Student Communities Zone (11th March 2014)

Apologies read

Meeting did not reach quorum.

To follow up SGH issues with £100 fee: Oli Coles [OC] currently in contact

Send out the Zone Plan in the up and coming days: Zone plan to come out in the next week or two.

Bring up academic concerns and issues of medical students with David Mendoza-Wolfson [DMW]: OC has spoken to Sohaib Rufai [SR], he will update the rest of the committee in next meeting.

Rewrite policy: 0910P14 – Site Surgeries: Is an agenda point on in this meeting

Rewrite policy: 0910P6 – Proposal on Halls Accommodation for ERASMUS and Exchange Students: Is an agenda point on in this meeting

Gather available information on part-time students from Advice Centre: This year the advice centre only had 11 part-time students visit. Having a meeting with advisors later list week to discuss the Advice Centre.

Add the appointment of a part-time student representative as an agenda point for next meeting: No point having this discussion with lack of attendance

Ensure next year’s VP Student Communities to work with postgraduate officers to create new policies for postgraduate students: Ongoing

To discuss fixed payment billing system with David Gilani [DG]: OC will speak to DG about this

To pass on pre-sessional and postgraduate student housing issues with Beckie Thomas: OC has spoken to Beckie about this.

Discuss price of lettuce issue with James Leeman: Ongoing

Discuss conversion of NOC space with David Gilani: OC states that this has moved forward slightly but is still ongoing.

Chase up issues with Transport to sites: OC still waiting to hear back from transport staff.

Find students to nominate themselves for current positions: Done

Discuss lockers and benches with Sohaib Rufai: The operational manager at SGH has allowed SUSU to have lockers there but he has not said where. He has not gotten back to OC about the bench.

Send out a doodle poll to set a new meeting time and day: Done

OC informs the committee that he is still writing the policy updates. Once they're complete he will email out the policies to the committee for approval. Once approved they will be taken to union council.

Funding applications are assessed by the committee.

Karik Isichei [KI] to ask for more details from student groups on the applications that the committee are unsure of due to a lack of information. The groups will have until Friday to answer the questions. The final applications will be sent out to the committee for approval via email.

OC explains the funding for Student Communities.

SR asks how to get money for SGH common room because of the following issues:

• The triangle for the pool table is broken
• All pool cues are broken
• The Table football is broken
• There is no chalk for the pool table
• The broken vending machine is still there.

OC notes that the vending machine is in the process of being removed but because the vending machine has no serial number the university are finding it difficult to invoice anyone to take it away. NE asks SR to note any of the information on the broken equipment and to send it to groups@susu.org. 

SS also asks if there is anything SUSU can do to improve the doctor’s mess. OC informs that SUSU cannot do anything to improve it as SUSU has no authority with non-student areas of the hospital. The doctor’s mess is controlled by the NHS. Nic Eldred [NE] adds that there may be an issue of SUSU spending money on an area that is majority used by non-students; however it is worth looking into and seeing what we can do. OC to speak to SGH about doctor’s mess.

OC explains what the Innovations Funding is and how to apply for it.

The committee approves the Gifts and Benefits policy.

After this item was added to the agenda EtUK saw that the Global Village event, hosted by the international committee and AIESEC, occurred at the same time; therefore they suggested that it would be more beneficial for EtUK to be integrated into the Global Village event instead of hosting a separate event at the same time. The committee agree.  KI to pass on this information to Jawad Bhatti [JB] (International Officer) and AIESEC.

JB did not send a written report with apologies.

Alex Barbu [AB] did not send a written report or apologies.

David Gunns [DG] did not send a written report with apologies.

Amy Harwood did not send a written report or apologies.

Henry Pearson, reporting on behalf of NOC, sent a written report with his apologies:

Submission of work at Highfield is finally confirmed and all OES students have been contacted and informed.

I have been in discussion with the head librarian for NOL about updating the current rules to allow some food to be eaten in the library, as per Hartley.  However after much discussion she said she would be unable to support this, in part due to the extra cleaning of the space required.

Work towards designing new wall murals for NOC outlining SUSU representatives and services is currently ongoing.

I have also had discussion with Dr Lisa McNeil (acting head of Education for OES) who is keen to convert the current SUSU office into postgraduate office space.  I have made clear that this is not considered a viable option and such a move would not be supported.

I have had discussion with NOC facilities regarding student booking of study space, unfortunately they are reluctant to see any change to the current system of booking for students.  I have also enquired about allowing booking of library study rooms from the library rather than reception; again facilities were reluctant to see any change.

SR reported on behalf of SGH:

Progress has been made with getting more lockers for Medical students at SGH. He also states that it would be great if some of the equipment in the common room gets fixed as soon as possible. SGH have agreed to run the critical skills sessions as well as hire out any necessary equipment for free.

Thomas Gleeson, reports on behalf of Diversity; Campaigns and Culture, sent a written report with his apologies:

Hello everyone! I’d like to start by mentioning that your new Equality and Diversity Officer for next year will be Sam Bailey. I’ll be working with him closely in the coming months, and he’s been already been helping me with some projects. We’ve been focusing mainly on LGBT History Month recently, which I would say went very well! Here’s a few highlights:

Joint publicity

- SUSU LGBT and Amnesty International events were jointly publicized by both groups on Facebook, through the SUSU LGBT website, the SUSU calendar as well as both posters and flyers

LGBT Music Project

- Posters in Pod 1 outside The Bridge. Survey conducted of LGBT students to find out their music preferences and which songs have a special meaning to them as an LGBT young person

Open Mic Night

- Collaboration between E&D Forum, Amnesty and SUSU LGBT as well as performers from livesoc

- Celebrating the lives and achievements of LGBT performers

- Wide range of people attended, raising awareness of LGBT issues and raised money for Amnesty International as well Breakout Youth – a local charity helping LGBT young people in Hampshire

I’ve also been emailing societies to see if they’d like to participate in International Women’s Week. Additionally, by the time you read this, a survey should’ve gone live to look at trans* people’s experiences at SUSU. Finally, I’ll be looking at the Improving Participation Project in the future, to see where I’d like us to take it next. 5 female sabbs is an excellent result, but we shouldn’t get complacent, 3-5 female sabbs should be the norm for us to be truly representative. More information to follow!

OC informs that democracy will be sending out information about handovers in the near future.

Andreas Mathikolonis [AM] mentions that the ESN network runs through the EU. To apply for grants and attend events ESN needs to create a profile on the EU commission website. As a society they cannot do this by themselves as they need to input SUSU’s details. Andreas will send details about this to NE so that he can look into this further.

TBC (After Easter)