MINUTES. meeting. In the process after meeting with the baking society. Exec Feedback about student charter Submitted to AUM for feedback

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1 MINUTES 1. Attendance: Michael Darlow (MD), Ceri Williams (PO), Aaron Lowman (AL), Randa Abdi (RA), Yousef Mohammed (YM), Ranjeet Singh Rathore (RR), Nikita Quartey (NQ) Mohamed Omar (MO), Kush Westwood (KW), George Hudson (GH), Ian Stone (IS), Ammaar Ikram (AI) Staff in Attendance: Craig Lithgow (CL), Pritika Dabla (PD) Apologies: Ali Milani No Apologies/Not signed in: Caroline Thompson, Elisabeth Mahase 2. Minutes of previous meeting- 5 th of October 2016 Passed indicatively Actions Who What Update RR RR to contact Sergio to access intramural programme Done AL, KW Compile a plan and budget for mental wellbeing campaign Done CL Craig to speak to Joe about website links for liberation officers When blogs are complete. MD Project plan for tackling lad culture to be compiled for next meeting Project plan to be circulated after the RA Compile a plan for comms and ensure that people are trained and briefed about gender pay gap bake sale meeting. In the process after meeting with the baking society. Exec Feedback about student charter Submitted to AUM for feedback 3. Matters Arising None 4. Update from Chairs and Liberation Officers RR: Intramural programme has been accessed and three teams are playing. AL: The mental wellbeing campaign has a wider plan. The budget has been seen by exec. On the 6th of December there is a wellbeing fair in the atrium. KW will be assisted by Michael due to Aaron s absence. ACTION: KW and AL to work on 2 nd phase of the mental wellbeing campaign. 1

2 CL: If Liberation blogs are completed then he will speak to coms with regards to links. ACTION: Liberation officers to get blogs prepared and ready for comms MD: Tackling lad culture project plan will be circulated after the meeting. RA: Randa has spoken to head of the baking society and given her a budget plan. She would be able to get the society involved. Randa is waiting for an update to go ahead with finalising a date for the bake sale. ACTION: RA to update about bake sale event date after talks with head of baking society. RR: Ranjeet mentioned that he integrated 11 societies for the Diwali event and that there were about 300 attendees. MD: The student charter has been circulated and Aaron is working on a launch. AL: Student charter is going to AUM if you have not had a chance to look at it and will be fully ratified there. MD: Talking of AUM we need 100 people to be there and it is at 1pm. Please bring along as many people as you can. 5. Motions a. Motion to approve updated bye-laws. The motion has been passed and no requirement to discuss. CL: The point of putting them in the meeting is to look at policy. Your role and responsibility is to take on board any motions passed and implement them, as well as understand what they resolve to do. You might disagree with policy put forward. You can revisit this but should be confident in the policy before it is passed. b. PG for PG CL: The college created VPs to represent that cohort. Candidates should come through that cohort. Mo is the exception. He is an incumbent and will be allowed to stand. MD: Next week in AUM there will be a motion to mandate the entire exec to run a campaign on drug awareness. ACTION: All to compile a plan for a campaign on drug awareness for the next meeting c. Motion of no confidence in Volunteer Chair. AL: We never really had a volunteer chair as there was no involvement in the role. There is a requirement of the position according to the bye laws to have a volunteer chair. Should we divide the role? 2

3 CL: My understanding was that the bye law changes included removing the Volunteer Chair. However, we will honour it for the continuing point of year as they were elected. The role doesn t exist. The person is no longer in the role and there should not be a drive through the bye laws for us to instigate a bye election. AL: I do not want a bye election. CL: There will not be one. The volunteering responsibility is under community and campaigns. d. Update the Zero Tolerance on Sexual Harassment policy ACTION: MD needs to work with Sports Fed chair, societies guild chair and their committees to develop policies on each one. e. Motion to join the national boycott of the NSS CL: NUS wanted to hold a national ballot on taking an action to boycott the NSS. There was a definite difference in opinion. Should this be voted as affirmative? MD: Ali decided to take the decision to Student Assembly. f. Motion for standing committees to report the same way as all other part time officers No questions g. Motion to oppose the increase in halls rent CL: The only thing I would like to say about this just purely from a point of view of consistency and debate at Student Assembly meetings. Obviously all of you are representatives. I was a little disappointed but the motion was valid and gave a clear steer to the officers to go and actively oppose the increase in rent. As an organisation it wasn t fantastic job as you were not able to provide the information to be able to effectively debate it at Student Assembly. The information should be given student assembly members in advance so they can be debate the motion. AL: This was tabled as an emergency Motion at Student Assembly. CL: I know but we need to hold ourselves in account as we have known for 12 months about the increase in rent. If you have got something to put to SA and need help from 3

4 staff then this is available. This is so the information is already available and SA members are confident to ask questions. 4. Update from Chairs and Liberation Officers Women s Officer: RA: Randa has been working on bake sale. There is an event coming up on Muslim women and their place in Britain which she will be involved in. International Officer: RR: He is working on Metro night for International students and events in reading week. He has been able to create significant interest and 174 attended the last time. Community Campaigns: AI: He is working on a demo and few campaigns, one of which is to tackle racism in conjunction with Ali Chahine. BME Officer: NQ has created a BME student forum and there is one on Monday. NQ is working Black History month for the next term. Disabled Officer: KW: She is looking at MCs policy and the problems with it. KW spoke to Joanna and she will now be sitting with the committee and looking at the direct impact on disabled students. She has been looking at abeyance policy with Ali Chahine. This is in terms of what support students get and when. KW met up with an Asperger group and spoke to the students who now want to set up an autistic society. ACTION: Organise a meeting with Mark to set up this society. KW has been meeting with DDS. She is also working on the wellbeing fair with Aaron, which has been planned. They are waiting to hear from external charities and what they are going to be doing. Part time and Mature Officer: Ian is the new part time and mature officer. IS met with Ali and what is feasible to do in the year. IS wants a regular drop in session for students for any issues going on. 4

5 Ian is looking at getting a separate money pot for mature students for their particular needs. With regards to funding for conferences, there is a funding provision available for some courses but he is unsure if this applicable to all courses. ACTION: Review funding for conferences and find out if this available for all students. Ian wants to organise more PG orientated social events ACTION: Plan an event before Christmas MD: Can you work with Ceri on the drop in sessions? Ian is happy to work with Ceri with regards to this. ACTION: Early Dec organise drop in sessions for students with Ceri. IS: The crèche is my big project. Ali has scoped out a person within the university who is amenable to the idea. ACTION: Meet with relevant contact to discuss the idea of a crèche. Ian is also involved with Free Education Demo as well. KW: She has given an update about the disabled toilet sign and it should be sorted. KW got back the design today for the one in Hamilton. Hopefully, this can be taken to estates and be given the OK. Environment officer: GH: Spoken to the woman involved with STEM, which is new building on campus. Along with that they will have a green space. As you are walking out to the main campus across to the 2 nd part of the campus across the road, it is the space to the right of the traffic lights that will be regenerated. They are keen to have the university, union and community involved. ACTION: Update on green space Green impact- GH had a meeting with Debbie and will set up new campaigns and questionnaire. Water project: All student halls have water meters fitted and can monitor how much is being utilised. This project will be a competition and the hall that can save the most water will be awarded a prize. The details are to be finalised. ACTION: Work on a campaign for the water project competition GH wanted to inform everyone that the Green Redeem machines are not working 5

6 ACTION: This scheme needs promotion update to be given. CL: Craig is giving input to assist officers. For Ian and the crèche perspective he can take an example from Andy Baker s work on it. Pauldy was working on the conference funding aspect and there might be something there that Ian and Ceri can work from. 6. Submitted Business NQ has organised a forum meeting on Monday and a leaflet has been produced and put on social media. 7. Training and Conferences NUS winter conference coming up and NQ will be attending as union delegate. Mo will be in attendance as an observer. KW attended a conference about getting things changed about disabled practices held by Bristol University. It gave quite a lot to reflect on and the good practices. It has been informing her work on mitigating circumstances. 8. Campaigns and Budget Applications None 9. Emergency Business KW: She was informed there are plans to cut the library budget by 37%, which is half a million pounds and predominantly affecting journal subscriptions. Students will have access to JSTOR and old archives and less access to new research. KW spoke to Aaron to find out library budgets for subjects across the colleges and to make a freedom of information request. The budget cuts will affect students across the university. She is bringing it up as something that needs to be done and planned. AI: is the money being reallocated? KW: No, the budget will be cut as university has told them to reduce budget and this will be taken out of journals. YM is deeply concerned and contacted both Dean and Vice Dean. He has asked for an emergency meeting with them. YM had meeting with Harvey from the Politics society, Tom and Justin Fisher from the library, and they say they have to make tough decisions. Yousef and Ali want to allocate more money to politics as they do not have access to labs. The course requires them to have funds for books as their course is book based. Ali and Yousef agreed to have another meeting to acquire more money. 6

7 YM: We need demonstrations as we need the library resources. ACTION: Meet with Tom and Mary Richards and give update about library cuts. AL: As an organisation our resources are reliable but we do not have the full picture. We need our channels to establish what is happening first. Once we know the information we can plan what to do. ACTION: The VPs to sit down with KW to discuss the project plan and update about what is happening with regards to the situation. CL: This committee is responsible for campaigns budget. We have spent 2600 during Oct and Nov. We have somewhere in the region of 3000 left in the budget and you need to think about how you can use that money. CL: I have been given a figure of 6000 but there is a discrepancy there. We will produce a detailed budget but when you are looking at campaign activity and you need to be mindful of what you need to spend. ACTION: CL to provide formal breakdown of budget for next meeting 10. AOB MO has secured money to promote diversity in the library. There will be a bookmark campaign to raise awareness. YM: Is this more for BME? Is there is a way we can buy more books for politics? MO: The campaign is about diversification and not just BME. ACTION: Update and finalise with Robin the details about the campaign. Meeting closed. Next date of Executive Committee: Monday 12 th of December at 2.30pm in the Michael Sterling Building, room 362. Actions Who What Update KW, AL Liberation Officers RA Exec To work on 2nd phase of the mental wellbeing campaign. Complete liberation blogs for Craig to speak to comms about links Update about bake sale event date after talks with head of baking society. All to compile a plan for a campaign on drug awareness for the next meeting 7

8 KW IS, CW IS IS IS GH Exec YM Exec CL MO Have a meeting with Mark to set up autistic society. Organise drop in sessions for students in early December Review funding for conferences for all courses and find out if this available across subjects Organise event for students for christmas Have a meeting with about the possibility of crèche and give feedback Plan a campaign for the water project competition and promote green redeem, and update about green space. All to work on a project plan regarding library budget cuts Update about meeting with Vice Dean and Dean of Education about library cuts All to discuss project To provide a formal breakdown of budget for next meeting Update and finalise with Robin details of library diversity campaign 8

Avon Area Panel Meeting Monday 16 th November 2015 Held at Endeavour House, Ringwood

Avon Area Panel Meeting Monday 16 th November 2015 Held at Endeavour House, Ringwood Attendees: Lorraine Thompson - Chair (LT) John Branscombe (JB) Sarah O Mara (SO) Elijah Nkomo (EN) Staff members: Stephanie