If you asked a randomly selected student of all 23,000 members of SUSU where they would first look for information about the Union, the vast majority would be aware of (or at least, assume the existence of) the website and see it as an obvious place to find information and contact details for Sabbatical Officers. Every student at the University has internet access, but not every student is on Facebook. The group is open and public, but participation in the group is not open to all, and to those who are unaware of its existence, is not readily discoverable. It represents a relatively small number of students who are not reflective of the wider student body, and though the active users of the group check it frequently, this does not qualify it as the most obvious or readily available source of conversation and information on The Union.

I appreciate that for the users of the group, the decision not to engage with it anymore is frustrating. However, by having our information in one place, including answers to questions posed by students, we offer more cohesive advice in a central space accessible by anybody in the world. 

Members of the group are welcome to continue to use it as a group of friends, and when they mutually decide they have identified an issue, somebody can nominate it to You Make Change so that the answer can be made available to all students in the place where they’d look for information on The Union. This way, the problems that there have been with the group in the past can be avoided, and the users of the group can be assured that their voice is heard and reacted to – the way the voice of every member in SUSU should be and will be.