What's On?

Make sure you check out the What's On? calendar at the bottom of my blog for upcoming student group and Guild events!!

Monday 26 October 2009

Equal tuition fees + Equal teaching resources = Unequal Pay?


There is still at 17.1% pay gap in the workplace between men and women. Why does this matter to students? Well we are treated as equals at University; pay equal fees, work equally hard, are given the same amount of teaching, and the same about of opportunities to develop our skill set, so why then, when we graduate, are some students subjected to discrimination based on their gender? We have employers on campus continuously, looking to recruit the best graduates. The role of the University is to prepare us for the workplace, so it is so important that students are aware of the discrimination that may face them, so that they can speak out if they think it is unfair, or be savvy about it when they are working their way up a career ladder. Boys – this is all relevant to you too. Do you think it’s fair that your mother, auntie, sister, niece, daughter or future partner may be subjected to a promotion or financial disadvantage? What if the future breadwinner of your family is female? There are lots of ‘if’s’ and ‘but’s’ in this debate, but I stand firm that there should be equal pay, for equal skills (such as initiative needed, daily routine, dealing with people etc). People argue that the 17.1% gap is based purely on different jobs and therefore can’t be a true statistic, but the facts state that the biggest cause of this pay gap is out-right discrimination for the same job, even though this is illegal. There are obvious ‘traditional’ roles for men and women, some of this may be based on typical differences between the two sexes, but these, and their pay, need to be reviewed by society and not presumed. Do we respect a society that pays more to those who look after our cars than those who look after our young or elderly? I guess the answer is a matter of personal opinion. In terms of the argument of high costs if a woman leaves a company to have a baby; why does an employer have the right to decide if that woman will even decide to have a baby, never mind discard the option that the paternity rights/pay may be transferred to the father or partner. So.

Hopefully that has got you either 1) outraged and ready to sign the petition which will be on campus all week, and outside Spar (Guild) all day Friday, or 2) you want to hear more to make up your mind and have lots of questions you want answering at the Panel Discussion on 30th October, 5pm, Guild Council Chambers. NUS Women’s Officer Olivia Bailey, POLSIS lecturer Dr Peter Kerr, and Careers Services representative Sue Welland will be on the panel, which will be chaired by Debating Society. It’s free, so come along! Read Redbrick’s article here on 'Fe-man-ism'.

Monday 19 October 2009

Welcome Week
Amazing. Just amazing. It was a fantastic week, and great to be a part of. The societies did amazingly well and groups seemed to get a lot of int
erest which translated into membership. From the data collected so far, there were 90 Groups on Thursday and 110 Groups on Friday. There was a staggering 11,000 footfall over the two days, and from 103 groups data, over 10,000 interested students signed up, and 3,500 students became members on the day. From chatting to groups, there has been consistent sign up since then also….Good stuff! There will be another opportunity to attract more members at the Get Involved fair on Monday 26th January, followed by two weeks of introductory events and workshops - more details to follow!




















Student
Group Meeting (Megaforum!!)
Thank you to all the groups that made it, I hope yo
u found it really useful. It was a great opportunity for me to meet groups and to encourage groups to get in touch. There was a lot of information, and if anyone would like a copy of the slides, I can send you a reduced version. We discussed the various training opportunities that are coming up: Marketing and Sponsorship on Wednesday 18th, the CV workshops for committee members, Events drop in (Monday’s 11am-12pm – email vpsad@guild.bham.ac.uk to book), and Entrepreneurship workshops. We also touched on the Guild of Students website and how groups can get the most out of it. Please check here that your group details are up to date. If you would like your event to be placed on the ‘what’s on’ section, please email s.streatfield@guild.bham.ac.uk with your event details, and it will be forwarded to marketing and myself. Groups had a chance to ask me any questions (and Challenge me to a number of activities!!) and to communicate anything to other groups. I have collected in all the feedback, and I am working on all the issues raised. I will be blogging feedback to your comments – thank you very much for all your constructive comments!!

Fruit of the Loom
There have been a number of issues with this recently. Fruit of the Loom t-shirts are to be boycotted by the Guild and student groups following the ‘what’s disgusting? Union busting’ motion being approved in March. Please remember that you are not allowed to use Fruit of the Loom t-shirts, and when ordering with external clients, be sure to check which t-shirts they use.



Student Group Committee elections
The SGC is the
Guild-Council sub-committee that recognises and derecognises student groups amongst other terms of reference, and is made up of 3 Sabbatical Officers, and 3 elected student representatives. The elections for this year will be held at the next Guild Council on 29th October.



Acorn Fun Run

A huge thank you to all the Sabbs and Guild staff th
at made it along to the Acorn charity fun run on Sunday!! We made £63 for Acorns and they had a great turn out on the day! A big thank you to Ed, who was extremely grumpy about the whole thing, but still managed to race off ahead as soon as the whistle went, and was even offered a goody bag as the staff mistook him for a child… :D Well done to Redbrick who did a fantastic live blog about the event, with a number of audio interviews and loads of photos. Click here and here for more!






Committee Training, Non-Sabb training
I’ve been along to a couple of
committee training sessions (which all new committee’s have to attend) to meet some more of you, and see how the training session is run. I also helped to coordinate and deliver the non-Sabb training, they are a great bunch of passionate people, and I am really really looking forward to working with them this year.

Gilbert and Sullivan Society performing HMS Pinafore
Well done Gilbert and Sullivan, for their awesome performance of HMS Pinafore, which they rehearsed in a period of ju
st 24hours! I was asked to introduce their first ever performance as a society, which was an absolute honour – thank you!

Societies and Challenge Emma!!
Here’s a little shout out to the societies I have had meetings with in the last couple of weeks about various issues, support and advice…Burn FM, MethSoc, Ballroom and Latin, Navigators, Carnival RAG, BrumS
urf, Friends of Palestine, EconSoc, RA welcome week debrief, GTV, Redbrick!! TrickSoc, Purple Mermaid, ArtSoc and BUDS have all challenged me...if you want to challenge me, then drop me an email at vpsad@guild.bham.ac.uk,

Thursday 8 October 2009

Room Bookings....what's the problem?

Let me know what problems your student group has with the Guild's room booking proceedure...