Varsity, The Knowledge, and Placements!!

Hello All

My apologies for the long delay since my last blog!
I managed to escape  the week before last on a skiing holiday, and spent most of last week trying to catch up – no time for Blogging!

Last week was the annual Varsity Tournament, which meant I spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings watching our teams tackle Marjon – and there were some great games played! Unfortunately, despite winning 12 matches each, we didn’t win the tournament overall, so the trophey leaves our cabinet for the year!

Men’s rugby were particularly impressive this year – bringing home a win for the first time since 1993!

Overall the tournament was very entertaining, including some hilarious chanting and streakers! So well done to all who played, and to all who attended to support our teams – we will also have raised a significant amount for Charity through ticket and programme sales…exact amount to be confirmed – watch this space!
I spent Thursday putting together the new issue of the Knowledge newspaper – A long day, starting at 8:30 am and finishing 16hours later!
It was worth it though – the new issue arrived this morning and is packed full of articles by students, including a pull out section on the Varsity Tournament. Come in to the SU to pick up your copy!

If you want to get involved with writing for the Knowledge, please get in touch at vpactivities@upsu.com

Finally – We are recruiting 3 student placements to work in Entertainment & Events, Bar & Shop and Marketing. If you are looking for a student placement then please email theresa.aslett@su.plymouth.ac.uk for an application form or visit the Academic Placement Unit in the Plymouth Business School to get a job description.

Hurry though….the closing date for applications is the 31st March!

I’ll write another Blog soon about Governance… but right now I must leave work and have dinner!

James

Elections Results

Greetings all,

The Annual upsu Elections closed yesterday at noon after a long week of voting.

After a bit of a drinks reception in the Hive, the results were announced in Sub:lime around 7pm. So the Sabbatical team for next year looks like this…

President – Aleshia Sampson
Deputy President – Tom Vennard
VP Activities & Communications – Yours Truly!
VP Education & Welfare – Ed Marshall
VP Sports – Chris Rees

Overall I think we’ve got potential for another good year with this team, so congratulations to all. Further thanks and congratulations should also of course go to all the other candidates in these elections, both full time and part time!

The Sabbatical Team 2009/10

However, personally I’ve been pretty disappointed in the turnout in these elections…both in the number of candidates and the number of votes cast.

We had three full time positions with candidates running uncontested (apart from Re-Open Nominations of course!) and the others with only two candidates. For a University of this size (30,000 potential candidates, and more importantly 30,000 voters!) this isn’t great to say the least.
So the question I’d ask you is WHY?

Over the past few months I’ve talked endlessly to students in induction talks, lectures and training sessions about how the Union is run, how important Parliament is, how the Sabbatical Team are paid YOUR MONEY to represent ALL STUDENTS, and yet there were just 700 votes for my position!

I don’t think the problem is a lack of information, most people know the elections happen, they just don’t care! So…like I said…WHY?

I promise you now, I will be dedicating a lot of time to this question for the rest of my term in office… because I want students to be interested. I want students to feel that UPSU is THEIR Union, to know they can come in and effectively tell us how to represent them, to come to Parliament, to get involved in some training, to use our Advice centre…the list goes on!

We have over 40 full time staff at UPSU. They Care. They put their heart and soul into upsu, and are always happy to go the extra mile to make things work a bit better. They are, essentially, awesome. I can’t thank them enough for this, and that’s another reason why I want our students to get involved.

So here’s what I want you to do. Tell me….did you vote? If you didn’t….why? If you did (firstly thanks!), why do you think others didn’t?

The University of Plymouth Students’ Union is a great place, once you get involved you can’t get out…I was talking to someone last night who said “now I’ve been involved this week, I wish I’d have got more involved two years ago!”

I think that’s an important point.
The Union can offer something to everyone. I just have to make it my mission to go and tell people one-to-one exactly what that is for them.

Wish me luck!

James

Volunteering, Councils and Newspapers…

Hi!

So once again it’s been a little while since my last post – things have continued to be busy here at upsu!

As the title suggests, I’ve been up to a whole range of activities…

Our Volunteering Induction evening took place on the 14th October, and it was the most successful yet. It was held in the Sherwell Church Hall and at one point the Queue to get in reached out to North Hill!

Volunteer Induction Evening

In all 1,009 students signed up to the Volunteer mailing list, and loads of projects have started up already. To get involved yourself, email volunteer@su.plymouth.ac.uk

Personally I went out to Cornwall a couple of weeks ago to take part in the first Railway Project of the year – at Causeland Station. We re-painted the old shelter and did a bit of scrub clearance…along with the all-important Tea and Biscuits!

Karen and I painting the Shelter

I also met with Lisa Philips (Registry Manager) to talk about creating an extra Diploma Supplement to reward students who take part in extra-curricular activities such as volunteering or becoming a society/club committee member. This ties in with work being done by Darren, Andrea and Joff (from our Senior Management Team) and Dave Croot from the University.

A key event this month was the first meeting of Sports and Societies Council. At this meeting we discussed societies funding, societies & upsu awards and also ratified 7 new Societies (Juggling, Slow Food, Film, Journalists, Stop the War, Robotics and Geography).

The Knowledge has been another priority for me this month, focusing on promoting the paper to a wider audience as well as encouraging more students to submit articles. The newly formed Journalists Society should provide a good amount of new writers for this. I’ve also been in discussions with the Theatre Royal and 20^th Century Fox regarding review articles. The next issue of the paper will be appearing in the week beginning 17^th Nov and the Deadline for Articles to be included in the next issue is the 10th November.
Email your submissions on whatever topic to theknowledge@upsu.com

I recently set up a meeting of all those involved in planning and running Freshers’ events at upsu – called the “Big Freshers’ Review.” We chatted for a couple of hours about all the events and processes, reflecting on how well things went and how to improve them. A report and Action Plan have been written for this, ask me if you want a copy!! I also attended the University’s equivalent ‘Induction Evaluation Meeting’ to feed into their review process.

Finally, I’ve also been leading discussions on the new Societies and upsu Award ceremonies. Alongside staff opinions I will be looking for feedback from Societies and students in order to create a successful and worthwhile ceremony. I’ve also been looking for venues, visiting the Barbican Theatre so far!
If you fancy feeding in to this, then drop me a line at vpactivities@upsu.com

Coming up! Look out for…

10th – 14th November
One World Week!

With loads of events promoting cultural diversity and campaigning against Racism, be prepared for a week of unique events – including free food, break dancing, wine tasting… the list goes on!

So that’s it for another Blog

As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments!

James – vpactivities@upsu.com