the trustees board this task has certainly been one to test me! I think the hardest thing is that I have to write a report on the financial year 2007-2008 (July to July) and I only came into post in July 2008!

To be fair I have had the benefit of having sat on the executive last year and thus I held an active role during this time, but it didn’t make it any easier!!!

So if I may I’ll outline what I said on the night!

Swansea University Students’ Union is run by students for students. All of our services are offered either free or at the lowest cost possible, in order to ensure students get the best possible experience they can.

Our Vision is to be progressive, supportive, encouraging, influential campaigning union – what a mouthful!

The key is that our mission as a Union is to represent you and your fellow students here at Swansea. This can be in ensuring that the University consults and takes note of student opinion when initiating changes, and also ensuring that the University takes notice when things are not going right. Student involvement is at the forefront of this –whether you are a course rep or simply filled in the Omnibus survey your views are to be represented.

Representation is wider than that and can encompass everything from your local community to national student issues such as top up fees and Graduate employability. As a Union we are here to represent you on these issues alongside our colleagues in Wales and nationally through the National Union of Students.

Our other key role is to further the so called “softer” side of your education here at Swansea. This is quite simply ensuring that you leave Swansea with a variety of skills and experience, not just those gained through your degree scheme. This is primarily encompassed in our wide variety of societies across campus. From religious encouragement and awareness to social action, our societies provide an unrivalled service in making students people who will shape the world when they leave University.

In ensuring that you gain the most from your University experience Welfare services play a crucial role. In our Advice centre for example, three trained and experienced advisers supported by an administrator, are available to give advice in person, or by phone, letter or email, on a wide variety of issues. We help students for example, to manage their debts, sort out their housing problems with their landlords, manage their finances, apply for extra funds, negotiate with traders over consumer problems, and employers over problems at work. In addition, as we are independent; we are the only source of support for students who have issues with the university itself like Unfair Practice, a complaint, or who wish to appeal an academic decision. A lot of our time is spent on these academic issues.

Alongside this we offer a wide variety of services to students at Swansea, some of which are free and some which turn a small profit.
It is highly important to us—and we consistently attempt to convey to our members that the Union is Student Run, Student Led—with all profits to students. From Just Coffee in Union House to Woodys Bar in the Student Village, SAS lettings service to the launderette – all of our services are run to support your life here at Swansea. By keeping profit margins low and ensuring that all that money goes back to students we can remain fair, competitive and appealing.

To ensure that we remain on track it is vital that we have core values to which we adhere to. These are

Democracy
Non -Discriminatory
Democratic and representative
Accountable
Ethical and green
Innovative
Value for money

Democracy is at the forefront of these values, without it the Union would be worthless, unrepresentative, powerless and not to mention illegal! We are a student run and student led organisation and therefore our direction comes from our members – you the students.

We regularly promote our motto; “Your Union, Your Experience”
It is of the utmost importance to us that our members are involved and active. We have numerous opportunities for people to “Stand up and Speak out” from our Student General Meetings to our Course Reps Assemblies.

The student body is the highest decision making group within the Union. From motions mandating sabbaticals to look into drink safety, motions to ban sales of products or even the removal of a sabbatical trustee – these are all in the hands of the student body.

Our services are constantly under review, primarily as to how to make them better but also whether they are still required and if our members want something different.

So 2007 to 2008 in review – how did we do?

In 2007 we underwent a vast governance review. Our constitution is our legal document which sets out our roles, procedures, structures and rules. In recent years our constitution had constrained us and in some areas left us dangerously vulnerable.

With some fantastic direction, particularly from Nick Cooper, Luke Young and Stuart Rice, the governance review was actioned and completed within the year. Students were encouraged to take part in the review, and the University set up a special committee to work with us on the final document.

The key change in our constitution is as follows
• Trustee Responsibility – in registering as a charity we are legally required to have trustees who “have the final say” this has always traditionally been your elected sabbatical officers.
• However in recent years unfounded allegations have been levelled at sabbaticals regarding financial control of the Union and most importantly their understanding of their legal roles and responsibilities.
• In come - External Trustees- these will be three people selected by an appointments committee of current trustees and then hopefully accepted by the student body here at the SGM.
• Do we need them? Well these people will bring experience that sabbaticals perhaps cannot. Years of experience within financial areas, legal experience or most importantly charitable experience. But alongside this these people will bring increased credibility and support to the charity. They will often be well respected people who due to their experience will encourage a stronger, more conscious Union.

• Surely Student power will be diluted? Well there is of course an argument there. However the power still remains in the hands of the student body – it is the students who suggest direction, make policy and challenge sabbaticals. The trustee board can only veto policy if they feel it brings significant financial, legal or reputational risk to the Union. Also there will only be three external trustees selected and ratified by students. There will still be six elected sabbatical trustees and the President will remain as chair of the board, with carrying vote.

• At the end of the day these people will be people who believe in the Union, believe in students and most of all want to be of use and help the Union. We hope that through good selection and adequate involvement these trustees will bring a vast amount of security and support to the Union in their terms of office.

So enough about the politics its time to party!
In 2007 – 2008 we put on a whole host of awesome events from the first ever snow ball on campus, to fresh and free an event exclusively for freshers. We increased the massive amount of acts available in sin city, alongside NME club status making us an official live music venue in Swansea. From Zane Lowe to One Night only, Alphabeat to Pendulum we have offered a wide spectrum of music.

We also signed a new contract with Luminar and Oceana for their brand new £3 million refurbished venue which has gone down a storm with students. Our continued good relationship with the Luminar group has continued to encourage big nights whilst also funding specialist events such as the society awards and the xtreme 40th birthday party.

As a campaigning Union we tackled a number of key issues last year, not least increased library access. Through excellent research and diplomacy with the University, Chugga was able to secure extended access for the January and Summer periods.
It feels pertinent to then move on to student safety which was a key issue tackled by the Union last year – from “people trains” walking students back late at night after working in the library to the fantastic safety awareness weeks student perceptions on their own safety and the reality that the Union was on the ground looking out for them became clear. Nel Richards also held some fantastic self defence sessions as part of her effort to increase welfare and safety for female students.

Danielle Dixon did a fantastic job last year as disability officer for the Union and alongside Nel looked at a number of ways to increase accessibility across campus. Not least looking at the Union itself and its processes

Accommodation is and continues to be a key issues for students here within Swansea. Nick worked alongside the University last year to increase student feedback on accommodation in the Village. Whilst in my role as Accommodation Officer I challenged students to leek on their landlord and not to panic. I feel that

From an education point of view we had a massive response rate to the NSS, there was a 70% response rate to NSS 2008 (which was an improvement from 61% rate to NSS 2007) with an average sector response of 64%. The Student Satisfaction Survey had a response rate of 9.3% (1287) which was an improvement on the last three years response rate. Owens excellent idea of a “feedback lounge” – in Fulton House was picked as best practice through NUS and we have been inundated with calls from other Unions regarding our experience.

Alongside this Student Written Submission was made and the officers were actively involved in the QAA audit. Chugga was also able to secure accreditation with the University for our course representatives and alongside John Follett the program is increasing extremely healthily.

So on to Welfare – Our advice centre received well over 900 client contacts - up 6.6% from 2006- 2007. Alongside this the demand has grown so much that we have employed a new member of staff with particular experience of substance abuse and mental health issues.

Our Nursery was built and achieved registration allowing it to open in Feb 2008. There has been an increase in interest in the service but most importantly staff and parents feel more comfortable and happy with their new surroundings.

SAS Lettings has continued to make a successful impact upon the community with increasing student and landlord interest. Something which we hope will increase even more in its new base in Fulton House.

Niche opened its doors in Feb 2008. Financial performance has shown steady and improving growth in sales across the remainder of the academic year. Interest from a wide range of students not just internationals, has increased and it has solidified the Unions dedication to achieve environmental and ethical impact.

So the Future! – We are in challenging times, but I also believe these are times where opportunities, influence and engagement will increase.

In times of Financial instability students come back to their Union – why? Because as our mission states we aim to be value for money for our members! From increased discounts, deals, offers, opportunities and support we can be there as a “reasonably priced friend” to students at Swansea University. It is our job to ensure that we make your student pound go further whether that’s the price of a pint in the bars or the level of free advice and support we offer, our members will hopefully value the Union much more during this time.

Alongside this as the University looks at Campus development and expansion we are at a crucial time when the Union must be researching and representing (thankyou John Follett!) ensuring that the student opinion is at the core of developments. If we fail to do so then students will lose out and ultimately so will the University – therefore it is CRUCIAL that we progress alongside the University and ensure Swansea University increases and flourishes in its educational and welfare opportunities for students.

With the big dog behind me I could get back on with meetings, meetings and more meetings! To maintain my sanity Ross and I utilised any excess time we had to pop into third year lectures and generally harass them about the National Student Survey – www.thestudentsurvey.com

Amongst all this madness the sabbatical polls closed!!! With 20 candidates standing and an amazing range of candidates in each category my faith in the process was once again restored – keep your eyes peeled on www.changeswansea.com over the next few weeks as the campaign trail rolls into town!!!

This week has also been the week of the quizzes – from both the Xtreme and Erasmus societies. Alongside Ben Davey and Will Long we had great fun hosting the return of “It box live” with a variety of weird and wonderful questions and of course the legendary Xtreme raffle.

The Erasmus quiz was also excellently well attended and Katie Oliver and Jenny Barker did a great job encouraging so many Erasmus and home students to attend and work together – it was great to see a whole team of Erasmus students win the quiz beating off even the dodgy SU team!!!

Finally on Friday I met with Simon Wright to devise a pro-forma for our current and upcoming community plans. It was a great opportunity to show how much we are doing both as a Union individually and also alongside the University to really attempt to unite students and residents and reduce problems in the community.

On Monday the National Student Survey went live, this in an opportunity for final year students to have “their say” on their experience of Higher Education and most importantly of Swansea University and their degree scheme. Last year we got around a 70 % feedback rating so we have a hard task ahead of us to take that rating up!!! This year weve gone with a kind of “on tour” theme- basically either having a stall in Fulton House where people can fill in the survey there and then on their laptops and then have the opportunity to rock out on guitar hero in front of literally tens of adoring fans!
Alternatively we are taking the tour to them – from department to department were going into lectures, talking to students leaving departments, gatecrashing revision sessions and interrupting hard work on facebook!

On Tuesday the snow shut the United Kingdom down so I was forced to take the day off! It was a good opportunity to hang with the housemates and particularly because it was Adrians birthday – so we made sure we had a “few” drinks to celebrate.
We had been planning on going to Cardiff to meet with Education AM – Jane Hutt, sadly our delegation – and a number of the NEC were unable to make it. However I think those that did manage to did us proud!

On Wednesday we held a Higher education review session with members of NUS Wales NEC and delegates from the Assembly’s review group. It was a great opportunity for a number of students from Swansea, Swansea Met (and even a very dedicated President from Aber!) to really put their points across regarding their experience of Higher Education. Everything from funding to freshers week was discussed and I hope that their thoughts will be taken strongly on board by the review group.
I think the key thing was no-one wanted fees to increase and wanted a more sensible funding and bursary system. But alongside this they wanted the current system to be sincerely looked at, in that there are major discretions and generalisations within the current system. For example if you are a student from a separated parent base, you get your funding based purely on the amount that the parent you live with earns.
Now whilst this is sensible in principle in some cases students with parents who are still married are potentially severely left out. A student might only live with one parent but is still supported financially by the other – yet another students whose parents are married gets less because jointly his or her parents earn above the threshold, yet they cannot afford to support him or her as much. Is this fair? The general feeling was that the system was too black and white and did not account for the considerable grey area in students financial situations.

On Thursday and Friday I met with a number of committees and finalised the changes to the officer titles and election schedule by meeting with University representatives.

Friday night was by far the highlight of my week though! I returned to campus at around midnight just as it began to snow. Then Luke Young, Alison Pritchard and Adam Bruce Smith drifted in to the offices for a cup of tea before we made our way out to do the SSHH campaign. Impressively the lights were actually broken in Singleton Park, but the full moon reflecting on the snow drift gave an odd brightness to the evening. It was another good campaign with some awesome students out and some good banter – it’s a bad precedent that’s been set now though students literally expect our little luminous brigade with our mass of lollipops!

On Monday Andy held the annual SU society refreshers fayre, another great opportunity for students to get involved in things that interest them and make new friends.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to compile some further research that we had previously done with students regarding campus development. Myself and a couple of the exec had gone out and asked a few students regarding their perceptions of the library and how they would like it to be better. We showed students pictures of other Universities buildings and what they liked and didn’t. My plan is to roll this out across a variety of different areas alongside the campus development working group.
I took this information to the student experience working group and soon found myself tasked with a variety of things! I certainly didn’t think that it was a small job representing 13,000 students on a development like this – but boy is it a big job – however I’m certainly getting the most out of my research experience from my degree!

That night we had our first exec meeting back of the term – interesting would be an understatement. Following the decision of the executive and student body (SGM) we took forward the name change from Treasurer to Societies and services officer. However there was a split on the board and thus the decision came back to the executive – who were less than impressed. The key argument is based around whether the name change puts the Union at significant financial risk, i.e. that by changing the name you would get candidates running for the post with no administrative or financial experience or interest.

I personally disagree with this argument – in my opinion the name change encourages greater interest in the position. The role is focused around supporting and advising societies and also ensuring that our services are remaining linked to our mission i.e. ensuring they support the social and welfare opportunities for our members.

All sabbaticals are responsible for the financial and legal aspects of the Union as elected trustees. However the Treasurer has always had a day to day link to the finance department and financial roles – i.e. invoices, society expenditure etc. This is obviously an important role – however all sabbaticals are allowed to and expected to sign the appropriate expenditure. By pinpointing one officer to be more financially focused I believe you encourage the officer officers to delegate their responsibility. Having sat on executive committees where the financial status of the Union has been challenged, I have seen the unfair attacks launched solely at the Treasurer – when all sabbaticals are responsible.

No candidate for the position requires prior experience of finances, accounting or financial management this is offered by the excellent finance department. What they do need is a passion for students, a willingness to work hard on the monotonous paper based side of the job and most importantly respect and uphold their position as trustee of the Union charity.

As you can imagine the exec were less than happy and unfortunately only Andy was able to attend therefore Andy was left to take the brunt of it. I hope that we can come to an agreement which ensures Union accessibility, viability and security.

You may have noticed in this weeks waterfront there is a suggestion that I don’t take the role of sabbatical officer seriously due to my all student email last week advertising it to students as a “Gap year in Swansea”, whilst I think the article does justice to both sides I feel it is important to put my view up here.

The email makes it quite clear that there are serious aspects to the job - Be a trustee over nearly £4 million, The chance to represent 12,000 students. But it does it in a way and in language that is accessible to every student – in language that will make them think about it, look deeper and hopefully engage more with the process regardless of whether they intend to run for the job or not.

I understand the queries regarding the style and obviously the use of the word “gap year”. The aspects of the gap year are in fact to the relation of looking at the job as a years opportunity to do something beyond the normal and to make a difference In everything that you do. When a student goes to a village in Kampala in the Uganda to build a school, or to care for patients in a hospital is that normal? Do they make a difference?

Of course they do! But is it a long term fix – no, will their work, service and care live on – of course it will. In everything they do and in everything we do here in this job we aim to leave a legacy not just for the Union but for the students – I want students to walk away from this Union remembering the Union and how good it was for them – not me – I’m not here to glorify the role of president, I’ m here to represent, to encourage and to change.

On Tuesday I made my way into town to meet with the Council and community stakeholders regarding community relations within the city. It was extremely interesting but the most interesting part was the opportunity to network with a variety of local residents and representatives of local resident groups and community programs. At current Simon Darvill and I are working on a plan to hold a “community awards night” on campus giving awards to a variety of groups from best landlord to friendliest neighbour.

That afternoon I met with Shona, Stuart and Russ to discuss ways forward regarding the new election schedule. These are the rules and regulations that govern the candidates and election process in general. The elections working group looked at the current schedule and made a variety of recommendations from formalising an NUS representative in attendance at the process and also rules around e-campaigning which was previously banned.
Whilst we made some changes others were deemed unworkable – whilst I was a little disappointed I agreed with the final decision and just hope that future elections working groups will review and encourage further processes.

Wednesday evening I was asked to attend a disappointing meeting, one of our societies had called a motion of no-confidence in one of their executive. Sadly the process was dragged out – not helpful in a situation which is extremely upsetting and demeaning for some people. Finally we reached the motion which I was asked to chair – I feel that both members were able to get their point across its just a shame that it had to come to this.

The next morning we met to pass the resolutions regarding officer title changes and the elections schedule. Despite the flare up and passionate objections from both sabbaticals and executive I appreciate the fact that we managed to come to a decision which I believe the Union will appreciate long term, and a decision that regardless of each individuals opinion we were able to accept and move on to the important work we were elected to do.

Thursday was also our nominations opening date – the big day had finally come!!! From 12.00 numerous people popped into the General office to grab their forms and begin their journey along the campaign trail!!!

In the afternoon I went along with Richard Lancaster and a number of students to meet with marketing and discuss the new prospectus. It was a great opportunity to be a part of something that really makes a huge impact on prospective students. It was good to be of use as well in the area and have a positive impact on the layout and design of the prospectus.

Later that afternoon I met with the legendary Rhys Dart –regional development officer from NUS Wales. It was nice to get off site and have a chat through the last six months and things I still want to work on and achieve. Development officers are just another amazing value for money aspect of NUS – without many of the staff in NUS but particularly Rhys, I would have been stumped on numerous issues and also are excellent resources and sounding boards.

My week ended with a mountain of paperwork to work through but then an AWESOME night at the silent disco on Saturday. A friend of mine came up from back home and was a little sceptical but with two channels and two awesome DJ’s it was a rave up!!!!