Johnny Davis - Vice President Welfare

National Blood Service

2010-05-21T05:20:00.000-07:00

Following our Final succesful blood donatation drive of the academic year on Monday 17th May we have been in contact with NBS about securing the donation drives for the following year, based on the success of this year and the demand that far outstrips supply we are hopefully going to be expanding the service that we offer.

Holding a donation centre within the Guild for upto 140 donations per day and ensuring that we really contribute to a fantastic cause has been a long term goal of mine since the service was reintroduced in Welcome Week.

Let's hope we can make it happen and I will let everyone know when it is confirmed.

End of Term Report

2010-05-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
This is my report of the main things that I have been up to over the last term, as I did before I have broken everything down into things related to my remit and more general things that I get involved in, any questions then contact me at vpw@guild.bham.ac.uk

Key Campaigns:
• National Blood Service – The national blood service returned to campus on the 22nd May for another donation drive. We had even more interest than last time and all available appointments were filled way before the day itself. Due to the volume of interested students I am currently trying to explore increasing the provision for the next academic year, however in order to do so we need to make sure that more people who book appointments are actually eligible to give blood. So if you are interested then the next appointment is on the 17th May – check that you can donate at www.blood.co.uk

• Nightbus - after the massive success of term 1 the Nightbus has continued to prove popular with our students, running throughout term 2 it took over 5000 students home from club nights in town meaning the total for the whole academic year including Freshers Fest now stands at a huge 18,788 students!!! This is a fantastic achievement and clearly demonstrates the importance and the impact that this service is having on our students. Plans for the future of the bus are well under way and I am on the brink of agreeing a long term plan for making this service sustainable. In addition I am exploring how we can expand this service, increasing its reliability as well as looking at plans to go to more venues and on more nights of the week. Watch this space.

• S.H.A.G (sexual health awareness and guidance) week – this took place in the lead up to Valentines day in February and was a continuation of the work that I had done in Term 1 in relation to World Aids day. This was the first time that the Guild had run an event like this and so we kept in on quite a small scale, throughout the week the ARC was giving out condoms and advice on sexual health and there was a mentor campaign that also went out on how to safe about relationships and sex. In addition the Guild held a sexual health fair which was attended by over 300 students, this fair gave information on STI’s, relationships, contraception and we invited the local PCT in to do screenings for STI’s as well. Finally we also held SHAG roadshows at halls of residence, taking the advice, condoms and STI testing kits to the students directly, again we had huge interest from the first year students.

• Student Parents – I have been working hard to imbed the work from term 1 into what we do over here at the Guild. I was also asked by the NUS to complete a case study on the work that I have done so far and what we are planning moving forward. We have continued to meet with student parents and work with them on how to support them better. I gave feedback to the University on the new student parent web page that they are creating and we are in the process of setting up a joint working group between the University and the Guild in order to try and tackle some of these issues. I was also interviewed by Redbrick who ran an article on the issues facing student parents and we are hoping that this will be a catalyst for so positive change moving forward.

• Mitigations – One of my key manifesto pledges was greater awareness and promotion of the mitigation process as well as trying to standardise how they work across campus. I have met with both student conduct and appeals this term as well as Chris Twine the University’s new director of student support and development to discuss the issues that students face in this area as well potential plans moving forward. Following on from the University’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Audit mitigations has been identified as an area for improvement by the University. A review of the process and recommendations for improvement has since began and I have been involve in the consultation for this review.

My key priorities to get out of this review and things I talked about in my consultation are:
1. Standardisation on the deadlines for handing in mitigations – if not at a University level then at least at a college level, this is still not ideal however as issues could still arise for joint honours students who span 2 or more colleges.
2. Standardisation of who you give the form into – there should be a designated mitigations officer or administrator within each department who you can speak to.
3. Simplification of the form, making it seem less daunting and off-putting for students to fill in as well as making it more flexible to the different types of mitigating circumstance
4. Introduction of a ‘fit to sit’ policy which means that if you know before you take your exam that you not fit to sit it then as long as you provide supporting evidence you can defer your first sit until the next available time (normally the re-sit period)

Other activities (remit related)
• Appeals / Fitness to practice / misconduct - the Vice President Welfare is responsible for co-ordinating the sabbatical representation for students in Appeal, Misconduct or Fitness to practice hearings, this means that if anyone has one of these hearings and wants a sabbatical to go with them then they speak to the ARC who contact me. I try my best to represent as many of these students myself as I can, if I cannot though then the rest of the team will step in as needed. I also sit on the committee for the University Misconduct Panel. This term I represented 14 students on a variety of different hearings.

• DAMSA – This term I worked alongside the VPSAD and the newly elected Disabled Students Officer to ensure that the disabled students association was back up and running. The decision of the DSO which was ratified at the AGM for the association was to change the name to Disability and Mental Health Students Association (DAMSA) this was felt necessary to ensure that the group was as relevant to all students as possible including those who may have issues relating to mental health but would not want to define themselves as having a disability. The group has elected a committee and I look forward to supporting them in their endeavours.

• Satellite sites outreach – I spent time doing outreach work on our satellite sites this term, I went and spoke to our students at the Shakespeare institute, we had a mini Guild fair with lots of our support services, the job zone and volunteering on hand to offer support.

• Business Continuity Planning – because of the risk of swine flu I was the nominated sabbatical officer to be involved in the Business continuity planning for the organisation, deciding what the Guild would do in an emergency, who to contact and what people are responsible for. I have been involved in making sure our assessments and plans are up to scratch and continue to be involved.

• Corporate Social Responsibility alongside the VPDR and the VPHC I have also been working on developing a corporate social responsibility document for the organisation, taking a holistic approach to the actions and activities of our organisation and how we can be more socially responsible; be that alcohol pricing or community volunteering.

• ARC Review – We finished the new model for the ARC. This includes how the volunteers within the ARC are going to work. I then gave a presentation to the student advice volunteers about how this is going to affect them in the future. Student Advice will no longer be running the volunteering section in the ARC, this will be managed by the ARC directly under a new surgery / drop in model. Volunteers will still be involved though and we will be focussing on their training and development over the summer term.

• Mentor Review - The mentor review has also taken place. I was interviewed along with the VPHC about our thoughts of the system, how it should work and what we would like to see it achieve in the future. The final report is being collated and we should have the results soon. After this we will be able to start thinking about changes to implement for next year, in particular how we measure impact.

• Jobzone Review – I have also been involved in reviewing the Jobzone service ahead of plans to try and incorporate a brand new temping agency into the service. This has involved us reviewing the workload and roles of the staff within the department, where we can use IT and online services more to make the service more efficient and looking at whether we are just about promoting jobs or about skills development for students as well. We are still working on the last part and are in discussions with the University about what services they will run next year and whether there are any gaps.

• Misconduct Review – I have also been working with the University on their misconduct review. We had new codes of practice and regulations implemented around 18 months ago and this has been our chance to look at how we improve. For the large part the new system which has been modelled on colleges has been working well, there have just been some tweaks behind the scenes mainly in terms of how the cases are administered.

• Mentor Campaigns – I have been involved in the creation of mentor campaigns surrounding Sexual health, Mitigations and Exam Survival. For each of these campaigns materials were given out in halls and mentors were talking to students about issues they may have surrounding these. In addition I worked with the VPS on the exam survival campaign to put together a mini site on the Guild website with more information and links.

• ARC EGF- I have made decisions relating to the Guild Emergency Grant Fund on a couple of cases, this is a small pot of money that is available as a very last resort for students who literally cannot afford to live for a short period of time, i.e. delays in money coming in so you can’t afford food or rent.

• Student Loan Company – I attended the consultative forum as the representative for the West Midlands. We had quite a frank discussion about the problems that had been caused this year and about what the SLC have been doing to try and rectify these problems in future years, this took into account the brown review and feedback from HEI’s. I then did a presentation to Guild Council about the problems faced and the plans moving forward as well as what I would be doing to keep pressure on the SLC.

• Welfare Practitioners forum – I along with the VPEA hosted this forum in the Guild in January, there are monthly meetings to talk about different aspects of support out there with which Welfare tutors can interact. We gave a presentation on the Guild Services, how they worked and what they did to hopefully improve our visibility to academics and ensure they refer students to us when they have an issue that we can help with.

• Two Ticks accreditation – The Guild has been accredited with the two ticks mark for a number of years which shows that we are an equal opportunity employer with regards to disability and actually pledge to interview all disabled candidates who meet our minimum criteria for a job, ensuring that we give every opportunity to be fair to those with disabilities. I worked with the HR Co-ordinator to be reassessed for this mark and we were successfully re-accredited.

• I met with various members of staff from the University – to work on a range of projects, I met with Rebecca Wooldridge from Student Conduct to talk about a joint campaign around cheating in exams, I met with Jo Bryan the student funding manager to talk about the money doctors scheme which is about helping students to be good with their money and see how we can be involved. I have continued to regular meetings with Jane Tope the Equality and diversity across a variety of areas and I have also began having regular meetings with Chris Twine, the new director of student support and development to see how we can work more closely with the University.

• Meetings with schools/colleges – I have also had several meetings with different schools about issues students have raised with me and the VPEA including lectures being scheduled late in the evening, how plagiarism and mitigations are dealt with and financial problems of students.

• I attended Accommodation Management Group (AMG) – this is a joint meeting with the University to talk about all Unviersity owned accommodation matters, this is lead from the Guild by the VPHC but also covers the work of the mentors and welfare issues more widely which is why I attend

• Disability support team – I have met with this department a number of times to talk about the recruitment of support workers for students who need note takers or other support with their academic work and to see how the Guild and jobzone specifically can help with this. We also talked about a buddy scheme for the first few weeks of term to offer students with disabilities some peer support when trying to get a feel for the campus and Uni life.

Other activities (non-remit related)
• Democratic Structures review – I have spent a lot of time both in weekly meetings and in a two-day away day focusing on the review of our democratic structures, consulting with students and coming up with a final model that was taken to referendum at the end of term 2. This referendum was passed by an 80% approval.

• Officer Review – this is the other part to the democratic structures review, we are in the process of reviewing the remits of the officers and also how they interact with the organisation and whether the workload and the level at which we work is pitched in the right place.

• Job Evaluation - the Guild is also undergoing Job evaluation – as the sabbatical lead on this (as chair of the R and HR Committee) I have been working hard to co-ordinate the evaluation, liaise with staff about the process and score peoples jobs so that we can make sure that staff are being treated fairly and their jobs are relevant and well structured and that people are getting paid a fair amount for what they do. The Jobs have now been scored, the pay scales being finalised and we are into the final stages at looking at other benefits.

• Wellbeing group – alongside the VPS who chairs this group I sit on the wellbeing group, this is about making sure we are keeping our staff happy and motivated, activities this term included the Wii bowling challenge, yoga classes and football.

• Student Staff recruitment – although I was not involved in the main bulk of the recruitment at interview stage as I was on leave for the officer elections I did get involved in some of the recruitment and also did some internal interviews for senior assistants within departments.

• Reception meetings – As chair of R and HR and someone who previously worked on reception as student staff I have been involved in the reception working group meetings, in the new development we will be streamlining our services and centralising all enquiries through the main reception desk. This is going to require a new type of service being delivered here, including a broader range of knowledge and more of a focus on customer service.

• Honey Pot interviews – I spent two and half days interviewing for the honey pot, an award funded by alumni and given through careers to help students over the summer with work experience or internships, which without financial support wouldn’t be able to take on these opportunities.

• Trustee board away day – I attended this away day which was focussing on the market research we recently undertook and the future direction and strategic priorities for the Guild.

• SEOTY - I was a judge for the Student Employee of the year awards which look at rewarding the hard work and effort that our student staff have put in.

• Know Your World – I gave various shout outs in lectures and seminars to promote the Know your World campaign as well as being out on campus in our kiosk giving out guides to the activities of the Guild and speaking to students about what the Guild does.

• Alumni distribution panel – I sat on the panel that decided where all the money raised by alumni would be going this year. We gave out vast amounts of money to projects across all the different colleges as well as central services such as student support and careers and money to UBS and the Guild.

Meetings: regular meetings that I attend.
• R and HR Committee (monthly)
• Equality and Diversity Committee ( Guild Staff committee)- monthly
• Equality and Diversity Committee (Guild – Students)- 8 times a year
• Equality and Diversity Committee ( University) -twice a term
• Student Support and Development Meetings – twice a term
• Res Exec ( attended most as Vice Chair) - fortnightly
• C- QAEC – 4 times a year
• Accomodation management group – 4 times a year
• Welfare Practitioners forum – monthly
• SOG – weekly
• Team 10 -weekly
• GOG - monthly
• Sabb catch Up - weekly
• Staff Forum – 4 times a year.

Miscellaneous
• I attended regular meetings with ISOC and the VPSAD to talk about how we can help the committee and the society to run more events and make sure they are doing everything they need to do.

• I was interviewed by BURN FM to talk about my remit and some of the projects that I have been working on

• I was interviewed by Redbrick about work on student parents in a great article that highlighted was it is like for them as this University

• I attended Question time with the Vice Chancellor and Fabian our President.

• I inducted lots of new student staff into the Guild, explaining how the Guild works and how we can support them.

the future of the nightbus

2010-04-21T01:46:00.000-07:00

I have been working on securing the future of the Nightbus over the last term and it looks like we have had some really positive results. Through our affiliation with Castle Cars it looks like we are going to be able to secure the current level of service of two busses per night three times a week for the next THREE YEARS!

This is fantastic news and will really enable us to now embed this service, market the service more and make it a constant service that students can get into the routine of using.

I don't want to leave it there though, I am currently in the process of having meetings with some other stakeholders about the future of the service and what role they can play.
I will let you know more when I do, my end of term report for last term is on it's way as well so keep a look out for that!

Finally don't forget to protect your welfare with a Johnny!

Re-Election sucess!

2010-03-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

hope all is well, just a quick blog to say that I was re-elected as your Vice President Welfare this weekend. I can't wait to get stuck back in and really make some change over the next 16 months.

Thank you so much for the support that you have all shown me once again! I really do take this responsibility very seriously.

To find out about my brand new manfiesto check out my website http://www.johnnydavis.co.uk/. If you have any ideas / projects or suggestions on projects or issues you want me to tackle during my second term of office then please get in contact (details on the right hand coloumn of the blog).

For now it is back to work for me, i'm hoping to have a few days off over Easter to recover but in the meantime keep protecting your welfare with a Johnny!

reviewing the situation.

2010-03-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Over the last few weeks I have been getting stuck into a lot of internal things in the Guild. It's not the sexiest stuff to be dealing with but it should make a real difference to the service that we deliver here in the Guild to the student that need it.

ARC review - as part of the redevelopment, the ARC will be getting a brand new look and to go alongside this we want to make sure the advice ansd the service that we provide is the best it can be. We are looking at getting alot more of the basic info into leaflets and on the website that students can take away and deal with in their own time. In addition to this we are improving the way in which we use volunteers in the ARC. Providing them with additional training and getting them more involved in the advice work itself we feel will provide a more efficient and personable service to students.

Mentor Review - the Guild has been working with the University to provide the student mentor service for a number of years and bi-annually we have to review this service. We recognise in the Guild that students know who their mentors are but it is much harder for us to understand what the impact is or how to measure it. This is a key area that we will be working on and once we know this we can work on maximising that impact.

The jobzone agency - I have been working hard with the staff in the Guild to move forward the project of a job zone agency. This will mean that we can offer temporary jobs on campus to hundreds of students instead of non-students being brought in to do these jobs. This will mean that many of those students who are desperately looking for jobs will be able to get them in the safe environment of campus and will paid through the Guild.
This has meant that we have needed to review what the jobzone currently does, we are streamlining its processes as much as possible to make sure that we can deliver this brand new service.

Over at the University there are currently reviews into how joint honours work and mitigations - both of which are key pledges for me this year. The Guild is feeding into both of these reviews and I am hopeful that we will have some positive results by the summer term.

Thats it for now, as ususal any comments or questions then let me know!

Johnny

Lets talk about sex!

2010-02-16T09:21:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Since I blogged last term has whizzed on by to the halfway point and as always there has been lots of things going in the world of Welfare.

S.H.A.G (sexual health awareness and guidance) week took place last week in the build up to valentines day! We has a sexual health fair in the Guild of Students, there were lots of different stalls that gave information from how to put on a condom to domestic and sexual violence. We had over 300 come though the doors and a large proportion of them took the opportunity to get checked out for STI's. The biggest spread of STI's is between the 16-24 age range. Make sure you are not a statistic and make sure your sexual health has been given the all clear! In addition we held a S.HA.G roadshow up on the vale where students could pick up information relating to sexual health as well as condoms and Chylamadia tests.
This term has also seen the start of a lot of reviews of the services that the Guild offers. These may not always be the most tangible things for students to see what I have been upto but they are vitally important in ensuring that the welfare and support services that we provide are as relevant as possible. This term I am involved in reviewing the Student Mentor scheme, how well does it work, what impact does it have on students in halls and how do we measure it? Any thoughts then let me know.
In addition with the building redevelopment the ARC and the Jobzone will be getting a fresh new look. Alongside this we are trying to give the services we offer a revamp as well, trying to provide more jobs for students and making sure that we can give good quality advice at the highest level are key priorities for me and I will be working hard to make sure this is reflected in the our new look membership zone!
Last Friday I attended the Student Loan Company Consultative Forum as the rep for the West Midlands. We were there to take about the complete shambles of the applications for money this year. Throughout the day we heard from various big wigs at the student loan company, the focus being on what lessons have been learnt, both from their own experience and from the Hopkin review. We discussed what changes they have already made to their services in direct response to last year as well as spending time on new initiaitives that they hope to implement such as the use of social media and how ongoing problems from students in this year's application cycle are going to be resolved.
I have met with the new director of student support and development from the University, both him and myself are really keen to work closely with the support we offer students making sure that we are referring people to the right services and giving one joined up approach. I will also be working closely with him to complete my outstanding manifesto pledges on Mitigations and prayer facilities...so watch this space.

Thats about it for now, any questions or suggestions on the above just let me know.

The National Blood Service Success!

2010-01-18T04:30:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

I just wanted to blog quickly about the amazing success of the blood drive that is happening on Friday. With only a small amount of publicity as I was planning on promoting it more heavily this week the blood drive is fully booked up. All appointments and reserve appointments have been taken and we are having to turn people away on the phone.

I'm really sorry to all of you who want to donate and havent been able to get an appointment this time, I always knew it would be popular but I didn't realise it would take off quite as quickly as this one.

The next scheduled drive at the beggining of the summer term but I am going to try really hard to get another one this term.

Thanks to everyone who is doing something amazing and giving blood!

A game of two halves...

2010-01-10T12:35:00.000-08:00

At the start of this term I blogged my end of term report for Spetember through to December. Within that report there are several on-going projects such as department reviews and meetings that I attend but I wanted to take this chance to highlight some of the headline projects that I am going to be working on:

National Blood Service

They will be returning to the Guild on Friday 22nd January. Whether you have donated before or would like to do so for the first time then everyone is welcome. Please check you are eligible to donate at http://www.blood.co.uk/ then call Guild reception to book an appointment on 0121 251 2300

SHAG week

Stands for Sexual Health Awareness and Guidance week, this is the opportunity to tackle sexual health issues straight on. I for one am tired of sexual health still being a taboo subject that you laugh about with friends but cannot be discussed any more openly than that. I am also tired about people preaching about sexual health. That is why I will be taking a different approach, a non judgemental, fun way to talk about the sexual habits of students whilst hopefully delivering some relevant advice that students will take note of. Look out for Fab and S.H.A.G coming your way very soon!

Maximum working Hours

The maximum amount of hours the University allows students to work and the Jobzone to advertise is simply not fit for purpose in the top up fee era. Students are having to work more than ever to support themselves and this limit on hours means that we are unable to protect exploited student workers where necessity dictates working more. I will be lobbying for a raise of a maximum of 20 hours and also looking at the guidelines for post grads and part time students.

Know your Guild

Know your Guild is a massive campaign across the Guild to promote and show case the work that the Guild does. Market research shows us that 75% of students are occasional users of the Guild but far fewer of them use the Guild regularly or know about the services we offer. How many first years know that both the Mentors and the RA's are Guild services? How many students know that we run the Student Reps? We aim to change this and lots more!

Taxi tender

I will be involved in re-negotiating the taxi tender for an accredited company, interlinked with this is our Nightbus service and I will be pushing hard to get a great deal which will allow us to expand the service and make it sustainable.

Mentors / RA's love

Working with the new RA's to continue the positve work we started last term in helping them and the Mentors to understand what each group does and how they can work together. We will also be taking a step back and seeing what issues remain and how we can tackle them.

Prayer facilities

I will be liasing with the estates department at the University to map the current provision of facilities across campus and get this advertised better for example having a prayer facility icon on campus maps. Once we have assessed the provision we can decide if we need to lobby for more facilities.

Mitigations process

This is a big priority for me this term, I want to lobby the colleges to take a unified approach within each college as to when the deadline is going to be for mitigations, all colleges to use the terminology of mitigations officer to which forms need to be handed and a clear protocol for what joint honours students need to do. Once this has happened we can push for a Univeristy wide approach.

Joint honours support

A joint honours review is already happening in the College of Arts of Law and their has been a noticeable shift in attitued towards creating a more joined up approach within colleges. I am going to watching with interest the current review and using its momentum to try and push forward reform across the University.

Student Parent submission

I will be continuing to work with the Student Parents networks I am now working with in the Guild to submit a report to the University, in it will be some of our and the NUS key findings with regards to problems for student parents as well as our recommendations.

Street lights

This is a big issue that has been around for a number of years. The volume and type of lighting throughout Selly Oak and Selly Park is completely inadequate, this means that students are uncomfortable walking through this area after dark and especially when lectures finish late this is unacceptable. I will be working to change this. In the meantime anyone who has concerns for safety can pick up a personal attack alarm for free from the ARC in the Guild.

I would love to know your thoughts on the above, so please comment or contact me.
Keep protecting your Welfare with a Johnny

End of Term Report

2010-01-05T01:11:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

I hope everyone has had a nice Christmas, having a break of my own from the Guild has given me the opportunity to reflect on what I have been up to over the last few months, my successes and campaigns, my struggles and the battles still ahead of me.

Below is a summary ( I have tried to make it as short as possible) over what I have been doing. As always if you have any questions or suggestions about anything I talk about then let me know either on here or using my contact details at the bottom of the right hand column of my blog.

Key Campaigns:

• Welcome Week -I was kept very busy throughout welcome week, I was out and about at all the Halls of Residence over the moving in weekend to check everything was going smoothly, help the mentors with any problems they had and generally be on hand to trouble shoot.
I was also involved with the new Chill Out campaign in freshers week, getting hold of thousands of condoms, spikeys, drink calculators and also donning the chill out bear costume. In addition I managed to secure a host of extra night busses just to take our freshers home running alongside the normal nightbus total. We managed to take home in excess of 7000 freshers during that fortnight!!
Finally myself and the VPS organised the well-being zone, with advice activities and support on everything from sport and exercise to healthy living, personal safety to safe sex.

• National Blood Service – this term saw the return of the national blood service to campus for the first time in 5 years, the demand was overwhelming filling all the available slots before the day. In addition I wrote a new policy that was passed at October Guild Council clarifying our position on donating and worked with the LGBTQ association to organise a petition about unfair donation policy held by the NBS.

• Nightbus – The Nightbus returned this year after a one year break, I worked really hard alongside my predecessor Hollie to make the new scheme work and we trialled it at the end of the Summer. This year it was back with a bang, completely full over the first few weeks of term and been running at near enough capacity ever since. With the additional Night busses provided over Freshers Fest this scheme has helped approx 14,000 students to get home safely in term 1.

• World Aids Day – this was celebrated on the 1st December and this year we made this a key campaign for raising awareness of the Virus, students are the highest risk group for sexually transmitted diseases and it is important students realise that they are not immune to life changing viruses like HIV. On the day we had a red Double Decker bus on campus and touring the halls, red balloons and stalls giving out information, a red fountain (that in the end only went a little bit purple…gutted!) and over 30 volunteers helping out on the day. We also raised over £350 for the HIV/AIDS charity Crusaid.

• Student Parents – in term 1 I really set about trying to give some more support to students who are carers or have dependents, and in particular those students who have children. I organised two coffee mornings for the parents which went really well and worked with the Equality and Diversity advisor at the University to get the University to collect data on the numbers of students who have children or other dependants. This is a campaign being run nationally and we have had an early win with this which is great! Next on the agenda is to write a submission to the University about our recommendations for change in order to help this group of students.

In addition to this the Guild has starting collecting its own data on students with Dependants, for example 1.3% of those who filled in the freshers survey on the Guild website have dependants, and we are currently trying to collate the data of the newly added question to society membership forms.

Other Activities: (remit related)

• Appeals/ Misconduct/ Fitness to Practice – the Vice President Welfare is responsible for co-ordinating the sabbatical representation for students in Appeal, Misconduct or Fitness to practice hearings, this means that if anyone has one of these hearings and wants a sabbatical to go with them then they speak to the ARC who contact me. I try my best to represent as many of these students myself as I can, if I cannot though then the rest of the team will step in as needed. This term I represented 22 students on a variety of different hearings.

• Disabled students association – Alongside the VPSAD I have been working to try and get this association active for first time in approx 4 years. We have attended the Universities disabledf working group where we have been able to elect a chair and vice chair, in term 2 we are hoping to work with them to get a full strength committee.

• Policy on maximum working hours – I have been working with the Jobzone and the University to review the policy and not allowing students to work more than 15/16 hours a week. In the new generation of top up fees students are having to work more but the Guild and Jobzone are not able to protect the rights of these students as workers because the amount of hours they works exceeds our recommendation, I plan to try and raise the limit to 20 hours to open up a broader range of jobs for our students and make sure they are protected as students.

• Sperm donation – whether to promote or advertise sperm donation for fertility purposes has always been a controversial issue and one that I needed to make a decision on again this year. I invited the director of the centre over at the medical school and QE hospital to speak to the sabbatical officer team about the process and the legal ramifications for students, we worked really hard with the media groups to tackle this issue and although for the moment we are not directly advertising the service in the Guild we are certainly very open about what is involved and how students can find out more should they be interested.

• Satellite sites outreach – I spent some (although not as much as I would have liked) doing outreach work on our satellite sites this term, I went and spoke to our students at the Ironbridge institute, gave them a presentation and asked them how the Guild could support them more. I also visited the Shakespeare institute over the Summer, Selly Oak Campus and the Dental School.

• Mentor/ RA love sessions – along with the VPHC organised meetings with the Ra’s and Mentors to communicate how we see the two roles working together and our plans to deliver a more interlinked service to our First year residents

• Business Continuity Planning – because of the risk of swine flu I was the nominated sabbatical officer to be involved in the Business continuity planning for the organisation, deciding what the Guild would do in an emergency, who to contact and what people are responsible for. We also identified our key services so that if there was a large reduction in staff how we could move staff around to keep our key services open.

• Corporate Social Responsibility alongside the VPDR and the VPHC I have also been working on developing a corporate social responsibility document for the organisation, taking a wholistic approach to the actions and activities of our organisation and how we can be mofre socially responsible be that alcohol pricing or community volunteering.

• Worked closely with Equality and Diversity Advisor on a number of issues, the priority being student parents and the disabled association but also talking about support for our LGBT students, and how we can continue to impact assess our services to ensure they are not discriminatory.

• Arranged meetings with University staff in areas connected to my remit, I have had meetings with the Head of Counselling and Guidnace, the Disability manager and their team, the director of student life, the pro vice chancellor for academic quality and students, the director of student conduct and appeals and their team and the chair of the welfare tutors forum to name but a few.

• Jobzone Agency – I have been working hard with the staff to remodel our plan for this agency given the current climate and a realistic budget, we have come up with a streamlined model that we believe we can deliver and more importantly will create more jobs for our students on our campus.

• Mentor Review – this is something that began at the end of the term and will continue into term 2, as part of our service level agreement with the University we review our service every couple of years, the Guild and myself feel that for the scheme to be even more successful in the future we really have to go back to basics and look at what are our objectives, how do we measure them and what are the end results.

• Arc Review – the final review for me to be involved in is the ARC review, with the redevelopment taking place the ARC is going to be having a complete re design, this gives us the perfect opportunity to reassess how we deliver the service and how we can make it better.

• Made decisions on awarding money to those in desperate need through the ARC’s Emergency Grant Fund.

*Created the Mentor ‘Keep it locked’ Campaign – this included a padlock shaped door- hanger and security check list along with UV pens to mark your belongings with, I wanted to put the campaign to the test and dress as a burglar and see what I could find, we decided on reflection however that the police may not be too happy!

• Spent a lot of time working on problems we had with Falcon Cars, speaking to the licensing authorities, liaising with Redbrick who decided to run a story on the problems. Falcon cars are nothing to do with the Guild and haven’t been since Summer 2007 – I will be continuing to make this clear to all students in Term 2.

Other Activities: (non remit related)

• Democratic structure review – we have been looking at how decisions are made within the Guild and how the Guild represents its students, could we do it better? How can we get students more involved? We have been doing lots of work on answering the questions and coming up with a new model which we believe delivers a more relevant Guild, consultation will be happening in term 2

• Job evaluation – the Guild is also undergoing Job evaluation – as the sabbatical lead on this (as chair of the R and HR Committee) I have been working hard to co-ordinate the evaluation, liaise with staff about the process and score peoples jobs so that we can make sure that staff are being treated fairly and their jobs are relevant and well structured and that people are getting paid a fair amount for what they do.

• Attended RA training where I delivered a session on the Student Mentor Scheme and working with the Entertainment officers on how to plan events and make sure that what they do is in their students best interests, after an eventful trip to the pub and having to play a really mean character in Fibchester I only hope the new cohort don’t hate me too much!

Meetings: regular meetings that I attend.

• R and HR Committee (monthly)
• Equality and Diversity Committee ( Guild Staff committee)- monthly
• Equality and Diversity Committee (Guild – Students)- 8 times a year
• Equality and Diversity Committee ( University) -twice a term
• Student Support and Development Meetings – twice a term
• Res Exec ( Chaired one, attended most as Vice Chair) - fortnightly
• C- QAEC – 4 times a year
• Accomodation management group – 4 times a year
• Welfare Practitioners forum – monthly
• SOG – weekly
• Team ! -weekly
• GOG - monthly
• Sabb catch Up - weekly
• Staff Forum – 3 times a year.

Miscellaneous

• Staff Recruitment - I short listed and interviewed for 5 core staff jobs this term, we have some great new additions to the team!

• Degree Congregations – had to sit on stage all robed up, lots of clapping!!

• Wellbeing group – fortnightly meetings to discussed staff well being and making sure the Guild is a supportive and enjoyable place to work, this year we organised yoga and football, the Wii challenge and the Christmas party.

• Met the Office of the Independent Adjudicator to talk about complaints and problems that cannot be resolved by the University and have to go to the independent ombudsman. We spoke about processed within the university areas of concern for the Guild and how we can work more closely with the OIA to deliver a positive service to students.

• NUS Welfare Conference – held in Manchester, our chance to elect the Welfare committee and set the national priorities for Welfare in the NUS.

• Chaplaincy meeting to discuss provisions for international students over Xmas.

• Trained student ambassadors in all things Guild related, the services we provide, how we are run, the campaigns that we deliver and of course the bar and the shops!

• Re-use campaign – helped to sort out all the unwanted household goods students left behind in halls last year to donate to incoming international students who because of having to travel to Britain cannot bring all of these supplies with them.

• Acorns Charity Fun Run – ran this along with some of the Sabbs and other Guild staff, I was knackered!

• Open days – we have being creating a new strategy for open days, making sure we are open, key services are running and the Sabbs on there to speak to prospective students about life at the University, I was on hand to talk to students, man our stall in the fair and give talks when needed.

• Flashmob – along with the rest of the Sabb team I co-ordinated a flash mob called tell David, asking students to make as much noise as possible to make it clear that we are saying no to higher fees – we organised it in only 24 hours and had over 400 students attend, a triumph I would say!

• Answered questions around campus for the ‘Ask your sabbs’ article in GOS in print, these are produced monthly and can be found inserted in the weekly Redbrick Newspapers, if you have any questions in the meantime however then please contact me.

That’s about it for last term, I am sure there must be some things that I have forgotten and apologies for any bad spelling, with being off for Xmas I was in a rush to make sure I blogged within my deadline.
I will be blogging soon about my plans for Term 2 so check back to find out more.

End of Term Report

2010-01-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

I have written an end of term report but for some reason I cannot copy it into blogger. I will try and resolve this issue as soon as possible and get it posted on here tomorrow hopefully. For now though I even though I have had two weeks Holiday over Christmas I wanted to make sure I blogged within a month as Guild Policy indicates.

Happy New Year Everyone

Johnny

University of Birmingham and Guild of Students Taxi Affiliation

2009-12-05T06:57:00.000-08:00

Castle cars are the University of Birmingham and Guild of Students’ nominated taxi supplier for use by students and staff. Castle Cars became the endorsed private hire firm in 2009 after a lengthy tender process.
We would like to stress that we are not affiliated in any way to Falcon Cars, who were part of the tender process, but were unsuccessful.

In recent months we are aware of confusion amongst students over which company is accredited by the University and Guild of Students, and publicity material promoting our affiliation with Falcon Cars has been brought to our attention. As Falcon cars are not accredited by the Guild or University they do not have permission to use our branding, logos or to state/imply any relationship to either party. We are continuing to investigate the unauthorised use of trademarks, logos and branding and are are working closely with the licensing authority to resolve this issue.
We would like to reiterate to students that Falcon Cars are in no way affiliated with the University or Guild, and we urge students to only use recommended suppliers such as Castle Cars or hackney carriage vehicles, (the University also endorse Computer Cabs). Not only because they comply with our rigorous safety procedures, but because we can follow up complaints.

We remind students that in order to be insured and safe when using private hire vehicles, that they always ring ahead and book their taxi, and never to get into an un-booked or un-marked car.

Student Safety is a priority for the Guild and University. Castle cars offer a University ID card retention scheme, whereby students with insufficient funds can exchange their student card – with the fee being paid at a later date. The Guild also operates a free Night Bus scheme, in conjunction with Castle Cars, to bring students home safely from nights out at the Guild of Students and in the city centre.

A tragic accident

2009-11-15T10:14:00.000-08:00

Following the tragic death of a 2nd year Law student here at the University of Birmingham, I would like to send my condolences to all of his family and his friends. This student's death has come as a great surprise to everyone and is an emotional time for all of you who had the pleasure of knowing this student before his life was cut short.

The Guild and the University would like to assure students that this event has been confirmed as an accident by West Midlands Police and although you should always be vigilent when it comes to personal safety there is absouloutely no need to unduly worry.

For any students who have been affected by the events of the last few days please remeber the following Guild and University services are available to offer you help and support.

University Counselling and Guidance - head along to 3 Elms Road for further details or call 0121 414 5130

The ARC in the Guild of Students - confidential service provided by trained volunteers and advisors, come in between 10-4 weekdays, email arc@guild.bham.ac.uk or call 0121 251 2400

Student Mentors a confidential service provided by trained students, avaialble in halls of residence.

Nightline - nightline@guild.bham.ac.uk

Also please be aware that you can contact the chaplaincy right next door to the Guild or for any more questions or queries please email me at j.davis@guild.bham.ac.uk

A run down of my activities

2009-11-15T09:50:00.001-08:00

Yet again I need to apologise for the amount of time it has taken me to send this blog, I really will try to keep them more frequent in the future... I am going to give you a run down below of the activities that I have been up to in the last couple of weeks, if you would like any more info on anything then please let me know...

Attended the NUS Welfare Zone conference in Manchester, making sure that I am representing your interests in the most effective way possible and making sure that the NUS is pushing the agenda that our students want them to.

Atteneded the first Guild Council, the elections for the Equality and Diversity election took place (there is still 1 position to fill, come to the next Guild Council and stand for election!). I also saw my NBS policy accepted which is fantastic news moving forward....I look forward to seeing them back on campus in the new year.

I went on a visit to Central Kitchen over at the Vale to see how all our food on campus is made...disapointingly there were no samples.

I have also been working hard with Tom (VPDR) to develop a corporate social responsibilty policy for the Guild.

We have now finshed recruiting staff for the ARC, we are now back at full strength and we have a host of fantastic advisors ready to help you with any problems you have.

Been continuing the planning for Multi-cultural week in February

Began the process of Job evaluation in the Guild, making sure our staffing is as effective as possible and making sure the staff are getting the support and development opportunities they deserve.

Me and the rest of the team have represented a large volume of students in appeals, misconduct cases, fitness to practice complaints and mediation. This has been very time consuming but definately the most rewarding part of my job.

I have met with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) to talk about how our University manages appeals and the like and how we can improve our service.

I charied the student staff working group, working towards the xmas social for all student staff

I have booked everything for World Aids Day (will blog seperately next week)

I have finalised plans for the Student Parent Coffee morning, hopefully this will give all student parents the chance to meet other parents and find out about Guild Services.

Well thats it for now, I promise to blog again soon

a busy fortnight

2009-10-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

With Guild Council fast approaching I thought I better find some time and update you on what I have been up to in the last couple of weeks...

Well firstly I was ill and then I had a couple of days booked off to sort my life out after a busy couple of months, needless to say things popped up and I had to come into work for an afternoon on my day off but I will get over it (i'm sure you all have already). In other news I took part in the Acorns fun run, there was a great turn out and I felt better than some of the rest of the team who had notable hang overs!

I went along to Res Exec and had a chat with all the lovely RA's about getting the blood donation out and about at the halls of residence, I had a really positive response and so I am working with the NBS to try and secure some dates towards the end of this term for both the Guild and halls (not many spaces though!)

I have been working away on our democratic structure review, I am part of the group that is reviewing all the officer roles and the way liberation works in the Guild. There has been lots of pulling of hair and trying out different ideas based on what the market research and other surveys have said about the Guild, hopefully we are getting close to some concrete ideas to take out to student consultation however so watch this space.

I have also chaired the Equality and Diversity committee and the R and HR committee this month, we have been working on updating our monitoring forms and how we advertise vancancies in order to promote ourselves to all demographics of students and applicants. We have also updated our staff handbook which got overlooked when we updated our bye-laws. This now means that student staff can now also be a Guild Officer or Independent chair, this is great news in terms of breaking down barriers to being a part of the representative function of the Guild.

I also met with Jean Turner, the Director of counselling and Guidance at the University and Ann Davis, the head of the Centre of Excellence for Interdisciplinary Menthal Health (CEIMH) on campus. As the VP Welfare I think it is really important that the Guild has strong links with these departments (I have already met with the disability team and mental health team) so we have been discussing how we can move forward with joint project and the like. Some great ideas have been mooted so hopefully something will come of them.

Myself and Ed Sparkes (VPHC) also joined forces for our Mentor/RA love -in. Bringing together both of these fantastic provisions that we provide for students in halls, making sure they are aware of what each other do and setting out some guidelines on how we would like them to work more closely with each other moving forward. It seemed to go really well and we plan to do it again with the next cohort of RA's in the new year.

Final round-up of bits and pieces

Confirmed a date for the student parent networking event (21st November) put it in your diaries!
Carried on with the planning for World Aids day and Multi-Cultural week

Started work on the student mentor review

Attended the welfare practitioners forum

Went to GOG - Guild officer group meeting, it is where all the officers (including the part time officers come together to discuss what is going on in the Guild and put forward our recommendation for Guild Council motions)

Well that's it, sorry for the length of this blog, will try and be more regular and less long winded in the future.

Sperm donation: annonymity vs autonomy

2009-10-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

The Guild has been approached by the Medical School here at the University to ask us to consider the possbility of allowing them the advertise sperm and egg donation for fertility purposes in the Guild of Students. The Guild has advertised sperm donation fro research purposes for a number of years through the jobzone. This process does involve receiving a set amount of money (approx £20-£25) per donation following a screening process.

The medical school would now like to advertise for sperm and egg donation for fertility purposes, unlike donation for research there is no monetary incentive provided for this kind of donation (although expenses for travel or loss of earnings can be claimed) and as such would mean that this kind of donation would not be advertised in the jobzone.

The concenrs the Guild have lie in the fact that the law recently changed to mean that any child created through the donation process can get your contact details once they reach the age of 18. Even though they can get your contact details the donor is not classed as the legal parent and cannot be asked to give support to the chil monetary or otherwise. Despite this there is still a potential for big disruption to future personal and family life and is clearly something any person should not undertake likely.

In order to donate there is a very rigourous process that must be gone through including medical screening, counselling and a full explanation of any future ramifications through lack of anonymity. Approximately only 5-10% of those who apply to become donors actually do donate at the fertility centre for which we would be advertising.

The question therfore is should the Guild allow advertising for this particular centre with its very rigorous process and in the name of personal autonomy or are the future implications so big that the Guild should not allow any sort of advertising?

please comment and give me your thoughts!

multi-cultural, satellite sites and sperm donation.

2009-10-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

I blog to you today from my 'sick bed' and no it isn't man flu but I should be back fighting fit in the next day or two!

So last week things finally began to settle down after welcome week and my sights along with the rest of the sabbs turned towards the next term and what we plan to do.

working on finalising plans for student parent coffee morning.
ammended the terms of reference (the membership and aims) for the Equality and diversity committee that will go to the next guild council along with the election of 4 student representatives

working on plans for world aids day on the 1st December - some big ideas coming out of this but if anyone has any more suggestions on what we can do let me know.

I also started thinking about this years multi-cultural festival. Myself and Fabian will be taking the lead on this event this year and had the opportunity to meet with the International Students Office (ISO) at the University to ensure that we were both on the same page with this and that we can move forward together in making sure this will be a great event. Provisional plans are now drafted and we are planning to run this event in Februrary so watch this space.

This week I also attended a pre mediation meeting to represent a student, along with Appeals and and Misconduct cases the Offcer team can also offer support to students who are making a complaint to the University. If you are going through this process and would like some support please pop into the ARC anytime between 10-4 weekdays.

I also took part in the final interviews for the ARC advisors this week and we all beleive we have found some great candidates that will hopefully be starting very soon

Thursday saw me visit our Sattelite Site the Ironbridge institute, this was a great opportunity to meet the students we have over there, introduce the Guild and our services to them, and find out what we can do to make sure the Guild or at least the services that it provides are relevant to them. The institute is absolutely beautiful and the time that I spent over there was really productive in terms of some small changes that we can make that could make a big difference. We are also going to be looking at how we can make better provision for satellite students on our website. I can't wait to go back and visit again soon.

Friday was a busy day with the Guild hosting the end of Mental Health Week Lunch. The disability support team and in particular the mental health adivsors at the University have run a packed week of events that tackled mental health isues and its stigma straight on! There was a lot of positive discussion that came from this and I am hoping to work a lot more closely during the next campaign which is being planned for March next year.

Finally, I rounded off the week with a discussion about whether the Guild will allow the Medical School to advertise for Sperm and Egg donation in the Guild for fertility purposes. There is quite a lot to talk about with this so will blog seperately.

drink spiking concerns

2009-10-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

Following allegations of drink spiking at the Guild during welcome week, the Guild of Students has contacted the Police who have confirmed that no cases of drink spiking have been reported to them.I would like to emphasie however that all reports confirmed or otherwise are taken seriously and we are dealing with this issue of concern to personal safety.

The action we have taken includes briefing our Venues staff, RA’s and the Freshers Fest crew on drink spiking. A personal safety campaign for Student Mentors is also forthcoming. The Freshers Fest crew accompany anyone involved in an incident that is a concern to their health or wellbeing in taxis, ambulances or at a hospital. During Freshers Fest activities, 10,000 spikeys were distributed, which are placed in the top of bottles to prevent drinks from being spiked as well as for the first time this year creating a Chill Out zone which is manned by our trained staff at all times. Students are also encouraged to know their limits and thousands of drink unit calculators have also been given out to reiterate this message.

If you or a student you are in contact with has any concerns about drink spiking, please advise them to report the incident to the Police, contact their student mentor or contact the ARC at the Guild of Students.

In addition please feel free to contact myself through the details on the right sidebar of this page.

Please visit the Safer Students section of the West Midlands Police website for more information: http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/saferstudents/product_detail.php?PID=437

my welcome week diary

2009-10-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

apologies for the delay in this blog, now things are settling down once again I will make sure I am back in regular blooging form.

Here is a run down of my Welcome Week Diary

Saturday: Was out and about at all the halls of residence making sure that everything was running smoothly and that the mentors and the RA's were all happy people.

Sunday: Again on duty at all the halls of residence. Ended up serving behind the bar in joes until the early hours of monday morning after bar one of the vale had to close, interesting to see it from the other side of the bar!

Monday: Welcome week begins properly, 11,000 students rock up through our doors, the free pizza in the commerical fair went down a treat as usual, I was also lending a hand on our welcome stalls and giving lecture presentations about the Guild to lots of freshers in their induction lectures. I also spent my evening at the Guild UV rave party welcoming the Freshers and giving them an all singing all dancing welcome to the Guild and the officer team.

Tuesday: this was myself and Katie's Wellbeing Zone, away from the hustle and bustle of the main fair's this was the opportunity to reflect on your personal well being, from nutrition to a full body pit stop, sexual health to drug and alcohol awareness. With over 500 people through the doors I beleive it was a real sucess! I spent my third night in a row in the Guild, again welcoming freshers to the second night of the UV rave.

Wednesday: This was my day to be day champion *fanfare plays in the background* this means that I was wired up to a walkie talkie and was offical problem solver for the day, mainly escorting pesky promoters from the grounds who hadn't paid nor been approved to be there.

Thursday: We kicked Thursday off with the Socieities and Volunteering Fair, with over 6000 people coming through the doors again the officers were manning there Guild stall, this promoted everytrhing from the SHAC to support services, Nightbus to Guild Council. We also had the opportunity to talk to students who came to our deomcracy talks in the Guild Council Chambers. This was follwed up by a night out at Gatecrasher, I donned the chill out bear costume to show some love to the Freshers in the GC queue and got masses of love (perhaps too much) back in return.

Friday: This day saw the return of the National Blood Service to campus, in what can only be described as a huge sucess, with all appointments filled before Friday there was unfortunately no slots free to donate on the day but it just shows how popular the service is. They will be back and bigger than before in the very near future. Friday night I got all dressed up and yes came back to the Guild for the Freshers ball...big thumbs up to the silent disco!

I then spent the weekend sleeping....this is the end of my welcome week diary!

Night Bus @ Freshers Fest!

2009-09-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

As you will know from my previous blogs the Nightbus will be back up and running at all our major club nights from next week, but the big hole that this didn't cover was Freshers Fest. With 4000 tickets available this year for Freshers Fest, more so than ever before, both myself and the Freshers Fest committee felt it was essential that transport home was provided for our students, something that wasn't planned for.

With this in mind I discussed the reasons for not providing transport home this year with the Guild and discovered that a lack of numbers until closing time when everyone decided to leave was the reason behind it, essentially it just wasn't a worthwhile use of money to hire coaches which were only 25% full.

So instead I cam up with the idea of using Castle Cars and essentially providing additional Night Busses to all our Freshers Fest Venues. This compromise has proved to be a financially viable option and so I am very happy that we booked these extra Night Busses yesterday! This provides an essential Welfare service home to students who are in a new city, don't yet know where they are going and are susceptible to being ripped off by dodgy taxi drivers. But it also helps to promote the Night Bus brand and get our new students in the habit straight away of using the Night Bus to get home....two birds one stone?

In addition to these additional Night Busses I have also spoke to Castle Cars about providing taxi ranks at all of our Freshers Fest Venues to ensure that if they cannot get in the Night Bus they can still use our accredited taxi's which come equipped with our emergency fare scheme (use your student card to pay if you have no money, then come pay the fare and collect your id card at the Guild the next day). There will also be official stewards outside each venue to point students in the right direction.

So if you are going on Freshers Fest next week, make sure you are safe getting home...use the Night Bus!

are you a fresher? have your say!

2009-09-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

Are you a new Undergraduate student coming to University for the first time? If so then the Guild of Students wants you to take part in our Freshers Survey 09. As a new student we are keen to find out about your expectations, worries, attitudes, and understanding of the Guild and our role. This is so we can ensure we are delivering what our members (you!) need.

We are asking new students to complete a short online survey which should take around 4 minutes. As a thank you for your valued input, one of the completed surveys will be picked at random to win an iPod, and one runner up will win an iPod Nano. To complete the survey please click here

awards, re-use and open days

2009-09-13T06:24:00.000-07:00

Well this week has been very busy but a lot of this is just general build up to the return of students...I can't wait Selly Oak has been quiet for far too long!

Anyway this week I have done a whole host of things outside my normal routine, on Wednesday I got involved in the Re-use initiative along with the rest of the sabbs, we spent a couple of hours at Jarrat Hall sorting through all the bits and pieces kindly donated to this years cohort. It was some good banter, and we got that warm fuzzy feeling from doing something worthwile...good times!

Thursday saw the Best Bar None awards, we were nominated for best surburban bar. The awards are based on our policies regarding safe and responsible drinking, customer satisafaction and the like, essentially making us a responsible venue to drink in, the fantastic news is that we won!!!!! and narrowly missed out on overall best venue in Birmingham. Congratulations go the all the staff and student staff that worked so hard this last year and here's to next year...could we win the big one?

Saturday saw Open Day and once again all the sabbs were out in force manning the sports and Guild stalls in the Great hall as well as welcoming people to the Guild and showing them round our sexy new retail area...it was a huge success talking to both prospective students for next year as well as some of the freshers arriving next weekend.

In other Guild goings-on, I chaired the first R and HR committee of the year, discussing all things from equality to job evaluation. I also met with Jane Tope the Equality and Diversity Advisor for the University. We covered a whole host of issues that we hope to work together on this year:

Black History Month is taking place in October and we are plannign to host a Guild launch party for the University's activities in the second week of October, keep an eye out for more details soon
We are marching ahead with out plans to host a networking event for student parents in the first couple of weeks of term, this will be a great chance or student parents to meet up, get to know each other and also talk to the Guild about issues they face and how we can help. I also intend to lobby the University to collect data on how many student parents we have at Birmngham which would be a great start to assessing their needs.

I will also be working closely with the Universtiy on how we can make better provision for disabled students along with a report on how accesible we are. I am also on the hunt for a Disabled Students Officer and to get the Disabled students assosciation active for the first time in a few years...if you are interested please let me know.

I discussed the provision of LGBT housing in halls for the first time this year, it was interesting to discover that there was minimal interest in the scheme. I want to work closely with the LGBTQ society this year to look at how we can make active LGBT communities within halls without segregating students into their own specific accomodation.

Finally I have been working closely with the LGBTQ society with regards to how they would like to make their voice heard when the National Blood Service return to campus. I feel it is important that they have the opportunity to make people aware of the unfair donation policy of the NBS whilst not discouraging students who can donate blood from doing so. The LGBTQ society have decided to do just this and will be launching their 'donate because I can't' campaign on Friday 25th September, go visit them on the front car park for more information. In the meantime I will be meeting with the Marrow society this week to discuss bringing the Anthony Nolan Trust to campus who have a much fairer donation policy.

That's it for now any questions or ideas on anything that I have discussed above please email me or leave a comment.

Weekly roundup...

2009-09-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

Well it turned September in the Guild and my calendar appeared to explode this week but I definately feel like i'm getting into my stride now and so far so good...i'm loving it!

I have already blogged a couple of times this week on some of the big things I have been doing but here is a quick break down of everything else...

Started off the week with a mass of job applications landing on my desk, i'm involved in the recruitment of two education and welfare advisors for the ARC as well as a student support advisor (one of the mentor co-ordinators). We had an insane amount of applications and reading through them all took up a lot of time this week, the good news though is with such competitive vacancies we are sure to get some more fantastic staff working for us very soon!

I have also been finalisng plans for the Equality and Diversty Committee ready, we now have the provisional terms of reference sorted so we know what the point of the group is and who is going to be in it (always a good start I reckon!). Elections will be taking place in the first Guild Council at the end of October. There will be four places in the group and anyone can stand to be elected onto it even if you are not a Guild Councillor. More info about what the group does and how to get involved will be available in welcome week.

I have also been involved in discussions about the future of the ARC; as part of the redevelopment the ARC along with the other membership services will be moving and getting a makeover. This is also a great opportunity to review what the ARC does, how we can improve the services we offer and how we go about delivering them. As per usual there is never a straightforward answer but I will be working with the rest of the staff and student advice (the volunteering group that trains volunteers to staff the advice desk) to work out how we make the ARC the best it possibly can be.

In other news I managed to get my hands on approximately 5000 condoms for both Chill Out @ Freshers Fest and Well Being. I have also been helping Freshers Fest with their welfare related activites and spending more time planning the Wellbeing Zone at Welcome Week, (Tuesday 22nd September, 11- 3 -Common Room) Make sure you are there!! I also attended the second democratic review meeting; (we now have an action plan ready to go) and I represented a student in a plagiarism hearing on Friday

Well that's about it for this week, I decided to come home for the weekend and the sunday roast is just about ready, so for now...keep protecting your welfare with a Johnny!

NightBus: ready to go!

2009-09-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well time for another update, don't expect this every week but I have a lot to say it seems at the moment.

The Nightbus is back...bigger, more frequent and ready for action! After the sucess of the trial for the new nightbus last term (well over 90% capacity full over the two week period) we are going full steam ahead with rolling it out permanenlty this year from Monday 21st September (Welcome Week)

We have two brand new 18 seater minibusses fully badged and branded as NightBus and one of these is also completely wheelchair accessible with the ability to transport up to three people in wheelchairs at any one time.

The service will now also be running every 15 mins from 12:30 with the last bus leaving the City at 3:30 every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday as well as having an official NightBus steward on duty at every venue to direct students and manage the queues.

However i'm sure you will be pleased to note that I won't be resting on my laurels, as soon as the service is back up and running I will be looking at how we can expand and improve. My next two key objectives are to provide transport from Hurst St to cater for our LGBTQ students who often may not have people living in the same halls to travel home with as well as some of our popular venues in Digbeth.

Also in the pipeline are discussions with the police to have proper bus stops and taxi ranks set up outside each of our venues ensuring that the Nightbus and Castle Cars (our recommended taxi company) are on hand to ensure students get home safely.

The NightBus will be on display at the Guild on Monday and Tuesday of Welcome Week so come take a look, grab a timetable and make sure you use it!!

Business Continuity Planning

2009-09-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

Hello all, another week is upon us and in between the hours and hours of shortlisting for the ARC advisor and student support staff (over 120 applications!) I attended the Business continuity / local resillience meeting today in the Guild.

As i'm sure everyone is aware swine flu is a big concern as we enter the Autumn period; the combination of the infamous freshers flu with swine flu is a real concern for both the University and the Guild.

With this is mind the Guild has been making plans for the what should happen if there is an outbreak of swine flu, what facilities can run and what happens if we loose a large proportion of our staff in the Guild, compromising the service that we offer. I am currently working on plans that will place the Guild departments into different phases of closure, closing those departments that are less vital to the day to day running of the Guild and conversely keeping those which are the most important / beneficial to students open.

In addition the Guild is also formulating plans on how to communicate what is happening to the students should we need to act, as well as what we can do to rearrange or adapt our welcome week actitivites if needed.

What is important to note is that the Guild is making plans and will be ready for action should the worst happen, But for now just remember that this is an eventuality that will hopefully never occur, unless otherwise stated it is business as usual and I can't wait to see everyone enjoying the best welcome week yet!

a week of planning

2009-08-30T05:59:00.000-07:00

It's time for my weekly blog to let everyone know what I have been upto in the last week and on reflection it has been a whole lot of planning.

I have been working with Katie (VPS) to get plans into action for the Wellbeing event for Welcome Week, together we are going to be working on creating the one stop shop for improving your student lifestyle. With activities information ranging from excercise to nutrition, from stress to sexual health there should be something for everyone. Keep an eye out for more details on what to expect.

I have also been planning what the Guild is going to do to try and help student parents this year. Working with the recent NUS research and student parents from our campus we are going to try and get right to the heart of how we can make things easier for student parents. The first item on the agenda is to get a networking event set up during the first couple of weeks of term. Isolation has been highlighted as a big issue for student parents who cannot go out and socialise in the same ways as other students and also adds to the high drop our rates amongst student parents. We aim to host a coffee morning where students can come with their children and meet new people and socialise in a child friendly environment. If you are a student parent and would like to help organising these events then let me know.

I have also been helping the welcome week committee in their plans to make freshers fest just as safe and supportive as it is fun. So whether that be condoms or working out how many units you've had to drink, your welcome week crew will have it covered. So don't forget to 'Chill Out' this freshers week!

I have also been keeping myself busy with some of the more day to day stuff that us Sabbs have to do. We had Health and Safety training on monday, we must remember to bend from our knees! I was involved in the Job evaluation presentations with Ed. We are going to brining in the experts to ensure that all our staffing structures are working, that the staff know what is expected of them and how they can progress within the Guild, something that we are not doing as well as we could be at the moment. Finally I have been meeting with various schools and staff across the University that I will be working with this year and making sure that we are all up to speed ready for the fun to begin in a couple of weeks time.

For now I'm off to enjoy the bank holiday weekend, hopefully in the sunshine!

Equality and Diversity x 4

2009-08-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

As the Vice President Welfare it won't surprise you to learn that part of my role is about promoting equality and diversity within the Guild and the University and working hard to look at how what we do impacts people. However I don't just sit on one committee but rather four.

Within the Guild itself I chair both the staff and the student equality and diversity committees. The Staff committee covers both core staff and the 300+ student staff that the Guild employs, and I chaired this committee for the first time this week. It was actually really refreshing to see the Guild taking a step back and looking at what we do, how we do it and the reasons for doing so.

Through the committee we began the task of using the Equality and Diversity monitoring forms that people fill in when applying for jobs to work out demographics within Guild staff. Once this has been done we will be able to identify areas where people are underrepresented and review how we promote our jobs to see if there is anything we can change to ensure that our applicants come from a diverse range of backgrounds. In addition to this we also started to look at possible quality marks that we can work towards attaining, not just so they look pretty on the proverbial mantlepiece but because it is another way of objectively reviewing our practice and how we can improve as an organisation.

With regards to the Student committee, this is a new project that was started last year and I am going to be working really hard to get it off the ground this year. I am currently working on the terms of reference for the committee, which well then allow us to elect guild councillors to sit on it. Once the committee is up an running, of course the first job will be to review those terms of reference to ensure we are happy with what we are aiming to acheive.

With regards to the University E & D committee and it's working group, for which I sit on both, I have no idea what is happening there yet so will let you know when I do!

Interviews and Appeals

2009-08-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

Well my new suit had a thorough airing this week; with both interviews and appeals taking up a lot of my time. As mentioned last week there are a number of staff postions that are being recruited for at the moment and I am on the interview panel for several of them. It was an interesting experience to be sat on the other side for a change and it gave me a lot of food for thought on what it is that employers are looking for and how we can make our students more 'employable'. There are two job fairs coming up in the first few weeks of term as well as the Jobzone doing CV clinics and interview techniques. I would strongly recommend these services to all students especially those about to start applying for graduate jobs.

In addition it was the second round of appeals this week and I was kept busy along with the other Sabbs helping those students going through this difficult process. The appeals hearings can be a daunting experience for many students especially when they have to present their case in front of a panel but our job is to offer them support and try and make them feel more comfortable as well as to help them put their points across and ensure that the hearing is conducted properly.It really is one of the most rewarding parts of the job attending an appeal with a student who is after some extra support and after all our training it is nice to put what we have learnt into practice. I would like to wish all students who are having to go through this process at the moment good luck.

In other news I also had to have my official pictures for the year taken. Apologies to all freshers who will be greeted with my mug shot!

I have also been busy preparing for welcome week with plans in the pipeline to host some kind of wellbeing event along with Katie (VPS) and we had our first meeting for the democratic structure review that is going to take place this year looking at all our democratic structures and how they work ranging from Guild Council to the Officer team. It is going to be a lot of work but should make some real positive change to the Guild as well.

Finally, I have been working on my plans for 'Know your Guild', can't say much more yet but it is going to be big, so watch this space!

My first (proper) week...

2009-08-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Well this week was my first full week in the office and I really couldn't wait to get started (ask the rest of the team who bantered me about my early starts)

It's been a pretty hectic week - but even more productive than I could have hoped for. In between my ever increasing to-do lists (I have a sexy to do list pad) I have had a lot of planning meetings with some real exciting stuff in the pipeline for the year ahead, not everything is set in stone yet so I can't talk about all of it but here is what I have planned so far;

• The National Blood Service is back! On Friday 25th September (Welcome Week) they will be back at the Guild with the chance for students to donate blood should they chose to do so. It was one of my manifesto aims to get them back in the Guild and I am really happy to have them there from the start of the year. I aim to make this a regular thing so watch this space.

• I will be lobbying the University in light of recent recommendations from the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency) to make the mitigations process simpler and easier for every student to use as well as looking at academic support for joint honours students.

• A full review of prayer facilities across campus is already happening with plans to get all facilities advertised on the University map and lobby for more space on campus

• This year I will also be organising our World Aids day activities, SHAG (sexual health awareness and guidance) week and taking the lead on our multi-cultural celebrations…more details to follow soon.

• Working with student parents to overcome problems they face at the University and making the Guild more inclusive of their needs.

In addition to working on these plans I have also been a busy boy working on staff recruitment. As the Vice President Welfare I am involved in recruiting any staff for departments that are relevant to my remit so that includes the Jobzone, the Arc and the Mentors. Keep your eyes open for some new faces around the Guild!

I could go on but I think this blog is long enough - so for now, don’t forget to protect your Welfare with a Johnny!

an anti-facist weekend

2009-08-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

This weekend I atteneded the anti-facist rally in Birmingham city centre, it was an interesting experience to say the least. What started of as a moderate rally both in tone and in turnout unfortunately took a turn for the worse.

A small number of racist individuals, decided to provoke the crowd and unfortunately a large proportion of the crowd took the bait. The rally which for many seemed to be a disguise for pushing a pro palestine agenda ending up undermining all of the Unite organsiers efforts and resulting to nothing more than yobbish and aggressive violent behaviour comparitive to an american ghetto.

Finally I decided to leave and after negotiating my way past the lines of riot police (who behaved admirrally if not a little to reluctant to intervene in the disquiet) I couldn't help but think that if we are going to succeed in defeating the racist and facist agenda at the next election then we need those who actually beleive in the anti-facist movement to mobilise like the other side have been doing.

I beleive that is where students can come into play and is why I along with the other officers this year will be trying to get as many of you to vote as possible.

I would really like to hear people's thoughts on this matter...

Action through advocacy training

2009-08-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

It's the end of my first week in office and so I thought I would just post a quick blog on what I got upto;

I spent monday moving into my new office with Ed and rearranging the furniture, ordering stationary and setting up voicemail on the phone (all the important stuff!)before heading down to London for the rest of the week for Sabbatical Officer summer training.

I atteneded the NUS action through advocacy training which gave me an amazing opportunity to meet loads of other Welfare and Education officers from across the UK.
We had talks and presentations on the challenges in the year ahead for the NUS and loads of workshops to attend on stuff we want to do this year.

Overall I met some amazing people and definately came away with a few more ideas of what to do this year and how to do it.

Next week im back in the office so I guess the real work begins...

Training over...lets get going!

2009-08-02T13:43:00.001-07:00

So I have spent the last month in training and i'm now officially about to begin.
The last month has been both hard work and emotionally draining at times but it has definately been worthwhile, here are just some of the highlights of my month of training...

> Well it was mainly filled with flip charts, mind mapping and action plans (necessary but a bit dry at times)where I had more information about the guild thrown at me than I even knew existed.

> We got thrown in the deep end with a full day simulation of being a sabb where I had to deal with swine flu, major crises and political smoozing with the univeristy. It was definately a baptism of fire!

> In between all of the guild fun I had some time out to graduate and spend a few days chilling in London!

> I also had the opportunity to do some pretty cool things during my handovers with Hollie, I got a tour of the police station (including the cells) and the CCTV operations centre, the chance to meet some of the people i'm going to be working with this year and I visited our satellite site in Stratford; the Shakespeare institute.

So, now it's time to begin...

P.S thanks to my friend Cath for the 'amazing' photograhic interpretation of being ready to start.

A welcome and introduction from your new VPW

2009-07-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

I Started at Birmingham in September 2006 and moved into Ashcroft in Prtichatts Park. Despite being a law student I didn't do that much Uni work in the first year, and no surprise really but i didn't engage in the Guild much. The extent of my involvement was being a member of the Neighbours Appreciation Society -I spent the majority of my time going out the hottest new place in town 'oceana', as well as Vodbull at the Works and Risa when it was still on a Monday!

Around Easter in my first year I got a job on the Reception desk of the Guild, this is what kick started my involvement in the Guild, getting to know what the Guild was about, meeting people who were alot more active than I was and hearing about different societies and activities I wanted to get involved in. This is where I heard about Carnival RAG for the first time and in september 2007 I started attending the meetings to find out what it was all about.

After attending Carnival events for a semester I decided to run for a committee posistion, and before I knew it I became the hitch rep - organsing hitch hikes across the country to places like Edinburgh and Newquay and we even streched ourselves as far as Amsterdam. I can honestly say it was the best thing I did during my time in University and without me realising I became very involved in the Guild.

At the end of my second year I spent 9 weeks over the summer in Uganda in East Africa, through the International Volunteering society at the Guild i went as part of a group of 6 to Volunteer with the Straight Talk Foundation. Straight talk are a non governemental organisation that are invovled in the promotion of HIV/AIDS awareness as part of a wider sexual health iniative that teaches the social importance of relationships and how to transfer this into safe sexual practice if and when they decide to do so. This project allowed me to spend my time in Ugangda teaching sexual Health in schools to students aged 12-22, as well as doing role plays, getting involved in community projects and offering one to one counselling for children if they need it. This project helped me to get a frim grasp on welfare issues, and although the issues themselves do not translate to our Univesity, the skills that i learnt i think do.

I also took on a second job in the Guild working for the Representation and Democracy department (the overdraft was being spent far too quickly) and I decided to run for a Guild Council position for my course. This is where I really found out about the Guild Officer positions for the first time. In addition I realised I would need something to fill the void that was Carnival when it ended at Christmas in my final year, so I decided to run for Social secretary for the Holdsworth Club (Law society) which kept me thoroughly busy throughout my final year organising events such as River cruises, trips to Amsterdam, theatre trips in the west end and the Annual law ball with a very large Budget. I also had a role to play in reforming the constitution, dealing with law firms to secure sponsorship, and helped to develop a peer mentor scheme.

Around christmas in my Final year i decided I was going to run for a guild officer posistion and the rest as they say is history. So here I am about to begin a pretty daunting year but one I can't wait to get stuck into. Thanks for reading this blog, keep checking back to find out what I have been upto and remember to protect your welfare with a Johnny.