Equality and Diversity Committee (11th November 2015)

Caitlin welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies were received from Frazer Delves and Anjit Aulakh. Daisy Watkins was also in attendance.

Under 18 year olds – Sam had looked into this and found that there were 103 students at Southampton and Winchester campuses under the age of 18 as of October 1^st 2015.

Wessex Scene and LGBT History Month – Bridie Pearson-Jones (Wessex Scene Editor) had approached Caitlin and she has passed it on to Luke Gosling, but was unsure whether they had met yet. The Wessex Scene are definitely keen to do a special issue for LGBT History Month and progress needs to made soon to ensure it is all done on time.

LGBT History Month and Academic staff – Bruno has spoken to some staff in the Philosophy department and Natalie is planning to speak to staff in the History department soon.

Gender neutral toilets – there has been no progress but Sam spoke about a feasibility plan happening soon to tie in with a refurbishment of the Union building happening in the next 5 years and Sam was looking to feed in the issue of gender neutral toilets into that.

Chaplaincy events – entire timetable of events happening has been published. All events have been organised by the faith student groups and chaplaincy together along with the Parkes Institute. In particular there is an interfaith event at the Hindu temple in Southampton on Wednesday that E&D have been invited to and on Thursday there is a candlelit walk around campus, followed by Our Cup of Tea, with E&D providing the tea.

Inspiring Women Event – no working group set up yet because the event has been moved to February to link in with elections.

Costs for a bouncy castle – there are no costs yet, and the Committee discussed alternatives to a bouncy castle.

Name for the event – ‘Have a Jolly-Day’ has been chosen as the name for the event.

Caitlin to approach relevant societies – this has happened and they are currently deciding which charities to go with, but it was likely that Southampton’s Women Aid and one other local charity would be chosen.

Logistics – Sam and Caitlin have met and most of the details are now confirmed.

Caitlin explained that the event had just been discussed in the updates from the last meeting’s minutes and that anyone would be welcome to get involved in the event if they wanted to.

Caitlin also emphasised that the general theme wouldn’t explicitly be Christmas, because not everyone celebrates Christmas, but rather a general celebration before term ends.

In terms of marketing, all the information needed for marketing has been put together and Caitlin asked for input into how to best market the event. Sam said that it would likely be an event that a lot of people would walk past and get involved with on the day.

Caitlin also spoke about an idea of random acts of kindness involving the Christmas tree on the concourse. The idea would be to build up interest in the event about two weeks before the event. Bruno said that the word Jolly and using the Christmas tree might make people think that the event was for Christmas. Georgia said that any event in winter in the UK was in danger of feeling like it was for Christmas. Caitlin said that they didn’t necessarily have to use the Christmas tree and just use places around the concourse including the Christmas tree to try and distance the event from Christmas as much as possible.  

Ideas that people had recommended to for the event included:

• Smoothie bike (Sam informed the Committee that this was unlikely).
• Free Fairtrade hot chocolate on the redbrick for people to take as they passed.
• Large outline for people to colour segments in.
• Photo booth using the Photographic Society.

Luke was not present but Caitlin welcomed any ideas from the Committee. Bruno said that it would be good to have a topic that people would find interesting, but not controversial and that he had spoken to lecturer about inviting an academic from the University of Sussex who talks about trans issues in academia.

Georgia asked about the possible LGBT music event discussed at the last meeting. Caitlin explained that Luke was in charge of that but that the general idea was to have to have music, in particular classical music performed by composers who had an LGBT+ connection.

The Committee discussed the possibility of doing a film screening with Union Films, and talked about how several of the upcoming LGBT+ films had controversial aspects to them. Sam said that this could be an opportunity to invite people to discuss the film afterwards, or else it might be safer to go with a less controversial film like Pride.

The Committee also discussed about a potential Quiz and Curry takeover, which other societies have done in the past. Sam said that this would be a good idea, because the audience for the Quiz and Curry would be different to the usual audience for LGBT History Month.

Caitlin also said that they could do the rainbow handprints or paperchains event again and Sam said that the event should be a lot easier to organise now that they have done it a few times already.

Luke was now in charge of the project and was waiting for a response from the University.

Elections

The following positions was elected:

Race and Ethnicity Coordinator - Daisy Watkins

Disabilities Coordinator - Alex Stones

Communications

Sam explained his idea of merging the separate aspects of Sustainability Zone (equality and diversity, ethical and environmental and employability) in a single Facebook page with each aspect having a set day. This would hopefully make communications more manageable for everyone as well as enabling posts to get a wider reach. The Committee discussed whether the page should be called Sustainability, keeping it in line with the SUSU structure, or something different which might mean something more to students. It was also explained that if these changes did go ahead, then a Communications Coordinator would no longer be needed, because the content for the page would come from the Committee as a whole.

Date of the next meeting

The Committee decided to meet again in the new year, whilst continuing to use the Facebook group and working groups to carry out projects.

As there was no other business, the meeting was closed at 16:55.