External Engagement Zone (13th December 2017)

Flora Noble (Union President), Samantha Higman (VP Welfare), Scott Mccarthy (Chief Executive) & Maia Sherwood-Rogers (Open Place Member) sent apologies for the meeting.

Dan Varley (Vice President Engagement) - welcomed everyone to the second zone meeting of the year.

Minutes from previous zone committee meeting (1/11/17) approved and passed.

DV: Very busy 5 weeks since the committee last met. 1st senate meeting has taken place, personal sabbatical plan has been approved, Global Entrepreneurship Week has taken place as well as multiple fundraising events and campaigns. 

All student vote is currently taking place in relation to the recent news regarding the Univeristy restructure and Vice Chancellors pay, all students encouraged to vote, and exact wording of questions were brought up and shown during the meeting on screen via the union website.

• Do you believe that there has been full and clear consultation with students on this restructure?
• Do you believe that cuts to academic staff will be detrimental to student experience?
• Do you believe that the Vice-Chancellor’s pay should be cut as part of the restructure?

Lots of meetings attended regarding Halls - Halls calendars produced and distributed, however it is unclear if these were put up in specified locations. An agreement has been reached to refurbish a number of halls common rooms, met with Head of Residences to discuss increases in rent (approx. 3.5%) due to band 1 blocks being upgraded to band 2. DV very aware of the need for cheaper offer to students and will continue to lobby. 

CM: RAG has just released the student fundraising total so far for this academic year, this currently stands at £38,625.26 up until 10am Monday 11th December 2017. This is a £12,479.35 increase on the total raised at the same time last year.

Very busy November for student fundraising, our Movember campaign raised a record breaking £7,532 and included fundraising events both here on campus and across the city, student engagement was very high throughout. A 24hr cycle challenge took place on the redbrick which all time slots across the 24hours filled by student societies and additional societies putting on entertainment during the day.

Poppy Appeal 2017 raised a record breaking £1,429.99, multiple sites including Highfield, Avenue Campus and Winchester School of Art all ran collections.

Jailbreak 2017 experienced another successful year with the winning team making it as far as Dubai. Santander Bank have agreed to match fund parts of the event, once this agreement has been received in writing a final total can be released.

RAG Christmas Fayre - Weather was very bad which impacted footfall at the event and impacted engagement. What the event did show was the willingness for our charity societies to come together and collaborate on bigger event ideas, the societies involved where all excellent. 

SUSU Shoebox Appeal - RAG has contributed a total of 19 shoeboxes to the campaign and dedicated one of our weekly roundup sessions to this. 

Enigma mystery bar crawl and 'The Big Give Week' currently being planned for next year.

NG: Global Entrepreneurship Week 2017 was successful and well received. Feels like there is slightly less momentum with enterprise activity at the moment, this could be down to committee changes still having an impact on activity during term 1. NG has met with Future Worlds to discuss ongoing collaboration and has highlighted a gap in the middle ranks of societies members within enterprise groups, something NG is keen to look at. Possible future collaborative working with the Southampton Business School, hopefully mid-February time, but will feed back to the committee with more information when confirmed.

Term 2 traditionally is a busier term for enterprise activity rather than Term 1, NG would like this to be looked into during the year in terms of ways SUSU can help with an increase in Term 1 activity. NG continues to reach out to Enterprise societies, larger established societies responding well and arranging meetings, but smaller enterprise societies have not been as responsive. NG currently looking at the idea of running drop in sessions or clinics for Enterprise societies with the aid of engaging more responses. 

TV: Halls committees have been newly elected, with training sessions relevent to their roles taking place for all new committee members. Current committee positions filled is 43/77.

Old halls branded t-shirts have been collected from Archers Road, Glen Eyre, Highfield and Chamberlain halls and will be sent out to charitable causes in Africa alongside additional items from the university.

£35,000 has been allocated from Halls budget to bring the standards of halls common rooms up to date and more unified across different halls sites. 

Halls committee is currently planning a trip to Amsterdam during March 2018. TV will continue to update on the progress of this event.

DW: Meetings in place January onwards with a number of volunteer based societies here at SUSU, no movement yet on volunteering survey but hopes to have more information on this at next committee meeting. In line with External Engagement Zone action plan on rewarding volunteers, DW has started looking into certification and training for volunteers, and will discuss with societies into new year.

Into New Year DW will be looking in more detail into possibility of Wednesday afternoon drop in sessions for student volunteering and has been discussing the possibility of collaborating with Southampton Mission regarding a soup kitchen in Portswood. It was acknowledged that at present it is difficult to promote opportunities to students for volunteering, a suggestion could be to use the SUSU website a base to promote opportunities for students to sign up to.

DW recently met with a representative from the Society of St James - a Hampshire based homelessness charity, providing accommodation and support to over 2500 people a year. Discussions took place around the perceptions of homelessness across the city in terms of society, political and public perception. The charity have this year moved away from their traditional 'Shoe Box Appeal' to 'Give a Dinner' where they are providing a hot meal and gift to homeless people on during Christmas. DW is interested in approaching societies and our media outlets to see if we could help with promoting the good work done by the charity and awareness of homelessness across the city. At present HOMED society are actively engaging with local homeless charities in Southampton and Winchester, running campaigns here at SUSU and something the zone could support further with on future projects?

Wider Zone Involvement

AK and FN recently assisted the University with its 2017 Christmas Complete project, where toys are donated by staff and then distributed by Southampton City and Region Action to Combat Hardship (S.C.R.A.T.C.H.). A team from SUSU led the collection programme across all sites of the University delivering a full mini bus of presents to the charity.

Vice President Engagement

Dan Varley informed the committee that he would be stepping down as Vice President for Engagement and last working day will be Friday 15th December. He thanked the committee members and staff for all their hard work.

AOB

DW suggested that the benefits of developing and working more closely with SUSU alumni could be investigated and utilised more for future fundraising and volunteering opportunities. DV acknowledged that this was something the sabbatical team was aware of and would be looking into further. CM agreed that this could be a big benefit for students fundraising across the year, particularly around big campaigns and events such as The Big Give where alumni who have previously been a part of SUSU might want to be involved again in some capacity.