External Engagement Zone (1st November 2017)

Flora Noble (Union President) sent apologies. 

Dan Varley (Vice President Engagement) - welcomed everyone to first zone meeting of the year, including all newly elected committee members. Currently the zone has 2 open places open which were unfilled during autumn elections. An explanation of the zone was given, explaining the role of the zone committee within the student union structure, national campaigns which we run such as Student Volunteer Week and Global Entrepreneurship week and overall steering of the zone.

All members of the committee introduced themselves and their role within the union.

Update since last meeting

DV: We hosted a very successful national Raise and Give (RAG) Conference in August, with over 50 charities and universities being represented. At the end of the conference, the National RAG Awards was hosted at Southampton Football Club with over 200 attendees.

External Engagement Zone has 1 action plan this year created for Volunteering which will be discussed later in the meeting. 

During this first term Dan & Andy have been meeting with societies and officers to discuss funding applications and collaboration opportunities across the zone. 

Halls is now a part of the External Engagement Zone structure, moving over from the Student Communities Zone.

Freshers events put on by the zone were really well received by students and visitors -

 

Meet the Hearing Dogs - 100% approval

Meet the Hearing Dogs (WSA) - 100% approval 

Volunteering & Fundraising Fayre - 97% approval 

CM: 5 International challenge events have been selected by RAG with 2 volunteer leaders recruited for each event. Numbers of students signing up to RAG during Freshers was very high.

Movember has officially started with the shave off event taking place yesterday, events will take place throughout the month including a 24 hour cycle challenge involving different society/halls committees.

Jailbreak is taking place on the weekend of 18th/19th November - tickets close tomorrow and are still available for interested students.

Naked Calendar is taking place this weekend with all slots on the calendar taken now.

RAG have a new office which they are based from now - Level 2 in building 42, which was previously the old democracy office.

A new position on this years RAG Committee has been created - Engagement Officer, with a bigger emphasis on collaboration between RAG and all union societies. A planned mini bunfight to take place later in the month at RAGs weekly round up session for charity societies to network and plan future events. Invite is extended to all areas of the zone, if interested please contact Charlie, contact details for Charlie given out to committee.

NG: Has been working already to get enterprise societies to work together more across the union which he will feed back in termly reports - responses have been low at present but this may be due to busy period of Freshers and start to new term.

Has reached out to university enterprise staff, Sarah Rogers - Head of Student Enterprise, but no meeting has been set yet.

NG explained that he is keen to work with students and societies this year to add value to all enterprise activities at university.

TV: Bi-elections taking place next week, committee in place for planning freshers christmas ball and rep awards taking place next week. Currently looking at possible Amsterdam trip for next year during freshers but nothing to update on that presently. Welfare packs continue to be worked on as well as addressing the standards of halls common rooms, where facilities and standards are different dependent on Halls location. 

TV keen to work with other areas of the zone to bring events to halls sites, if other committee members had ideas to contact TV directly.

DW: Newly elected officer, discussed areas currently working on - Online badges, Volunteer of the Month and would like to meet with volunteer orientated societies across the union to work together to create a forum of opportunities. 

Discussed the idea of a possible Wednesday afternoon alternative for students not involved in sports teams, where student could volunteer with local organisations or internally, this could be useful for professional development also.

Is planning to liaise & meet with local residents associations to help with student/local community difficulties and will be planning Student Volunteering Week in February with the aim of releasing EVA information at the end of the week. 

DV: Asked the committee for feedback on how they felt Freshers 2017 went from a student perspective.

MS: Felt busy, lots of people attending events and felt very welcoming for students not in 1st year. 

AC: Some societies not happy with AtoZ system for bunfight and their location - DV explained reasoning behind change in decision and this would be reviewed before next year.

MS: Problems with students of different year groups being put in flats together in halls, felt it was unfair on Freshers and meant their experience was not as good. This was particularly apparent in Hartley Grove and Chamberlain. SM asked why this had happened this year, SM/DV to investigate further. 

AC: Volunteering and Fundraising Fayre could have been even bigger, more advertisement and some students were unaware it was taking place or what it was.

CM: The vibe on campus was really good this year, Surge Radio were excellent on the redbrick and added to the atmosphere as well as all societies taking part. DV agreed the redbrick was more exciting this year.

Volunteering Action Plan

DV: Explained that a previous External Engagement Zone volunteering policy has now been updated to an Action Plan, previous policies across the zones have all been updated to new Action Plans. The aim of the Volunteering Action Plan is to investigate and improve how student volunteers are rewarded and recognised both internally and out in the community. Action plan was brought up on screen for all to see. 

Volunteering survey

DV: Currently looking into ideas of sending out a survey to students asking what volunteering they undertake and why they give up their time. Still to be discussed with Union Insight team. 

Skills based training

Ideas such as CV workshops for volunteers and LinkedIn Lab sessions so that volunteers can get specific advice on how best to showcase their skills. 

TD: Agreed that training days sounded good, but can be hard to engage students to their time commitments at university such as lecture timetables.

CM: Has strong links with some of the charities RAG works alongside of and felt they might be interested in getting involved, is happy to approach charities such as Breast Cancer Now to see if they would like to be part of future training days for students. This could then be rolled out for student fundraisers too to help with techniques for collections at events. 

MS: Felt that the fundraising advice would be good for societies, even if it was an online document which they could use.

DV: LinkedIn Badges - which can be awarded for soft skills which can be evidenced and shown on their profile, this can then be seen by employers for future applications. DV clarified how this might work in practice here at the union - Evidence would be provided to a website such as Open Badge Academy, staff members would then review and badges awarded dependent on the skills. The emphasis is on skills and evidence already being worked on, not to increase workload on students/staff alike.

Central Online Group

DV: A new Facebook group has been created - SUSU Charity & Volunteering Group, where any student involved with volunteering can join and share events and ideas. There is already 100 members and has been societies helping each other out during Freshers to run events. As the year progresses any new volunteers or students interested in volunteering will be directed to the group during discussion.

AK: Explained that a previous similar group has been set up a number of years ago but was not active now, a decision would need to be made regarding that group in terms of hiding it or deleting it from Facebook.

Volunteer of the Month

DV: Still in early stages of development, will run every month of the year and students can be nominated by staff, students or volunteer organisations. As well as a reward for the individual this will also start to highlight some of the amazing work done by student volunteers here at the union. No decision has been made yet on what the award will look like, currently with marketing teams on design ideas.

Logging Hours

DV: Very challenging and difficult to log all hours in one place and as such is still being looked into. 

AC: Discussed if individual societies might be in a better position to know what volunteering is going on and how much, in situations where this is know it could be collated such as the HUB.

MS: Highlighted that not all societies would have the information directly and could prove difficult, particularly for societies with high numbers of members, or members completing volunteering hours outside of generic society activities.

DV: Agreed that more research would be needed before a final decision could be made, we could look at what other organisations use to track numbers.

Specific Volunteering Day

DV: Followed on from earlier idea about an alternative for students not undertaking sport on Wednesday afternoons. Discussed idea of SUSU being able to offer opportunities for volunteering on a weekly basis which students could turn up on the day and complete. Ideas such as assisting the local community with projects and societies taking their activities into the community have been suggested previously. 

AC: Highlighted the needs for DBS checks in some areas of the community and this would need to be funded by someone and the sustainability of projects decided must be kept in mind.

TD: Could be rolled out to sports teams as well who do not have a fixture on a Wednesday afternoon and a group volunteering project could be undertaken. This could be linked to a competition between sports societies throughout the year. 

Zone Conference

DV: Conference is still being planned and hoped will run before Christmas, additional funding information will be given out at conference as less applications than normal were received by the zone in round 1 - although we could just see an increase in round 2. Other ideas including networking opportunities for the different areas of the zone & a risk assessment session.