Halls Committee (18th February 2016)

Neil is head of halls and will be in touch with each committee to get to know them better

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- Started their planning spreadsheet however, they are struggling to find a time to all meet

- Started their planning spreadsheet however, they are struggling to find a time to all meet

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- Already had their first events which was suvvessful

- They've planned their year until summer and submitted a spreadsheet

- Met with the RSS from both shift patterns

- Having a team building event between the RSS and the Halls Committee

- They've been joining the RSS in Pop-ins (visiting students in their flats)

- Did pop-ins with all flats

- Struggling to find people to fill the vacant positions on the Halls Committee

- Met with Michelle Keely (The Union at Winchester manager)

- Met with Ryan, Winchester Campus President

- Chinese New Year event went really well

- Trying to think of ways to involved the international students

- Been helping advertise Saints and Sinners Ball

- Had a pre-drinks event which was well engaged with

- Filled in the calendar

- Have decided they'd like ping pong in the common room to have weekly tournaments and attract people to the common room

- Had a Chinese New Year event

- Are asking Ressup about getting a cigarette bin outside the door for cleanliness

 

- Completed the calendar for the remainder of the year

- Had a bar-crawl event

- Met with previous President for some advice and insight

- Met with Ressup

- No one turned up to the Ressup organised Chinese New Year event, Ressup would like their help in advertising in future

- Having their first committee meeting tomorrow

- Would like a bouncy Castle in the quad

- Would like some outings with their halls

- Are struggling with the lack of common space to meet due to building work going on

- Had a successful bar crawl

- Had a valentines events which didn't go as planned but was still engaged with

- Had a charity football match against the construction team

- Want to plan weekly movie nights

- Are having a cycling event to raise money for chairty event

- Had a speed dating event which wasn't as successful as it could have been, but a few people cam eand met the committee

- Met with Ressup

- Would like a massive event in the summer in the park next to Mayflower

- Have been talking about a Wessex Fest and have been doing a lot of work towards the proposal for it

- Have chatted with Ressup

- Have also done some pop-ins

- Have tried re-vamping their social media

- A lot of their committee are nursing students on placement

- Mateusz met with Flora about a Pirate Rented event for fundraising

- Would like to also organise a Take Me Out for chairty

- They had a pre-drinking event which was ok, but not as well attended as they had hoped

Culture week is a week long festival with an aim to celebrate the different cultures across the university and also to give international students a chance to engage home students in their background and traditions.

 

Spoke about the name and came to the general conclusion that Culture Festival was the best option

Anjit asked that all Halls look to organise a cultural event during this week.

Emily added that Athena and herself could help with the planning side of the event if needed

Emily handed out a spreadsheet of the acitivites planned for the remainder of the year

Still waiting for the planning spreadsheet from Bencraft, Chamberlain, Monte, Highfield and Private Rented 

Jenna, has a lot of experience with events and used to look after the Halls Committees as part of her role. Jenna unfortunately couldn't attend, but sent this message in her place- 

 

Come Party with me – whereby each hall ran an event in a halls bar across a week period, and reps from each hall had to attend each event and mark them out of 10. SUSUtv was involved as they filmed it. It might still be in their archive.

 

Halls Fest – a pub crawl type event around each halls bar. Ticket was a t-shirt. A bit like Big Night Out but in our own venues and bars.

 

SHADE & WADE festivals – Small Halls All Day Festival and Wessex All Day Festival – this was live music, bouncy castles, BBQs, bars open, all sorts of entertainment, then an evening afterparty in the halls bar with a headline DJ (one year we had Rudimental), entry to the event was also a t-shirt not a ticket.

 

It’s just important to tell the students that they can run whatever they want, but to also take into consideration the time of year things are run i.e. no chance in the exam times, the University needing to approve the events, being sensible with the ideas i.e. a waterslide in the middle of Glen Eyre complex is a no go from a Health and Safety perspective, and the University wouldn’t approve this.

 

We can also run events here such as the Freshers Christmas Ball. This is coordinated by myself in Ents, but the ideas and the content comes from the Halls Reps. This sort of working group type set up works well for large events.

 

When budgeting – agree an amount that you are willing to subsidise the event by from the Halls budget. This will form a basis of what your event should cost. Then, selling tickets on top will obviously increase what we can offer within the event. We are never looking to make money on these events, but we are looking to break even. Losing money is never good.

 

The committee were reminded that if they were thinking of running a large event to contact Emily, Flora or Anjit in the first place.

The Board split in to 3 groups and came up with big ideas for events and campaigns

General ideas included...

- Hogroast

- A dome marquee club night in the park with music in the day

- Inflatable challenge course

- Battle of the bands

- Local music nights/ open mic nights

- Bouncy castles

- Outdoor cinemas

- Childrens' Sports Day

- Easter egg hunt across campus/ halls (could have a person as the egg)

- Assasination Game

- A 'Halls Bible'/ handbook idea for new students from the committee

- Summer Ball

- Sports festival

- Water fights

- Zombie vs Humans

- Stoneham waterslide

- Outdoor cinema tour across halls

- Music festival in park

- Silent disco in halls courtyards

 

 

Culture Week ideas included...

- Mini- Carnival

- Food sharing events- could give students money to make dishes, could be a competetion

- Tomato Festival (for Culture Week)

- Holi festival

- Cultural art workshops

- International drinks event

- Cultural treasure hunt

Anjit asked for volunteers for the Funding Guidance Working Group

- Sophia, Gus, Rupert, Saajan, Maya, Emily volunteered and the working group was agreed to consist of Sophia, Gus, Saajan and Emily so there weren't too many in the group.

 

Emily explained that in future the Halls Committees will be given top-up cards where they can spend small amounts of money with out it needing to be approved by the Halls Committee Board. The logistics of these cards are still being worked through and hopefully they will be ready soon.

All applications approved by committee.

Anjit mentioned that if you need to know how many people may need to attend an event to buy food etc. a good website to use is Eventbrite. People can 'buy' a ticket for free on the website and it gives them a reminder e-mail the day before. It will also help you to know how many people to cater your activities for.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/

 

 

- Ensure that you stay netreul in your Halls Committee role

- If you personally want to support a candidate, that is allowed, however you should use no Halls Committee platforms e.g. Facebook etc. to help any candidates individually

- The Halls Committees must treat all candidates equally e.g. if you let one post of your Hall's social media, they should all be allowed to post

The working group are trying to find a time to meet

Anjit explained that we will be making a series of 'How To' training guides to help Halls Committees achieve what they want to do and showed the ideas list below. He then asked if the Board could think of any other guides which would be useful.

Money

• How to request and spend the Halls Community budget
• How to budget for your activities

 Marketing

• How to market your committee and activities
• How to use media
• How to add an event to the SUSU calendar
• How to manage Social Media

 Events

• How to complete a risk assessment
• How to deal with an incident
• How to ensure you’re complying with SUSU Health and Safety
• How to deal with external venues
• How to organise a fundraising event/ stay within fundraising rules (picking the right charity)

 Rules, elections and democracy

• How to stay within the rules
• How to stay neutral during elections
• How to elect someone through a by-election
• How to promote the Halls Committee positions during elections

 Other

• How to deliver a successful handover
• How to
• Who’s who?
• How to be inclusive
• How to write minutes
• How to deputise (for secretaries)
• How to manage your intramural teams
• Student feelings calendar
• How to run a campaign

Anjit reminded the Board that they were all volunteers, and that although the role description estimates a workload of around 8 hours a week, it is up to them how much time they want to put in to the role and to remember to put their studies first

 

Anjit asked the Board if there were any particular problems they were facing or had faced that they'd like to discuss or any barriers they are struggling to overcome.

 

The issue mirrored by many committees was utilizing their social spaces e.g. Boiler House, Monte Bar, other bars etc. Anjit commented saying that this was something being worked on with the University and said that he would update everyone on progress at the next Halls Committee Board

 

Anjit will put a poll on the FAcebook page to decide what team building activity we should organise first

Arun, the ex-Liberty Point President is organising a quiz event for all Halls Committee members and ex-JCR as a chance for the Halls Committees to get to know each other and to ask the past committees and tips or questions about running a Halls Committee. The quiz will take place on 3rd March from 17.00-21.00 in the SUSU Cafe. Everyone is invited and it would be great to see a really high attendance at our first 'getting to know you' event.

Rupert (Monte President) spoke about how he thought a drink awareness campaign was really needed across the city. He asked the Board if they agreed and if people would be interested in making a working group to look at a campaing which tackled issues related to drinking. 

Rupert spoke about a campaing at Virginia University called 'who's got your back'

Rupert that he thinks its really important that there is a coordinated approach to drinking issues by the university, SUSU, Halls Committees and local bars.

Emily explained that the Student Life Zone led by Sam Bailey (VP Welfare) were also thinking about running a campaign to highlight these issues so suggested that Rupert and anyone else interested arranged an initial meeting with them to start discussions about a campaingn

Rupert Molyneux and Jamie Daargan presented their ideas around Wessex Fest.

- the event will be a festival not centred around alcohol, but centered around music and the community

- Rupert and Jamie have done some intital research into how much an event like this may cost (£15,000)

- Rupert and Jamie looked at things which might need to be considered in order to organise a successful festival e.g. licencing etc.

- the proposed location is Stoneham Grass which is next to Monte

- Anjit said he thought it was a great idea but one which needed to be organised through the SUSU Events team

- the Board agreed this was an event which they would wish to pursue

Mayflower would like a pool table to encourgae people to use the common room

Anjit suggested that Gus could initially bring this up with the Ressup supervisor for Mayflower, and report back to the next board what they said.

Mayflower committee wondered about adding a bar to one fo their common rooms

Anjit explained that this idea might not be plausible due a number of logistics including cost, and historic success of other halls bars

Archers Road wondered why their residences had to pay to use the Pool Table in the common room when other Hall's pool tables had no cost.

Anjit suggested the Archers Committee bring this up with their Ressup Supervior when they meet and report back to the next Halls Committee Board

Maya stated that she had had complaints about the transport to Southamton from WSA and suggested that if Erasmus Park students had a Uni Link pas like the other halls it would make transport around Southampton easier.

Anjit noted that the rent in Erasmus Park was cheaper because they didn't have Uni Link passes.

Attached are the minutes from individual Halls Committee meetings