Hello!
Welcome to my first blog post. It’s been two months(!) since we arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed for handover. It’s been a crazy whirlwind of meetings, emails and energy (and quite a lot of cake). Our two weeks of handover went by in a flash and we were driving to our residential before we knew it. The Officer Trustee team spent 3 days getting to know each other, testing our working styles and developing our goals for the year.
Since then, we’ve been laying the groundwork for a successful year. It’s certainly been a steep learning curve for us all. Within the first few weeks we were writing the NSS (National Student Survey) Response, allocating room bookings for 370 CSPs (Clubs, Societies and Projects- we love our acronyms), training student volunteers and getting ready for Welcome Week.
My Time So Far…
So far I’ve sat in a lot of meetings, trying to get to grips with each remit and numerous papers. My highlight was 314 pages of reading for one meeting. I’ve never been more grateful for being a fast reader!
Lots of my free time has been used to prepare for the Union’s Governance Review which we are conducting this year. We’ll be re-writing our Constitution & Bye-Laws which gives us the chance to review, change and strengthen our democratic structures. I want Imperial College Union to reach more of our students and be accessible to everyone- no matter their background, location or level of study. I need your input to make our democracy more inclusive.
My Goals
This year each Officer Trustee has 4 big goals. We developed these from our manifestos and through handover. My goals for the year are:
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Governance & Democracy Review
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We talk about being one of the most democratic Students’ Unions. Let’s make ourselves the undisputable sector leader on engagement and democracy. Everyone loves re-writing a constitution, right?!
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Development of our key volunteers
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We run thanks to thousands of volunteers every year. My particular focus is on supporting our Constituent Unions, Management Groups and Liberation Officers.
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Wellbeing Strategy
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Working with Fintan and in partnership with College, we are creating a wellbeing strategy to highlight our long term vision.
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Understanding Our Membership
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This is quite a broad area which is great because I can pull in different projects from all over the Union and College. We had a liberation review (watch this space for its publication) over the summer and we’re working hard to support our Liberation Officers in making some serious change. We want to engage students on all campuses this year.
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Team Goals
We also have some team goals that we’ll be working together to achieve. Some of this work will obviously fall under someone’s title and remit- other bits we’ll collaborate on. These are:
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Wellbeing Strategy
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We want to work in partnership with College to lay out our long-term plans to improve your wellbeing during your time here. This is going to be huge so we want to work as a team to make sure this reaches all corners of Imperial.
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Year-Round Democracy
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We want you to have your views heard all year round. No matter your location or level of study.
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Support & Development of Volunteers
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We run thanks to the 3,500 volunteer roles which form our Academic (and soon Wellbeing) Representation Network, CSPs, Constituent Unions and Management Groups, Liberation Officers and many more. We want to see better support and development opportunities for all our volunteers.
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Accessibility & Openness
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Everyone should be able to interact with the Union. We want it to be easier for you to find support and explore our services.
Over the next year, we’ll be working to represent you and make the changes you want to see. If you have an idea or comment, we want to hear it! You can find out what we’re up to through our blogs, social media and emails. I am really excited for the year ahead. I'm going to be posting regularly so you can see what I'm doing and my plans. If there’s something you want to know more about, you can email me at union.president@ic.ac.uk anytime.
See you in Welcome Week!
Chippy
