What are our Sabbs doing for us?
With Semester 1 now over, I asked all the Sabbatical Officers that were elected into their positions last year: what have they done to meet their manifesto pledges? Below is a sample of some of their pledges and what they’ve done to meet them.
Steve Topazio -Â President
Continue the Union’s drive to be inclusive to all students
As with the nature of this pledge it is ongoing, our latest stats show that we have more students involved in the Union this year that last year, when we complete the elections and annual survey we will know the range of students and their backgrounds that have been involved.
Restructure the management of the Union. In particular Sport needs a senior manager which combined with increased collaboration with University Sport and Rec will ensure the AU continues to grow and prosper
UPSU has now employed Graeme Hope as a full time Sports Development Officer. We have appointed a new CEO who will join us in March which will be when the new structure will be finalised, which will give more emphasis onto Representation.
Ensure all of our diverse range of students is represented; especially distance learners, postgraduates, international and part-time students
Through the new Course Rep victory site we are able to communicate directly with all students, also we now have an elected international and postgraduate student, unfortunately we don’t currently have a part time students officer. We have now reformed the election process so that the Student Officers are elected as part of the main Sabbatical Election which will hopefully increase those students who are running.
Restructure the democracy of the Union, including giving more power to individual execs allowing them to make decisions which affect their individual areas
Sabbatical Executive and Student Council have been reformed so that individual Execs make the decisions and only have to inform Student Council of their actions rather than be held to account as they are held to account by individual execs! Sabbatical Executive have not vetoed any decisions made by execs this year, instead we are working closely with them to ensure a good student experience.
Introduce termly Union General Meetings whereby the entire student body gets to vote on the direction of the Union
I am currently waiting on the go ahead from our Solicitors for us to have our first general meeting, this is so that we can formally adopt our new Memorandum of Articles and Association, it was unfortunately pointless to hold the first general meeting without the go ahead from the Solicitors.
Continue the fight I started this year for longer library opening hours during exams and campaign against lifting of the cap on tuition fees
I have been campaigning informally through the PVC John Turner on extending the library opening; however my colleague Oliver Styles has been formally campaigning for this through the Course Rep Meetings with the Directorate and also through University Learning and teaching committee. On the lifting of the cap on tuition fees myself and my colleagues have been lobbying our local MP and also liaising with the NUS. On a local level we have been in constant contact with the Vice Chancellor on possible effects in Portsmouth and I will have more information after the general election when the University is informed of any new legislation.
Oliver Styles -Â Vice President Education and Representation
Course Reps has been a great experience for me so far, I have had the chance to interact with many different students and understand the issues students find across the whole university which I would have never imagined before. Training at the beginning of the year was a great success, as we trained over two hundred new course reps. This has been a good year on the whole as we have been able to maintain the success from previous years, but at the same time we have been able to strive forward for greater recognition within the university and student union to ensure a bright future for academic representation. I now believe that representation and especially academic representation should be at the forefront of every Student’s Union.
Library Opening Hours. After positive early negotiations, it was agreed that the IT suite in the library could be open for extended hours during peak times of the year. From this I have been in contact with Information Services (IS) regarding this and they inform me that a trial period will take place later on this year, after early negotiations between IS and the library broke down, on who would fund the extension period. Although this is not the quick and easy outcome that I had wanted, we are moving forward. Persistence is the key on this one.
Fee Fighters Campaign as a lot of you will be aware; the potential rise in tuition fees is plaguing Universities and Student Unions up and down the country. The government has announced 600 million pound cuts across higher education, which will put the squeeze on university vice chancellors across England. This in turn will see the rise in tuition fees, so that Universities can balance their books. We have decided to run a campaign to ensure that all students and also the local community are aware of the potential danger to society that this rise in tuition fees would cause. We are also getting as many students registered to vote as possible.
Beth Shephard -Â Vice President Welfare and Volunteering
Introduce a Stress Management campaign throughout exam periods to help students learn ways to relieve stress and how to stay healthy, together with many other campaigns during the year such as Sexual Health, Environmental Week and Breast Cancer Awareness
I have introduced the stress management campaign (called Stressless) for a week during each exam periods to help students with exam and coursework stress. Environmental week and sexual health week are set to go ahead in the next few months. From looking at the Annual Survey results last year students were most concerned with financial issues, because of this instead of running a breast cancer awareness week I am running a money advice week.
Increase awareness and diversity of RAG and VIP and make RAG week and Student Volunteering Week even bigger and better so that they involve and help more students and people in the community and raise even more money!
At the start of the year VIP launched its volunteering is campaign to try to improve the image of volunteering and to make people aware of what we do and how to get involved. We will also be running a student volunteering week and hope to raise the publicity of this. RAG are also planning a great new event which I can see increasing not only our members but the awareness or RAG and what they do. At present we look set to beat the amount of money raised last year.
Promote services available from the University concerning finance, counselling and academic support so that all students are aware of these
I have been working with all of the above university services to see where we can work on student issues together, I also spent time with each of the above at the start of the year so that I knew what they did and they help they can provide so that I could pass this on to students to the best of my ability.
Introduce a ‘buddy’ system to help support students who are new to University life
Pompey Rangers was set up this year to help students who were new to University life. I had trained volunteers out at as many club nights as possible to help students, hand out taxi numbers, the Samaritans number, condoms and spikeys (devices to stop drinks getting spiked). This appeared to work really well and hope it will now be an annual fixture in UPSU’s calendar.
Introduce training for all volunteers
All Pompey Ranger volunteers received training however I have not managed to do this for all volunteers so far. I would like to do more training and hope to begin this in February.
Create a new volunteer award system for RAG and VIP so that volunteers get the recognition they deserve.
A new system has been discussed and due to the development to include all volunteers in the Union it has taken longer than expected to be able to develop and then produce this. I am hoping that the planning and development can be completed this year so that the award system can be rolled out throughout the Union next year.
Aakash Naik -Â Vice President Societies
Increase participation
The number of societies has increased dramatically this year, from over 50 last year to just under 90 at present. The number of societies looks set to increase before the end of this academic year. Overall membership has also risen with the current membership already surpassing that of the end of the last academic year total. This year saw the introduction of the first ever societies brochure, to better market societies to students. This year also saw the introduction of a societies coordinator giving in order to give societies some focus. Although academic societies have seen healthy growth, this is where the new societies should be coming from. Presentations to departments without academic societies are planned before the end of the academic year.
Create structure and support
The societies handbook is a project Declan Coyle (societies Coordinator) and myself have been working on since October. The vision is to create a document that will allow those running a society to run them better, and those who are members of a society to hold those in charge to account. This project looks set for completion by the end of January/early February. I’ve made it a point to attend society budget meetings, ensuring that societies are happy with the grant they receive and are reassured that if they have problems that finance office will welcome them. The time away from my desk working on projects or attending meetings meant that people were coming into the office and not finding Declan or myself. Societies now have daily ‘surgery hours’ where students are guaranteed to find someone to assist them.
Introduce workshops and increase the number of meetings
Media training was offered to societies, but there was insufficient interest. Societies are very diverse, and some individuals have expressed their frustration of societies council, which they don’t see as relevant to them. I have decided to create skills sharing sessions for societies; they will be split according to their type (common interest, academic, physical activities, cultural, political and faith) respectfully. The plan is for societies with common ground to come together and share problems and solutions. This will offer support to societies ahead of their committee elections. Ahead of society committee elections, training or information days are also planned to give information to prospective candidates to advise them of their likely responsibilities and workload.
Improve society interaction
This year the societies exec expanded to include a new trips officer and events officer positions. A societies trip to Paris is planned for late March and the events officer has been working on ‘Friday Night Live’ for societies to offer societies a regular night in which so celebrate their diversity together. Having sat on last year’s carnival committee, I felt disempowered and disconnected from an event I was supposed to have a stake in. I have decided to start the planning for carnival in late January and to ensure a committee is created whose ideas will be listened to. Last year’s activities awards dinner also was a poor show. I have decided to create a committee for this event in the hope that student involvement will lead to an event that more people will want to attend. The hope is that these new committees will mean an event run by students for students.
Increase media coverage for societies
This has been the most frustrating objective. And one I have struggled to achieve thus far. This year’s societies media officer was elected and soon after I sat down with them to set out their key performance indicators. Although a regular societies radio show now exists, Pugwash News is a vital tool for communicating to our students. Last year I had spoken with the Newspaper Editor and VP- Comms to create a regular feature much like ‘Purple Wednesday’. Societies do get into Pugwash, but with no distinct feature or ‘furniture’ it’s hard for students to recognise societies as a collective group. I’m prepared to get this resolved before the end of my term.
Learn from the success of sport
This is not strictly a tangible manifesto aim, however I wanted to demonstrate that sports and societies should not be in conflict. Societies have a lot of catching up to do. The culture of the athletic union in to be admired, students know what they get up to and their activities are celebrated and promoted. Societies can get to this level. Having worked in the same officer as Graeme Hope (Sports Coordinator) and Elaina (VP – Sport). I have been able to understand aspects of their success. The idea is not to mimic the activities of sport, but to apply and adapt what they do to societies and no t to be afraid to experiment.
Elaina Sperring -Â Vice President Sport
Push for the employment of a sports senior manager within the SU
I was extremely fortunate that the interim chief exec shared the same view as me and therefore this was action at the very beginning of my term of office. It has really changed the dynamics of the activities office and my task now is to ensure that the two staff and myself all understand each other’s roles ensuring optimum success and development of the AU.
Introduce a formal committee take-over procedure
This is something for me to start looking at this semester and a programme will be set up in time for the club’s annual AGMs. It is refreshing to know that this is something that the students are seeking and looking forward to (results from current AU questionnaire which is being circulated).
Make President’s Day more informative within a smaller amount of time
President’s day was on the 25/09/09 and according to the feedback taken on the day (filled out by all who attended) was a great success. From this year’s president day we have learnt that the parallel sessions were a great success which enabled us to limit the day to just the Friday, unlike last year where it was Thursday and Friday. From the feedback I have gained I am intending on putting together an ideas pack for my successor so they can further improve the day.
Make club budgets available for all to see so that the whole AU can see how the AU budget is divided amongst the clubs
This is something that has been extremely difficult to do due to the nature of the AU budget this year. I have been as transparent as possible i.e. when clubs have asked about other clubs finances they have been given correct information. However, there has been something good that has come from all the problems the AU finances have faced this year, it has been highlighted that there are some disparities across the clubs which we are currently looking at in preparation for the new budget.
Build on already successful showcase days i.e. Varsity and Navy
I visited Wide Lane (Southampton University) in November and am awaiting a finalised fixtures timetable for Varsity which is on the 28th Feb. We are going to be running a organised UPSU after party unlike last year and the list of sport participating is far greater than last year meaning a higher participation rate from students! We are waiting for a confirmed date for Navy day.
Enhance the current relationship with the University in an attempt to make sport more of a focus and improve the sports offer available
I have raised the subject of sports facilities at both SAGAs this year and progression is slow but at least the subject is being raised! Because of this aim I have looked at the current sports boards / groups of which I am part of and consequently found many flaws in them. Therefore these have now been disbanded and I have written a proposal for two new groups which is waiting for Directorate approval. This was always going to be one of the toughest aims, however I feel that it has been my most successful so far as directorate and members of SAGA are more aware through my weekly fixtures and results emails about what the AU is getting up to and therefore are far more willing to discuss concerns surrounding sport at a high level.
Jacob Leverett -Â VP Communications
Use my contacts within local and national media to spread our successes
In the past 6 months we have had press coverage in several local outlets, BBC radio and web. The union is also developing a press strategy and website to develop our relationship with the media.
More support for our volunteers
More staff, more equipment and more space will allow greater freedom and flexibility for our students. The Union is still assessing how to best support ‘Media’ as a whole and to establish what support is actually required.
Better space for our media to work more closely together
Third space has been delayed but will offer an area for our media to work up in a joined up manner.
A new member of staff to push our media forward
The employment of a Web and Digital Marketing Coordinator has meant that the VP Comms can focus on projects that are not the constant maintaining the website. Re-evaluation of the Media Exec and its strengthening will also allow for a greater self determination of Media.
The use of our media to hold your Union to account more
For the first time in memory the President has been held to account live on air during the year. Additions to the agenda of Media Exec have meant that Sabbatical intervention with content has been put under greater control.
UPSU media giving societies similar coverage to sports
Working with Aakash to develop a media training programme for societies, there has been a centre spread of Pugwash News on societies. Encouraging societies to submit content with the appointment of two Societies Liaisons dealing with content for the printed publications.
