Why does everything take so long and what are you doing about it?

"Kent Student chilling in Templeman
pre-final exams" 

So this week has been a challenging one. In case it has managed to escape any of you at Kent this is exam term  and the stress levels are running high. For final year students in particular there are very high pressures to perform well in the assessments at the end of the year. These stress points are further impacted by the cost of living in Canterbury particularly leading to students having to work at their part-time jobs rather than revise because they simply need to be able to eat! On top of this many students are questioning more that ever whether simply having a degree is going to make them stand-out in the employment market. This means that many students have taken the initiative in getting involved with the Union and volunteering. There are many ways to get stuck in including standing in one of the part-time officer positions and representing students in a range of ways to joining a sports team, society or volunteer group committee or simply using the Kent Union volunteer portal to get engaged in some community or one-off volunteering opportunities.

When I was studying for my degree I was committed to the 40 hours a week of study that was asked of me (honest!) and was fortunate in a sense that the nature of my course meant that a considerably high number of these hours were spent in workshops and seminars as well as rehearsals. I spent a lot of time on campus. On top of this I held down between one and three jobs during my four year course working about 20 hours a week. This is not uncommon now for students with many working between 10 and 20 hours in term-time, many of which are employed by the university and 300 are employed by Kent Union alone. On top of this I was an engaged volunteer doing between 10 and 20 hours a week making my week about 80 hours long and I don't think that I was the exception to the rule. Gone are the days where students received a grant to study that covered them over the holiday periods. Not everyone's parents can afford to pay their rent for them either!

This week I feel like I caught a 'stress flare' with many of the feedback and volunteer fora I chair expressing their frustration at how difficult it is to organise events on campus. This is a frustration I remember well, routinely coming up to the student activities office (now my office) to come and complain to the VP-activities (now my role) about not having the resources I needed to fulfil my role as president of a society. The difficulty of booking a room, struggling to hire equipment, not being able to find a member of Kent Union staff to help me or locate my VP Activities when I needed him as well as not having a whole lot of money to do all of these things!

"Students too busy to complain often forced to
send pets to my office on their behalf"

On top of this I believe that Kent Union's systems are flawed, out-dated, being bureaucratic and not 'user-centric' with volunteers often having to find a member of staff who is ill or in a meeting, on lunch, at a conference, doesn't work out of termtime etc. Many of our systems are still offline where other unions are moving their operations online with societies being able to make orders and payments online and this being authorised at the Union end. This has been recognised but is a big thing to change, the student union provides an incredible range of facilities from the nursery to competing sports clubs, dance groups to the advice centre, a radio station, a paper, technical services, not to mention representation and democracy, training, volunteer programmes, community link-ups, retail, bars and a nightclub (across two campuses!) the course rep system, awards nights and contributes to a massive part of the student experience here at Kent. Yet it is expected to do it on a shoestring budget with a skeleton staff. Ultimately, we need more staff, specifically I feel we need focus on societies and volunteering but improvements are happening and we are moving forward.

So what am I/We doing about it?  

Open diary- You can come into the student activities office to speak to me (above essentials) and if I'm not there you will be able to ask at reception for where I am, what I'm doing and when I'll be back.

Staff Support- Kent Union have taken on a new member of activities staff this year Amy, she's been supporting societies and sports here this year. We have an employability coordinator Suzanne who has been developing the Employability toolkit.We will also be bringing a new member of staff onto the team to support Steph Hughes in our work with Volunteers on and off campus.

Systems- Part of my ongoing activities campaign is to review the systems we use (such as the cash reclaim form) and see what of it we can move online for better access.

"Schedule for Third Term training sessions"

Societies Funding- I have focussed a lot of my energy on justifying an increase to the societies development fund a pot of cash societies can apply to for additional funding for an event. This year it was increased from £2,000 to £4,000 and next year the budget to be approved by the board of Trustees will be £5,000 the first increase in at least 5 years. I've also set up one off fundraising opportunities in the form of stand-out training sessions. Run by student groups and funded by the faculty of Humanities societies can 'earn' £150 for their society by showing how their activity can help members to develop employability skills.   

Ents Forum- I run a forum where you can offer feedback on Kent Union's licenced trade (Rutherford Bar, Woody's the Venue and the Attic) attendees benefit from free entry to the Venue/ attic once a week by arrangement. We meet every other Thursday at 4pm in the student activities centre. All are welcome. Facebook group here 

Grant Funding- Proposals will be going to Societies Federation this coming Tuesday at 6pm in RLT1 which will give a range of options for societies to vote upon. The suggested systems would increase grant funding for societies overall and give more to smaller groups that need it most.

"Venue in Full swing"

Online Elections: This year has been the first year where society elections have been able to be held online. Societies can still maintain their old traditions around elections but now their votes are cast online which means there is no need for a returning officer and more autonomy is given to societies. There will also be a Q and A sessions at the societies federation meeting about the system. 

Kent Tech: Kent Union Technical Services are a group of volunteers working with Kent Union in order to provide technical support and equipment at low cost to student groups on campus wanting to hold events. This year a new member of staff has been hired Joff Taylor and a brand new group of volunteers who have been nominated for an award at The Kent Union Awards. This year they've gone from strength to strength and next year anticipate more of the same.  

Training: Next Year 70 key volunteers will be trained and awarded with an award in volunteer management. I believe this will be instrumental in helping students to become more self-reliant as far as organising volunteers is concerned (read more here). I am committed to renovating the societies training introducing a new multi-strand training day where volunteers will be able to chose the training that they feel is most relevant to the volunteering that they will be doing as well as including the core material that everyone needs. I am planning future blogs with videos showing volunteers how to do key things like complete risk assessments and organise events. I am planning on re-writing the out-dated and slightly ugly societies handbook which has been out of circulation for a while and helping societies to help themselves.

I hope this helps. Please send any suggestions to union-activities@kent.ac.uk  

         

       




  

Meeting the New Team

Not How Kent Union Do it... Honest

Today was an interesting day. Kent Union had organised a development day which was to be attended by the majority of staff with a range of sessions being run by members of the team as well as externals brought in for their expertise. As well as it being an opportunity for members of staff and our two exiting sabbaticals to learn new skills or recap on previous knowledge such as Equality and diversity training and recruitment, it also gave individuals the chance to mix with staff from departments they don't have regular interaction relaxing through Tai Chi, playing a round of tennis or learning a new skill such as sign language.

However, these were not the only team building sessions organised today with the three returning sabbatical officers (President, VP Welfare and myself) joining the two future members of our team (Alex Murray for VP Education and Matthew Harris VP Sports) at Kent's Medway Campus at Chatham docks. Not only was this a  chance to see some interesting presentations about the history of Kent Union from its formation in the 1960s to the present day as well as a range of presentations on governance and representation and democracy but importantly to learn about the history of the Universities at Medway student association (UMSA) and take a tour around the historic campus which was originally a naval base.

Medway isn't a small campus but there is painfully
little space set aside for student activities. Lobbying
for the 'c4' building to be refurbished as a flexible space
is a manifesto pledge of mine.

As well as discussing future training plans for the summer after our two newest members will have (almost) completed their studies, we did some basic team-building discussing our past hopes and fears as well as current and future ones. It was insightful as well as supportive to know that we shared many of the same concerns and aspirations and I look forward to working with the new team with members who will be stamping their own brand on the sabbatical roles.

Kent's Sabbatical team 2011-12... not quite mes amis!

Following the election results in February there was much discussion on campus, among volunteers and staff as well as on CSR and in inquire surrounding the fact that we will be an all white, male sabbatical team. When asked if I thought this was an issue (on the grounds of representing our diverse membership) my answer was "that it is always going to be an issue but it will only become a problem if we let it." Whilst our make-up is perhaps not ideal I was confident that through working closely with the part-time volunteer officers we could represent all of our students fairly and effectively. With our first Medway student elected to the board of trustees I hope we will also be able to better represent the Medway student voice. The more time I spend with the new team the more confident I grow that this will be another strong year for Kent students. Whilst we will always have big shoes to fill, that we have a chance to wiggle our toes for a year with the hope of stretching our metaphorical union footwear before passing them on to the next generation of Kent Students.

Interesting Facts:

Medway has some facilities to be envied but the student
experience needs real development to justify £9,000 fees

* Medway's drillhall library is Rumoured to be the longest library in Europe!
* There are approximately 20,000 students across Kent's campuses
* Just over 10 years ago Kent Union had 6 sabbatical roles which included (President, treasurer, women's officer, sports, Education and Welfare and union communications
*Inquire (previously KRED, previously INCANT) is as old as the University of Kent itself
*3 of the first 500 graduates of the University of Kent are still involved in Kent Union through volunteering on Kent Union's board of trustees or CYSM's board of directors (who support CSRFM)