a M.A.D election period sweetened with honey…..

Hello my loyal welfaries….

its has been quite a month, as a write this you find us in the middle of the our mind awareness campaign M.A.D. This is an action packed, fun filled set of activities across three days which are all about reducing the stigma and myths that surround mental health as well as promoting how we can improve our mental health, after all we all have a mental health it is just that some people’s health is better than others. There are debates, films, plays, workshops massages and food galore – make sure you check out the next two days worth of events if you get chance.

In other news it probably won’t have escaped your attention that the elections have just taken place. I would like to thank all campaign teams for their cardboard homage to me – it was very touching, I love you all!

Finally this week a lot of my time has been spent interviewing people, firstly i have been interviewing for new student staff on the mighty reception – i was very impressed i think the Guild will be on top form next year. Secondly i have been interviewing for the honey pot- the honey pot is a pot of money paid for through alumni donations that students can apply to for help with their summer interships and other prjects that relate to their academci or personal development and future carreer aspirations.

I have seen some amazing projects with students making a big difference to the areas they get invovled with – i wish them all the best in their upcoming activities.

That’s about it for now, check back soon!

a busy term so far…

Hi all,

 

so it has been a busy term so far, whilst we continue to lobby hard at the Guild about the cuts to higher education this term has been a little less crazy then last term and so given the team the opportunity to crack on with some of our other plans for the year. In the next week or so I will put up my Guild Council report which will outline what I have been up to. However I thought with the upcoming officer elections it would be an appropriate time to blog about where I am up to with my manifesto pledges on which I got elected.

Greater support for international students – My original intention was to work more with post graduate support, however their were a number is issues that were more immediate challenges for International students and so my attention has been focused hear. I have delivered presentations to international students on how to understand and avoid plagiarism as this demographic seems to be the highest proportion of students who are found to plagiarise.  Last term I ran Know Your World, our multi-cultural festival and was involved in the mentor international Xmas party. I also helped organise a range of events for international students over Xmas. I helped promote Chinese new year, I collated the Guild response to the UKBA consultation on international student visa’s and am in the process of feeding into the handbook for next year.

Mental Health Awareness – I am working with the disabled students officer and DAMSA to put on M.A.D (mind awareness days) on the 23/24th March. This is going to consist of teaming up with other groups to tackle questions and stigmas that relate to mental health as well as promoting how people can look after their own mental health. Promo is on it’s way soon so keep your eyes peeled.

Student support – I have fed into the new University diaries that were given to all new students this year – this includes a student support section that contains all the essential information students need. In addition I helped to develop the YOUR SUPPORT booklets that can be found in the Guild and on the Guild website. I have also fed in my thoughts on the development of support services on the Guild website into the IT strategy, this includes better navigation, online submission of questions – hopefully this will come to fruition soon.

Student Safety – I helped to implement Selly Watch. This will soon be getting expanded to robbery and I will be running a summer alcohol awareness campaign. I gained further investment for the Nightbus from the University which will let me expand the service more when it gets a relaunch in the near future.

Student Funding – for the most part my work in this area has been in feeding into the new strategic plan for 2011-2014. Value for money and student support are both themes that run through the new plan and I will certainly be starting work that I hope to pass onto my successor on things like scholarships and grants. Bursaries and emergency funding.  I have worked with both the ARC and the Mentor scheme to build in financial support into their services. This can be both proactive with budget advice, tips and help with creating a budget planner and reactive in helping students deal with debt and poor money management issues. The mentor scheme will also be running a finance campaign this term.

 

Hope this has proved interesting!

Johnny

An international Christmas!

Hi all,

apologies yet again, the festive season caught up with me and then blogging slipped my mind when I found myself in the middle of the Tunisian civil war and had to get evacuated…. a rather elaborate excuse for my lack of blogs – all true but still naughty I know. I will endeavour to be best blogger from here on out;

so one of my big campaigns that has been on my manifesto this year is to better engage with International students. We have research that indicates that International students only really use the Guild for our support services and not for the more fun, social and developmental aspects of the Guild. I have been working hard to address this, so here is a run down of what I have been upto.

• Know Your World – we organised and ran the three day multi-cultural festival back in November to celebrate the breadth of cultural diversity and beliefs on campus. We had some amazing events put on by our own students and really pushed the boat out, unfortunately numbers weren’t as high as was hoped , especially as it was right in the middle of all the stuff on fees but a really good base off which to build in the future.

 

• Strategic Review of Global Engagement – I am sat on a University Working Group called Global Engagement, this is examining why in the last few years the numbers of international students has been falling at our university and exploring what other Russel Group Universities have been doing to attract the brightest and best students from around the world. The group aims to come up with a range of initiatives to increase our engagement in international markets in terms of recruitment and academic collaberation.

 

• Student Mentor International Xmas Party – once again this year the Mentors hosted their annual Christmas Party for international students in the Pritchatts Park social centre, many international students cannot afford or chose not to go home for the holidays, however this can be a lonely time when everyone else leaves so we wanted to try and help. We put on a big party with food and festive music for all international students, this gives them the opportunity to make new friends and build up a social network over the holidays. Despite the masses of snow that were falling at the time we still had over 60 students attend!

 

• In addition to the Christmas Party, this year I arranged a meeting with ISAS (international student advisory service) and Kara Cooper the Methodist Chaplain to see what else we could do for International students over the festive period. The chaplaincy were fantastic in agreeing to host and run the events as the rest of us were all busy stuffing ourselves with Turkey and Chocolate. We held mince pie and coffee afternoons, pizza and games afternoon, movie night and a day out at the Lickey Hills. The numbers weren’t massive but I beleive we provided a vital human element for those two long cold weeks and with a little more planning in the future this is something I would like to see grow and grow.

 

• The Guild has worked closely with the University to provide a response to the consultation by the UK Border Agency on working restirctions for international students, the Guild beleives the new proposals are overwhelmingly harsh for students and their families, they are unworkable and unpracticable and discriminate signigicantly against International Students. We will now await the result of the consultation before joining with NUS to campaign against these changes should we need to.

 

• Chinese New Year is fast approaching – so happy new year to all of our Chinese students, we are about to enter the year of the Rabbit which is my year so fingers crossed for winning the lottery! I am going to be working with ISAS and the new International Officer, Hadi to see what we can do for this event so watch this space.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for things we can be doing to support International students more then let me know.

Check back soon for a bigger update on everything else I have been up to.

it’s been a while…

Hello everyone,

firstly can I apologise for the length of time since my last blog. Things have been really busy in the Guild, I know it is not an excuse but is my reason for being so rubbish! I promise to try much harder in the future.

For this blog I am going to post my Guild Council report from about 10 days ago, this gives you a whistle stop tour of the types of things I have been upto this term. However in addition I will be doing a few more blogs in the coming days about some of the big projects I have been working on and my plans for the next few weeks until the end of term.

If you want to know some of my longer term plans then take a look at my current projects page.

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Guild Council Report – Semester 1 2010/2011

Hi Guild Council, I hope you are all well and welcome to the new look Guild Council – as a member of the Officer team last year I was part of the team that reviewed and now implemented the new democratic structures. I am so proud to have seen some of our most contested elections ever and congratulations for both winning and now representing your constituents.

Below is a run down of my key activities and events so far this year:

• Student Mentor Scheme – last year I was tasked with reviewing the student mentor scheme to see how we can make the scheme as effective as possible. As a result I have spent a lot of time over the summer helping train our new mentors and get the new delivery model up and running including the new mentor welfare office on the Vale.

 

• As part of the review of the Advice and Representation Centre (ARC) we redefined the role of the volunteers and how the Guild would support them, therefore I have also been involved in the recruitment and training of these volunteers.

 

• Nightbus – Since its development last year I have been working hard to secure funding for its future as well as improve and expand the service we offer. We hope to fully re-launch the Nightbus model in January with new branding and better publicity. In the meantime we have expanded the service to include more busses on our existing nights and two additional services from Hurst St on a Thursday and the Guild on a Saturday.

 

• I have been busy organising our Multi-Cultural Event ‘Know Your World’ – this involves societies, academics, charities and external organisations in a three day celebration of the culture and Diversity that we have on our campus – running from Nov 22^nd-24^th we hope to engage international students with what we do in the Guild and raise awareness of the diversity on our campus and global issues for our home students.

 

• As you would expect, the Browne Review and the Comprehensive Spending Review have taken up a lot of time for the Sabbatical Officers and I think this is absolutely correct. I stand side by side with both Rob and Dora in making this a priority for us as a Guild. As such I am currently in the process of developing a strategy for how student funding and debt issues (something that I put onto my manifesto) can compliment the work we are doing on fighting these savage cuts and ill-placed fee increases.

 

• I am in the process of increasing the number of blood drives that we offer for our students on campus – as one of my key manifesto pledges last year demand has constantly outstripped the resources we have. We are therefore currently assessing our options including holding drives at the vale. I will be holding site visits with the NBS in the next couple of weeks.

 

• I have begun training on how to manage diversity within the workplace – this training programme should help me to review how we address Equality and Diversity issues within the Guild and what we can do better. This will impact on both the role for the student Equality and Diversity Committee and the work with do with the trustee board.

 

• As Vice President Welfare it is my job to co-ordinate representation for students with Academic appeals, misconduct cases etc We have had two rounds of appeals and have represented approx 25 students as a team. In addition I have also sat on the University Misconduct Committee for 5 cases.

 

• In addition I have also been lobbying the University to change its policies in relation to dealing with Plagiarism. This involves amendments to the code of practice and greater support for international students. As such I have given induction presentations to hundreds on international students.

 

• I have also been liaising with the University to change the rules regarding mitigations, these include been able to declare you are not fit to sit examinations before they happen, have clearer processes for submitting mitigations and the standardisation of deadlines.

 

• I have supported our Disabled Students Officer with re-launching DAMSA – the disability and mental health association and we have begun to discuss plans for Mental Health Awareness week in Semester 2.

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As always please let me know if you have any questions

Johnny

the fun begins…

Hello everyone,

apologies for such a delay in blogging since last time. I took the opportunity at the end of August to have a holiday (exciting stuff I know!) Following on from this I spent the best part of a weeek down in London on a leadership development course called frontrunner. This was one of the best things I have done and I really think it is going to help me be more effective as your VPW this year.

Following on from this I spent some time training the new mentor team leaders with the rest of the team (they are all awesome and I know it is going to be an amazing year).

Since then I had a week back in the office, catching up on 3 weeks out of office (hundereds of emails to read :S) and preparing for welcome week. After being at work all weekend welcoming new students and working day and night this week to make sure all our students on freshers fest of protecting their welfare I am feeling a tad tired.

Therefore I am going to leave this blog as that for now – but check back next week when I will have had a bit more sleep and I will go into lots more detail about all the amazing things that have been going on!

Johnny x