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Helen's Blog
President

The blog to keep you in touch with what Helen's doing to make your University better place! 


08 December 2009
Blog time!

Hi guys haven’t blogged in a while but I’ve just been busy busy with stuff to do!
So I thought I would publish my report from Union Council, council was a big success in this meeting with the union hitting quoracy (enough people to pass motions).

President report for Annual General meeting

• Attended summer training in London and Bristol in July/august
• Went to directorate meetings since day 1!!
• Introductory meetings with many staff members
• Attended graduations on stage

Update on Feedback and the national student survey campaign

• In the process of getting feedback agents
• Glamlife putting up promo of information on feedback
• Talked to staff version of Glamlife and they are putting something up about feedback
• Talked at introductory meetings to freshers
• Talked at the SVR interviews about feedback
• Had meeting with CELT to try and put on a feedback session with students and staff
• Looking to integrate best practice in feedback
• Put together a feedback pack for students
• Ordered post cards and stickers
• Posters have been printed
• Met with directorate to see what they will be doing about poor feedback
• Been in contact with NUS and using the questionnaire they sent to ask students what forms of feedback they like

Update on increasing student participation at union council: what was done

• Posters about union council and AGM up in all campuses
• Room booked for all union councils- B12
• £1 off any drink at the union after attending AGM and union council
• Facebook group increased from 40 members to 389 and changes have been made to the group
• Union council pack for students have been made available
• Attended freshers fair and signed up 80 people for council

General progress

• In the process of designing a suggestion box with the rest of the sabbaticals placed in 3 campuses
• Raised importance of better lighting behind the atrium escape bar
• Meeting so SU can get involved with retention
• Attended the opening of the Elaine Morgan building and the marquee in Glyntaff
• meeting to discuss dyslexia solutions Cardiff with Jenny Barber- update to be given at council
• Raising awareness for breast cancer was successful
• Going through process of advertising for 3 non-sabbatical positions

• International
• Women
• LGBT

Incident on campus

Interviewed by BBC Wales, ITV Wales, south Wales echo, Red dragon, Sky news, Media Wales, to destitute information about 1st incident on campus alongside sabbatical officers.

Attended the halls questions with the Vice Chancellor and did 3 rounds of speeches with Matt Higgins.

Helped to distribute flyers and information to students about first incident.

Before the second incident was withdrawn the process of sending out messages to the students was repeated.

Walking bus was successful
Shuttle bus has been moved to Wednesday, Friday and Saturdays.

Some of the things I have done since Council:

• Got involved in many university meetings highlighting the need for a social learning space
• Designed a YOU SAID:WE DID poster which is up in Beacons bar
• Made links with the Royal Welsh college of music and Drama and talked about having joint events, which was discussed with the President of the college
• Been answering students questions on a daily basis via my work email and facebook
• Been attending student disciplinary hearings
• Carried out a questionnaire day on the importance of assignment feedback with the sabbaticals, feedback agents and Gandolf Glam at all campuses
• Read the names of those who dies in the 1st world war at the remembrance day ceremony (11th November)
• Got involved in the Vice chancellor presentations as a representative of the students asking panel members questions on such things as bringing in a national bursary scheme and possibility of having our tuition fees dramatically rising
• Went to the Welsh Assembly building the Senedd with members of NUS and Matt Higgins last week to note the importance of fairer bursary schemes
• Met up with some SVR’s to have catch up sessions, will be attending the SVR social and the course rep social this week
• Been writing articles for the T.A.G. newspaper
• Had a visit from Jon the President of Aberystwyth Union to discuss course reps and how they are great for feeding issues to the university
• Attending NUS winter council in Newport University (Caerleon)
• Went a bit competitive with the cheerleader tombola last week and ended up spending 6 tickets on trying to get a prize, but I didn’t mind because it was going to a good cause
• Went to Swansea with Higgins and some fab students campaigning against the 5% funding cut that universities will get next year and the impact it could have on students
• Put up a poll on the SU website (www.glamsu.com) about library opening hours
 

I hope everyone has a great Christmas..Happy New Year see you in the Spring term!
 

11th August 2009

Hello all

Its my third blog and I'm going to tell you what I've been up to recently, well, me and Higgins went to Bristol from the 28th- 31st July for training on Active political leadership with the National Union of Students or NUS. It was totally awesome and I made some cracking mates there too from other universities, learning about politics in a non boring way and still have some time to go out in the night or should I say morning lol. After Bristol me and Kath went to London (Queen Mary's university) from the 4th-7th August looking at action through advocacy! Training time is nearly over for me but the rest of sabs are going off to places such as London and Keele.

At the moment I'm planning and preparing for the feedback campiagn i'm fronting with the university, next term the union is going to have more presence on campus so get ready for people out doing surveys and wearing some funky stuff. Feedback is going to be the main campiagn I do so please keep your eye out for us and support us as it will directly impact on your learning, its about time that the union gets back into action!

So that's it for now, but i'll keep you posted!

Helen x


 

21st July 2009

Hi the last time I did my blog I mentioned that the sabbatical team had been involved in looking at charities and such. The news this week is that the union and Bernardo’s charity are working together to try and get a clothes bin so that students can put their old clothes in and then Bernardo’s can pick it up on a monthly basis. The Uni has been really good about the whole thing and its looking good so far, just waiting for the manager of Bernardo’s to get her hands on a big wheeley bin so students can do their bit for charity!

I’m communicating!

To work in partnership with the university, I’ve decided to get myself a little notice board outside my office (B018) which highlights the services the uni provides for its students such as careers service. So when you are passing check out my notice board and see what’s happening around the uni!






9th July 2009
Charity and Library business

So it’s the first week on the job and things have been pretty busy even though there are not many students around, there are still things to do and prepare for September.

On Thursday myself, Brooksy and Bob our photographer and web designer went down to Pontypridd to donate some lost property to Tenovus charity shop to try and help out in our community and give something back. It was really nice speaking to the ladies in the shop and they thanked us for getting involved in the community. Our next stop was to Barnardos, in the morning I had spoken to the manager of Barnardos to ask her if she had a clothes recycling bin and whether or not she could donate it so we could put it by halls so students can donate their clothes.  The good news is that she did have a bin and that she was glad that we were taking an interest; also she is mentioning the union on GTFM as well!  At the moment we are waiting for permission from the university to see if that’s possible. If not I’m still going to get the bin and place it somewhere in the union, charity is important!


Helen & Brooksie at Tenovus Charity shop.


Helen at Dr Banardos


Helen and Brooksie... victory!


My next bit of news is that I had a meeting with the head of the LRC and the interesting news is that there are to be a few changes in opening hours.  The hours for each of the campuses are as followed starting in September 09.

Treforest

To open on Saturdays until 8pm instead of 5pm (self service provision)
To  open on sundays until 8pm instead of 6pm (self service provision)
To open on weekdays until 10pm instead of 11.45 pm (this was because no one was using it even during exmas times and such)


Glyntaf
   
To open on weekdays until 10pm instead of 9pm (Monday-Thursday) and 6.30pm (fri)
The benefits of these changes are:

To provide the same opening hours  at Glyntaf and Treforest during weekdays
To provide additional opening hours at weekends at Treforest
Increasing hours during the really important times like near exams and re-sits
Opening in the summer vacation to support police sciences courses

Well that’s the main news for this week, I’ll be doing my blogs every Friday so you can catch up on the gossip. 




Comments and questions?
Drop Helen an email:
supres@glam.ac.uk