Last week catch up!!

Last week was a funny old week...here's a rundown:

Undergraduate Openday
The sabbs and many staff came to the Guild en masse on Saturday the 12^th September for the Undergraduate Openday, and it was a HUGE success. We chatted to loads of prospective students, gave out lots of membership handbooks and answered many questions about the Guild (often ‘yes, we are a student union; just called a different name’!!). It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, and everyone was in a great mood. Good work team – we have hopefully bagged lots of new students for next year!!

Interviewing
I spent two days last week on the interviewing panel for a number of Guild staff vacancies. It was a great experience, there were great candidates, and I thought it was fantastic for a student representative to have such an input.

University Training
We spent a couple of afternoons at University training meeting the key players in some of the University departments, such as HAS and Library Services. It was really useful to start building up those contacts and relationships with relevant members of university staff.

University College Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee
Each sabbatical sits on a university college ‘Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee’ and I had my first Social Science ‘C-QAEC’ meeting last week. Some of the items of relevance to the Guild include Student Reps, module evaluation and National Student Survey results.

Media Law Training
On Friday, members of the media student groups (BurnFM, GTV and Redbrick), Fabian and I, and a few members of Guild staff had Media Law training at the Guild. Our instructor had over 25 years experience of being a journalist, and we all seemed to really benefit from the training. We discussed issues such copywrite, contempt of court, defamation and privacy – all really key issues for the Guild and media groups to have a working knowledge of.

ZEST
At the end of last week, Ed and Fordy officially opened the Guild’s new clothing and merchandise retail shop – ZEST. A number of people turned up for the special occasion, and by the looks of how busy it is now, students are loving the shop and the new merchandise! Check out the teddy bear changing room next time you go in!!

Welcome Week
YAAAAAYYYY its WELCOME WEEK!!! The last two days have been pretty crazy meeting and greeting new people, giving presentations in lectures, directing people all over the guild, and dealing with lots of questions!! It’s been great though – all the staff and student staff have worked so hard so far, and I have see lots of student groups about doing their bit! Our very own BurnFM have been broadcasting out into mermaid square and are doing a fiiiiine job!! They are giving shoutouts to any groups that want a mention – so get in touch with them! It’s only a few days to the societies and volunteering fair, for a list of the groups that will be present, head to the Societies and Volunteering Fairs Facebook Event. External activities and companies won’t be allowed at the fairs and will be asked to leave, so interested students are all yours!! It’s been a great chance to start talking to some of you guys – if you see me walking about, be sure to grab me for a chat!!

Things are pretty busy at the moment as you can imagine, so I’m sorry it’s quite a brief one today!

Em

Volunteering at Jarrett Hall - Spot the Re-useables!!

Recycling, Recognition, Relationships and Redevelopment....

Best Bar None

Thursday night was the Best Bar None awards – a HUGE WELL DONE to all the Venues staff, Joe’s Bar won Best Suburban Bar for the second year in a row!! It was a fantastic event and it was really nice for a few of the Sabbs to mingle with venues staff.

Tour of the Guild

I’ve had a couple of chances to see the redevelopment of the retail area – very exciting times people!! It’s looking really good and on schedule. Part of the retail area will be open for tomorrows open day (the new clothing store Zest is all good to go and looks fab!) and then next week Spar and the IT shop etc will move in, ready for the grand opening on the 18^th!! There will be a Sneak Peek exclusive event for all Student Group committee members 9pm-10.30pm on Saturday 19^th September, with entry into Fab N Fresh afterwards. The event is free; you just need to RSVP to s.thomson@guild.bham.ac.uk if you would like to attend!!

Society 121

I have managed to have a good chat with Debating Society and Redbrick this week to find out their exciting plans for the year. It is so important to have that relationship with groups, and it is great to talk about how I can help your group this year. If you want to have a chat, just drop me an email vpsad@guild.bham.ac.uk or pop in and see me – I love having visitors!!

Get Involved

You might be surprised to learn that plans for Get Involved, to be held in the second term, are well underway to make sure that the event is a huge success and that groups can get the most out of the opportunity to promote their group to students. I’ll leave it at that for now, but lost more info to follow!!

'CV Enhancing'

For those of you that were lucky enough to escape Ed’s ‘CV Enhancing’ rampage (or so claimed to lure in volunteers!), here's a peek at what you missed out on!! All the Sabbs, an Inde Chair, some RA’s and some lucky students all headed to Jarrett Hall to help sort out all the amazing things Students have left behind after moving out. From rice cookers to coat hangers, from cleavers to umbrellas – we saw it all!! Some items are due to be collected by the British Heart Foundation, and some items are to be given out on a first come first serve basis to the incoming freshers – good stuff!!

Welcome Week

IT IS NEARLY TIME!! The clock on the Guild of Students website is counting down very quickly and the staff in Student Development are working so hard to make the magic happen - Welcome Week is only 7 days away!! Check out the Societies and Volunteering Fair facebook group for more information – I can’t wait!!

Acorn Fun Run

I have made it my mission to recruit as many Guild staff to join in the Acorn Fun Run and Road Race which takes place on campus on Sunday 18^th October and raises money for the Acorn charity, check out the hyperlink above and get involved!! There’s a 5k road race or a 2k fun run (or in my case fun walk ;) ) – See you there!!

AOB

Other bits and bobs I am working on at the moment are different methods of recognition for student groups, Know Your Guild hush hush campaign (!), training sessions and workshops for groups (see previous blog), relationships with the Alumni Office, options for student group ticket selling, and working on a policy regarding banners on the guild.

As ever, it is always a pleasure to hear from groups or interested students, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch!!

Emx

Student Development...

Some students get involved in Student Groups because they want to enhance their CV, some students get involved because they are passionate about the matter at hand, and some students get involved because they are passionate and yet also recognise the fantastic impact volunteering on a committee has on their employability prospects. Capturing those skills however and getting them onto your CV and application forms can be pretty hard and often they get lost amongst other information or forgotten about.

I am looking into arranging a session focused on Student Group committee members and RA’s which will include (fun!) warm up sessions to get you thinking about the skills you have gained, first hand experience at shortlisting application forms just as your potential employer would, and workshops on how to balance part-time work with extra-curricula activities and what work would be suitable for you. There will also be a workshop on how to get those all important skills down onto your CV for when you graduate (dun dun deerrrr), an opportunity to ask Career and JobZone advisors questions and to also get personal advice on your CV.

Is this the sort of session you would find useful? If you have any comments or suggestions then please get in touch by commenting on this post or emailing vpsad@guild.bham.ac.uk.

I look forward to hearing from you!! Emx

This Week...

A cheeky little round up of what I've been up to this week:

I met with careers about the PERSONAL SKILLS AWARD (PSA) which is the University's employability award and helps students to be recognised and to stand out to employers. It involves a programme of completing skills modules which will appear on your transcript, or through participation in extra-curricular activities (ie ALL THE FANTASTIC WORK YOU GUYS ARE ALREADY DOING!!). Places are limited to sign up; I will have more information for the Student Group Meeting, but if you want more information now, check out www.as.bham.ac.uk/psa.

I've been chatting with TWO NEW START UP SOCIETIES this week - RUBS (Rounders:University of Birmingham Squad) and No to ID Card society - exciting times - keep an eye out Societies Fair (24th and 25th September)!
Redbrick are looking at an exciting joint student group venture: if Top Gear, Media, Fund-raising or Fun grabs your attention, then contact Redbrick at redbrick@guild.bham.ac.uk!!

Student Development Strategy is another biggy I am working on at the moment with Student Development staff - this is looking into the core focus of student development, the key activities of the department, and how we measure and monitor those activities. It's really hard and complicated stuff, but the outcome will be super duper and communicated to all students and staff.

Another big activity for this week has been Shortlisting candidates for a number of vacant Guild staff positions - very time-consuming but very interesting and important for the Guild!!

The Sabbs have also been busy working on Know Your Guild...it's going to be big and it's going to be amazing...but that is all I can say for now :) !!

Its great hearing what you are all up to and what you have planned for the coming year, so make sure you keep in touch!!

Emx