Demo: Delivered.

One of my proudest moments was arriving back in Lincoln on Wednesday night having led Lincoln SU in the biggest student protest in a generation. But my pride is for me to be concerned about; the real thing to note is what Lincoln SU now looks like.

We’re not perfect, but by god have things changed. Two things exemplified that this week – the demo and our final audit for the Students’ Union Evaluation Initiative.

To be able to engage 300 people in an event starting at 6.30am shows we’re more serious than ever, we aren’t the clicky, elitist small group that once existed. The Students’ Union is finally moving towards being the collective of 12,000+ people that I talked about in induction lectures, where decisions are made by all involved – from Senior Student Reps to Society Presidents – and they’re the people who bring  life to our campaigns and add the personal touch.

We’re working to develop a community where there’s a Students’ Union convener in every classroom (Course Reps), on every Sports field (Club Presidents), in each accommodation block (Court Reps) and by making students realise THEY are the Students’ Union we will continue to grow, innovate and deliver – and we’ll do it together in unity, like it should be.

Week Ending May 7th: Elections, International Students & Looking Back

The last couple of weeks have been interesting to say the least, particularly with the general election – and I write this as the country remains in limbo, we do not know who will form a government and we do not who will be the next Prime Minister. Whilst I will refrain from commenting on individual candidates and parties on this blog, I do want to say one big thank you.

A big thank you to all those students who registered and got out to vote! I recognise that we could have done a bit more in this election to help, but hopefully we’re on the right track to showing that the student vote does matter in Lincoln.

Aside from national politics, this week has been quiet as it has also been deadline week for my course, but last week was a little more interesting.

I attended NUS’ International Students Conference in Nottingham, where I represented our community of international students and also started to learn in detail about the issues facing international students on a national level, ready for taking up my post of VP Academic Affairs on June 21^st.

I have put together a report on the conference, with feedback on the event and a number of recommendations for the Union to consider implementing. This report will go to a meeting of the Executive Committee and will then be made public on lincolnSU.com along with the other papers from the meeting.

Improving the international student experience, and recognising EU students in that, is a big political priority for me next year and it’s one that will hopefully benefit a number of students directly.

Looking forward; my course will be practically finished by next Friday, and after that it also gets quiet in the Union for me, which is why I’ll be using the time to properly review what we have achieved and learnt this year from the projects that I have been involved in, so that we can build upon it next year and start to see ‘the fruits of our labour’.

Until then, bye!

Week Ending April 16th: New Staff, New Policy, Newcastle – A Great Week!

I’m not sure this week could have fitted any more in, with a strategy planning day, three days of NUS National Conference and a day of simply catching up – but it was definitely a darn good week!

Monday was all about next year in the Students’ Union, particularly with regards to the staffing structures within the organisation – a conversation which is a result of us reworking the officer team (2 less sabbaticals, 2 more student officers). It looks like we finally have some sort of model for people in the Union, which involves some moving around, some new faces and the opportunity to focus on our core activities of representation and campaigning.

Also, with the removal of the VP Communications & Media role we are hoping to really use this to look at how we do communications in the Union which, if effective, will be a huge step forward and will make life much easier for many.

Tuesday morning, up at 5am and on a train to NewcastleGateshead where along with Chris Charnley, Izzie O’Brien and Emily Gough I attended the National Union of Students’ National Conference 2010 – which was full of debate, voting, demonstrating and even some emotion, all in all it was quite a productive conference with a number of promising election results for the national officers 2010/11.

As well as being able to have Lincoln’s say in national policy, it was particularly beneficial for me as VP Academic Affairs Elect to get a grasp of the policy issues facing students over the next 12 months and identify where the national union can help us in our local battles, and where we can support the national movement, particularly in Further Education which is a big priority of mine next year.

Friday was all about getting back on top of my course and my inbox – it also saw Kayleigh Turner’s last day as Vice-President Education & Academic Affairs after she resigned her officer role. Kayleigh will now be working two days a week in more of a supportive, non-representational role – providing support to Steven, Beccy & I in the Welfare & Academic Representation Department – until the end of June.

I’m getting a bit more eager to start as VP Academic Affairs now, with a wish list of wins for students now as long as the M1, and having started meeting other Education Officer Elects, the weeks cannot count down quickly enough. Fortunately I only have a few weeks of my course left, so once that’s done I can start writing my plans for the year and putting together papers / campaigns for the things I want to get my teeth into straight away.

That’s all for now, until next week – see ya!

Week Ending March 26th: A quiet one…

This is one of those weeks where there isn’t too much to say -

Actually, there’s nothing to say apart from that we’ve moved forward in our mission to improve things for volunteers and we’re quite excited about wanting to offer personal development opportunities to those who are involved, such as qualifications from the Institute of Leadership & Management for people like Faculty Reps and Club Presidents.

Oh, and we did start to review Bullet Magazine – but I will wait till we’re a bit further into the process to update on that.

Please, if you have questions – ask away: dderricott [*at*] lincoln.ac.uk

Week Ending March 19th: It’s all about you…

This week has been about reviewing and taking a long, hard look at ourselves - both generally and specifically in the way we care for our volunteers.

We have been ploughing on with SUEI this week, looking at the second of five themes; ‘What is the Union trying to achieve?’ which concentrates on how we set objectives, vision and yearly plans as well other bits and pieces.

Also this week, we have progressed our efforts to acheive the ‘Investing in Volunteers’ (IIV) standard.

IIV is (to quote): 

Investing in Volunteers is the UK quality standard for all organisations which involve volunteers in their work. The Standard enables organisations to comprehensively review their volunteer management, and also publicly demonstrates their commitment to volunteering.

We have been working to identify the areas where we are good, and where we need to improve – particularly in caring for volunteers and our day-to-day working. Lots of this work is policy based, but the eventual outcomes should be really good and visible from September onwards.

To finish of the week, I had an induction session with the new officer team, and a meeting with Chris C and the University about students working as exam invigilators – which is great news and more info will follow once we confirm the details!

Not the most exciting week to outside world, but to us it was productive and we moved forward with some big projects!

That’s all for now! See you next week

Week Ending March 12th: Steady as he goes…

This week seems to flown by, and not as productive as it might have been. After 2 / 3 weeks of not doing much course related work or student officer work, it has been a challenge to get back into a productive mood.

But I have made progress on our SUEI self assessment statement, looking at how decisions made by officers and senior staff are scrutinised, plus I have put the wheels in motion for my big discussion on the future of the SU at Riseholme.

Talking of Riseholme, on Wednesday we met with the Dean of AFAS, Head of Commercial Services, Head of Space & Strategy and our Bar manager to discuss the R-Bar. It was a really productive conversation where we outlined a brief for the bar’s redevelopment, which will be released soon for consultation – and hopefully we’ll see a five, if not six figure investment in the social spaces for our students at Riseholme.

I’ve also written an email to the President, Chris Charnley, asking him to make representations to the Vice-Chancellor, with regards to my concerns over the future of Riseholme and the need for vision and strategy at the campus.

Hopefully our efforts in different places will collectively result  in tangible improvements for students there!

We haven’t made much progress on planning our ’12 months on’ review of the student reps system, but we do have a project team meeting next week which should change that!

The last bit of my week will happen in about two hours, I’m going to meet Lord Young who has some ministerial responsibilities for students and Higher Education, which should be interesting. I’ll be thinking up some challenging questions over my chip shop lunch!

Bucking the trend with a roller coaster ride

All ULSU officers have to blog each week on what they’re up / what they’ve achieved for students, which is great and I’ll do that – but, just that isn’t enough to a) create any loyal, returning readers or b) keep me interested in posting.

Therefore, I would like introduce something fresh to our collection of blogs, which doesn’t sound crazy but is a bit different for us and might create some discussion now and then, whether that’s through comments on here, through discussion on campus or in student media.

I’m going to start blogging about issues at University, with an insider’s perspective.

Like I said, it doesn’t sound crazy.

But – we rarely see ULSU officers putting their own view out there in detail and there are discussions that I think should be had, but aren’t at the moment.

Some topics that I talk about will affect all students, some will affect small groups – for example, the first will specifically be about Riseholme and my concerns over the University’s (lack of) approach to the campus.

I do have concerns though, because this blog is obviously public and there is potential for my own views to be dragged into meetings when I’m actually representing collective opinion, similarly – because it’s public – there are certain things that I cannot write about, which may take some of the excitement out of what is actually a passionate argument.

In conclusion: it could get controversial, it could be risky – but hopefully it will help to stimulate some debate and awareness amongst students that doesn’t currently occur.

Close your eyes, hold on tight and enjoy the roller coaster ride.

(apologies if I have built up an image of some really exciting topics, because what interests me may not get you going)

One job at a time

Woooop.

I still have a spring in my step after being elected as ULSU’s Vice-President Academic Affairs for 2010/11 – and am grateful to everybody who voted for me – and in my current officer role; am grateful to everybody who actually voted – regardless of who for, it’s fab to see increased turnout!

But, that role doesn’t start until June / July – so for now, it’s back to being a part time, voluntary Student Officer working on the manifesto and priorities that you thought were half-decent around a year ago.

This week, I need to do two things; a) first and foremost catch up on my degree work after two weeks of doing nothing for it (which includes choosing a dissertation topic) and b) getting back into the swing of things at SU HQ, after not really being in or involved for a couple of weeks.

I think there are three focuses for my SU work, the first is writing a self-assessment report on how decisions are scrutinised at ULSU for our final SUEI audit in June – which will require thought, consultation and several drafts.

The second thing, a full review of our progress made of Student Reps – we need to get planning on that so that it can begin and conclude ASAP – the outcomes of this will help to inform what we do at the end of this year and my work with reps next year.

Finally, I’m pushing for a new discussion in the SU – all about what we do at Riseholme. Now, before you worry – we do already talk about Riseholme and have come a long way in what we do there – but we do it within individual departments (i.e. Education & Welfare, Sports & Societies, Comms & Marketing, Job Shop etc). My mission is to get the Union (and partners) talking collectively about where we are, where we need to be going and how to get there etc – and hopefully we’ll see lots of tangible outcomes for our students at Riseholme.

Also this week, meetings… a big catch-up team coffee morning first thing Monday, Board of Trustees on Monday, Exec (all Officers) on Wednesday, a Riseholme social / commercial spaces meeting on Wednesday and SUEI Steering on Friday.

Finally, if you’re interested – for my dissertation – I’m thinking of looking at how Students’ Unions will individually and collectively impact the eventual outcomes of the independent review of Higher Education funding, or something like that – all around managing movements / public affairs / lobbying etc.

For this week, too-da-loo!

Where next with Holbeach?

‘Distance Learning’ and ‘Day Release’ students were a new breed to the SU last July when we took office because although they had been members for years, previous teams had not given them any attention because they’re a ‘tricky bunch to cater for’.

But in my opinion, it’s precisely that attitude that prevents any progress being made and whilst admittedly I sometimes fall into a similar mindset when it gets tough, Steven Greaves (VP Welfare & Liaison) and I have spent our time in office moving the SU away from that. I really want us to move towards thinking of students from Holbeach, Riseholme and Hull as just another student group that we (every officer and member of SU staff) deal with on a daily basis, rather than something special that requires a certain officer to facilitate all of the Union’s offering to these students.

This year so far, we have moved from no officers looking after Holbeach students to two officers leading and a few others supporting as necessary – but this is still not good enough and I think that everybody within the Student Centre would agree. That last sentance highlights that there is still a problem within our Union – everybody is ‘based’ in the Student Centre on the Brayford campus – nobody spends even 20% of their week at either Holbeach, Hull or Riseholme apart the occaisional week when Steven has a lot on at one of them.

So where do we go next with Holbeach?

Fortunately that’s not a question without an answer – we have some short term plans to try and establish ourselves as more of a key ‘service’ (?) in the experience of Holbeach Students – but the real change will come with the part-time officer role being introduced from July 2010.

The ‘Holbeach Officer’ role was created in the change of officer roles and remits that this year’s team proposed at the All Student Meeting, and will be a part-time voluntary role filled by a student studying at the campus, and elected just by those studying there.

We hope to see the Holbeach Officer become the person who can truely identify the needs of Holbeach students, from first hand experience and regular contact with peers, and the person who works with each of the other officers to deliver a world-class Students’ Union offering to those who currently miss out.

From Zero to Hero!

This time last year, students at Holbeach were practically unaware of the Students’ Union’s existance, nevermind the fact that they were members – but in the last seven months, those students have not just become aware of the Union but have started to engage as well. Within the next seven months, I’m hoping that the SU elections will find a hero to take on this new role and help deliver our world-class vision that I so desperately believe those students deserve.

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SU Elections take place in February and you can find more information about each of the roles at www.lincolnsu.com/elections, in The Agenda newspaper on campus or if you would like to talk with me about them; tweet here, email here, facebook here or call 01522 886006 to arrange to meet.

7 Months in Office, 7 Months of Win Win Win. Give it a go!

The role of Student Officer may remain a mystery to many as it’s often less visible than that of the President or VP Sports & Teams – which is crazy from my perspective as we are supposed to be collecting student opinion and representing that to the full-time officers in order for them to take it further with the University / local community etc

So what does a Student Officer do? Well that is pretty much dependant on the indivual and their interests, as we more-or-less get to write our own portfoilos, which can be a good or bad thing.

My interests are in academic representation (student reps), satelitte campuses (Holbeach, Riseholme, Hull) and SU governance & accountability (Student Council, The All Student Meeting, The Agenda) – and this is what I have managed to achieve or play a big part in, during my first seven months in office:

1. Spearheaded the development of the Student Reps system
With Kayleigh Turner, VP Education, we have been involved in the training, support, leadership, publicity and development of nearly 500 student reps. We have also introduced a successful network of School Reps and Faculty Reps that allow for the student voice to be heard at all levels within the University and Students’ Union.

2. Developed Student Council into an effective, representative body
Following on from my involvement last year, I have taken the lead with SU President Chris Charnley in turning Student Council into something more appealing and more effective than it has been in previous years, and whilst we still have a long way to go – students can now be confident that the membership of Student Council is diverse, well supported and rather effective.

3. Things are on the up for Riseholme and Holbeach students
With VP Welfare & Liaison Steven Greaves, we have helped lead the effor on two out of three satellite campuses – which between them cater for the most diverse range of students in the University, from 16 year olds living away from home to 50 year old industry professionals studying either online or just one day a week. We have managed to ensure that there is more of an SU presence in these students’ lives, through events, freshers’ activities and ongoing engagement.

4. Shouting from the rooftops in our new faculty
The Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Animal Sciences (AFAS) was formed towards the end of last year, and with Steven Greaves & Kayleigh Turner, we have managed to develop fantastic relationships with faculty management that have resulted in student rep and SU seats on a whole range of management committees – ensuring that students are represenated at every level!

5. Registering as a Charity and Recruiting Professionals as Trustees is the way forward
I have taken an active role in pushing forward the Union’s registration as a charity – which should open up avenues to additional funding – and also in the Union’s development of it’s Board of Trustees by championing the recruitment of industry experts from key sectors as ‘External Trustees’.

6. Keeping Courts’ Internet in tip-top condition
When the University’s ICT Services Department were looking to consult with students on proposals for new security measures in the Student Village internet access system, I took the role of making sure that their plans were student-friendly and free from any potential issues that might cause concern to students, on behalf of the SU.

7. Building National Networks and Get Value for your Money from NUS
Developing a successful Student Reps system took a lot of hard work and needed a lot of support from partner SUs, which is why we made sure we were attending national networking and development events for Unions working with Student Reps and getting as many great ideas for our own use as possible. It also gave me the chance to form working relationships with other Unions who could provide advice and share resources. Now we’re the ones giving advice and sharing our resources

8. Pushing Forward with the ‘Students’ Union Evaluation Initiative’
This national scheme that looks to self-assess and improve Students’ Unions is a fantastic tool that has / is / will do so much for our union – from looking at how well we keep students engaged, through to representation in the University, through to how well our finances are managed. I have been on the steering group this, advocating it’s purpose and benefits throughout the year – which has been fantastic

9. The most democratic, controversial AGM in our history
This year’s AGM, branded ‘The All Student Meeting’, was the first ever to discuss student-submitted motions and has the biggest turnout on record, and whilst we can surely increase the numbers by hundreds over the coming years, this was an amazing result and a massive lead forward for our democratic proceedures.

10. Change Change Change – SU Officers Pick & Mix
With Steven Greaves – We initiated the Executive Committee’s motion to the All Student Meeting which proposed the SU officer roles be amended or replaced with alternatives, giving more power to current students and freeing up resources to provide enhanced staff support in the Union. With elections fast approaching and talk of many people running for all the positions, it really does feel like a great move we made to develop and grow the Union in this way.

11. Founding ‘The Agenda’
With Chris Charnley – We created the SU’s newspaper, and love it or hate it, The Agenda effectively provides updates on what the SU Officers are doing for students, which ticks the box on my manifesto labelled Officer Accountability! With a few issues a year, we should now be able to communicate to students what is happening in their SU and it perfectly compliments other Student Media on campus which effectively hold us to account regularly.

This is a little more than the average Student Officer workload, and it make sound like far too much to do whilst still studying for a degree – but that’s the great thing about these voluntary roles, you can choose to work at one extreme like me, at the other extreme where you just show up to the meetings you have to, or you can find your perfect balance somewhere in the middle.

So if you think you might have something to offer in your second / third year of Undergradute or FE study, or during your PostGrad study – check out the SU website for info on how to run for one of the brand new part time roles this spring, which are:

Campaigns Officer
Community Fundraising Officer
Liberation Officer
Sports Officer
Societies Officer
Events Officer
Riseholme Officer
Holbeach Officer
Hull Officer

http://www.lincolnsu.com/elections

If you ever want to chat with me about what I do, or how else you could get involved; drop an email to dderricott@lincoln.ac.uk, or tweet me here