Termly Reports 7th Week Hilary 2008

Martin McCluskey              President

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the final council of term! When I said in my last report that things had been quite quiet, I think I was tempting fate. The last couple of weeks have been extremely busy. Given that this is a termly report, I’ll give an overview of the term in OUSU and also notes from the past couple of weeks.

Martin x

Hilary Term

Hilary Term is always the quietest in Oxford and one of the most difficult to get everyone motivated for. However, there are notable things that have been achieved this term.

New Executive Members

For the first time in over 4 years, we entered Hilary with a full Executive. The whole team has been great and we’ve had really good feedback from Common Room Officers on their work with the new Exec. The increased capacity from a full exec has allowed us to do things that we just didn’t have time for in Michaelmas. With a term of experience behind the new team, I think Trinity Term will be even better.

Common Room Meetings

With the full exec in place, we’ve been able to attend almost 50 Common Room meetings this term. We’ve found that being in meetings has allowed us to get a much better idea of the issues that are facing Common Rooms and exchanging these ideas at Exec meetings has meant that we can identify the issues that are common across all Colleges and start to do something about it.

OUSU Funding

This term saw the first meeting of the JCC Working Group on OUSU Funding. The group will continue to meet through Trinity Term to discuss possible settlements for OUSU to increase our long-term financial stability and establish funding streams in advance of our charitable registration an incorporation.

Charity Registration

As most of you know, a referendum in Trinity Term 2007 decided that OUSU should become a registered Charity, separate from the University. This is something that has taken up a lot of my time both this term and in Michaelmas. At the end of Michaelmas, instructed solicitors – Stone King – to act on our behalf. They have drafted a new Constitution (the ‘Articles”) for OUSU which has been undergoing redrafting through this term. At the beginning of next term, I hope to be able to make available copies of the new Articles.

In 3rd Week of Trinity, Stone King will give a presentation to Council on progress this year and what will happen over the next year to 18 months. All this work doesn’t come without a cost: already our legal fees are in excess of £6,000. However, this is a one off cost that will put OUSU in a much better position for the future.

Campaigning

The predominance of institutional issues has meant that campaigns haven’t had as much prominence this term. However, with the groundwork being done for rent negotiations next term, I see rent and housing continuing to dominate OUSU’s lobbying and advocacy work.

Sixth and Seventh Weeks

Security Panel

I attended a meeting of the Security Panel where current issues in University security were discussed as well as plans and proposals for the future.

Meetings with Lawyers

I had further meetings with the OUSU lawyers – Stone King – with regards to our movement to becoming an independent Charity. We’re moving ahead quite quickly with this, but it’s unlikely that the process will be complete by the end of the year as the Charity Commission are unlikely to begin taking registrations from Student Unions until either 1 April 2009 or 1 October 2009. Stone King will probably be attending Council in 3rd Week of Trinity Term to brief Council on the proposed changes.

OUSU Reps

I had a meeting with the  OUSU Reps to discuss the Council agenda and also to update them on all things OUSU.

Prescom

I attended Prescom at LMH on Friday of 6th Week.

Joint Committee of Council

I attended the Joint Committee of Council on Thursday of 6th Week. We presented a second draft of our paper requesting funding for a Student Advisor. The paper was meant to be going to University Council in 9th Week, but we now need to send it to PRAC in 10th Week before Council later this term.

Clubs Committee

With Ingrid, I attended a meeting of Clubs Committee; which regulates University Clubs and Societies.

Rent

We held another rent meeting in 6th Week to give people an opportunity to share information and also to receive updates and advice from us. One of the key points coming out of that meeting was the rumoured level of the Van Noorden Index (now the Oxford College Costs Index), which would be around 4-5%. More work on rent data will take place over Easter.

Accommodation Officers Meeting

I attended a meeting organised by Dom for Accommodation Officers. We discussed problems facing them as well as discussing the UUK Voluntary Code of Conduct for the Management of Student Housing; a really useful document that has since been sent to JCR and MCR Presidents.

SRI

I attended a briefing meeting for College bursars on SRI hosted by Sir Derek Morris of Oriel. A number of Colleges sent representatives to the meeting to hear about how the University was moving towards implementation of an SRI policy.

Common Room Meetings

I attended meetings of Univ JCR and Lincoln MCR

Crap Joke of the Fortnight

A man walks in to a bakers shop with a tuna under his arm and says, "Do you sell fish cakes?”
The baker replies, "No this is a bakers"
The man says, "that’s a shame”
The baker asks why that is.
The man says, "Its the tuna’s birthday"

Rich Hardiman        V-P (Finance)

Hello Council,

ZOO
Risa's still good, Po Na Na's had a rocky couple of weeks (especially Valentines day), and OFS had to be wound up due to lack of interest. So a bit of a mixture, but generally still looking good. The main competition has started charging a fiver to get into any of their nights, which is absolutely obscene (there's no club in Oxford worth that, I'm sorry, that's just the way it is). While that means that he thinks he's in a strong position now it can't last – students will get tired of being treated like that. And when they do ZOO will be there to give them a better deal.

OCCH

OSSL board has decided, after much soul searching, to join CUSU in outsourcing production of the Oxford and Cambridge Careers Handbook for this year. This will provide a large (and guaranteed) income stream for next year's sabs, as well as taking one of the biggest summer projects off the hands of the BM. I'm sorting through the proposed contract with the other parties to the agreement at the moment, so I'll report back as appropriate

BM appointment

The application deadline for next year's BM is this Monday. We're looking for a talented individual with the flair and drive to take OSSL to the next level. If you know anyone who fits the bill get them to email or call me for an application pack.

Summer eights prep

One of my big projects this easter is going to be setting up an OUSU/ZOO presence at Summer Eights this year. Obviously we'll be running some nights, but I really want this to be bigger than that. If you've got any ideas, or would like to help me organise, get in touch.

Bang!

The second edition of science magazine Bang! is coming out next week. It's awesome. Read it.

That is all.

Oxford Student Delivery

We've changed the way we're delivering the OxStu to common rooms. Instead of being delivered to colleges in a nasty diesel van it's going to be dropped to Oxford (admittedly in a nasty diesel van...) and then distributed by local cyclers Oxon Carts. There are several advantages to this, the half-hearted nod to being green which makes me feel less evil, the money saving (about £4k per year) and, lest we forget, the fact that men who cycle for a living have great legs.

What the change will mean, however, is that we won't be able to drop the paper into Common Rooms anymore. Instead we'll have to leave it in the lodge and have a CR member pick it up from there. I'm going to try and arrange for this to be a staffer, rather than calling on presidents and OUSU reps, but again I'll have to let you know in the next couple of weeks.

Freshers' Guide

We're producing the Freshers' Guide this easter, rather than during the summer. Trust me, this is a good idea. We're looking for an editor, so if you're interested give me an email by Monday.

Louise Randall    V-P (Welfare and Equal Opportunities)

I really can’t believe that we’re at 7th week already. Term time has raced by here at OUSU, and I really hope you’re all looking forward to a lovely relaxing Easter vacation. Apart from a few days of holiday that the sabs are looking forward to, we’ll still be available at the end of an email or a phonecall, so if you need any help over the vacation, do get in touch.

SAS review group

This is going well, and we’re in the process of collecting data from users of the SAS, common room officers, and lots of other people besides. If you have a view on the way your Student Advice Service is run, get in touch on SASreview@ousu.org, we want your views!

Student Adviser funding proposal

This proposal went back to the Joint Consultative Committee with Student Members, which is the committee that we sit on which feeds into the main University Council. The senior members of JCC seem happy with the paper, and it’ll be taken to University Council on the Monday of 9th week. We’re asking the university for £11k for a part time professional student advisor to support the work of the Student Advice Service. Fingers crossed!!

Dyslexia forum

I am currently working with the University Disability Office, and some keen students, to bring together a forum of students with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, to lobby the university for better provision and a wider understanding of the needs such students have. If you want to be involved, email welfare@ousu.org

LGBTQ rep support

After a lot of time spent struggling to get the contact details for LGBTQ reps, the mailing list is coming together. I am now setting up regular LGBTQ reps meetings, and regular mail lists, to try and improve the support we are able to give to college diversity reps. Initial meetings of the reps have been really productive, and we’re looking forward to working on various projects, such as writing a proposed ‘job description’ for all LGBT reps across colleges, and beginning a social network of LGBT reps in order to organise intercollegiate events.

Please get in touch if you can see a need for other similarly specific training days for the welfare and diversity reps from your colleges, and I’ll do my best to organise it!

Hannah Roe                V-P (Women)

Report not yet submitted

Ingrid Frater          V-P (Graduates)

University Committees – I have gone to the following since my last Council Report:

Educational Policy and Standards Committee (inc. our paper on JCCs and Divisional Boards)
Committee for the Language Centre (including the policy we passed in Council on language learning)
Graduate Committee of Conference of Colleges  
Graduate Skills Advisory Group
ICT Sub-Committee
Rules Committee
Clubs Committee
Graduate Admissions College Working Group
Joint Consultative Committee  

Ask me questions on these!  

Graduate Event – was successful. About 50 of us were there, and some really useful discussion took place. I’ll be writing up the results and progressing with that.  

International Festival – is this week. I’ll report on this orally.

International Students’ Barometer – I went to a presentation detailing the results of the survey, and hearing about planned improvements for international students, based on the results.

JCC Reps – James and I have met with reps from Humanities and Medical Sciences.  

Mature Students’ Campaign – I met with a student who’s possibly keen to take this forward – we’ll see what can be done…  

MCR PresCom – was at Queen’s. A very useful evening of discussion.  

Common Room visits – Worcester MCR, Lincoln MCR, St Antony’s

OSSL – we had our board meeting.

SAS – Casework has been much lower this term – hopefully that’s a good thing…

James Lamming         V-P (Access & Academic Affairs)

Seventh week always seems to arrive much quicker than expected: I guess that is a sign of increasing age.  But term is over, and the rate time seems to be progressing, I’ll be writing my final ever council report and bidding adieu to Oxford before you have time to finish reading this piece of prose.  But I digress.  According to my targets, I’ve had a good term, so I should be pleased with myself.  For some reason, as yet undiscovered, I’m not hugely pleased with Hilary, and hope that either the increased sunshine over Trinity, or a Sovietesque four month plan to see me out of office will address this personal dissatisfaction.  

Enough sob story.  Some good news from past two weeks including considerable progress on the academic discipline paper, successful lobbying on prelim retakes, open days progressing at full speed and most excitingly, a brand spanking new and shiny Target Schools committee.  

Targets for the Term

To continue my belief in accountability, I list for public scrutiny the targets I set myself in 1st week of this term.  They were:

•    Open Days with SWD, BME and Women students.
•    Comprehensive Campaign Bus Tour with CUSU.
•    Pass academic discipline paper in Senior Tutors Committee.
•    Finalist forums for arts and science students.
•    Encourage Divisional Boards to follow MPLS example of Divisional JCCs.

The Open Days are organised, we have close to 90 people attending, but are still looking for volunteers.  The take-up for BME has been huge, Women good and SWD zero which is disappointing, but it is good that the issue is now on the admissions agenda.

The academic discipline paper was discussed in Senior Tutors Committee on Monday and referred to a working group on which I am a member.  This has already met, and the paper it has produced embeds the principle of rising sanctions, which will include a process of discussion, formal warning and then probation before serious sanctions are considered.  The Working Group is looking to make proposals to Senior Tutors next term, and the recommendations to be voted for and adopted by the end of Trinity.

Finalist Forums have happened this week, for both arts and science students.  Science students turned out in underwhelming numbers (about 40) and were very quiet, but initial feedback was positive and I hope that those who attended found it useful.  At the time of writing, I don’t know how the Arts one will go, but we have three tutors lined up.

Ingrid and I have taken our paper on student academic representation to EPSC and received the committees endorsement.  We are writing to Divisional Boards next week to push this forward.

The Comprehensive Campaign has been postponed, probably until the summer or next September.  

Which means I score 4 out of 5, or 80%, which is better than the 1.9 out of 3, or 63% I managed in Michaelmas

Access

Target Schools – I have organised a Target Schools discussion meeting where interested people came along and we discussed the way forward.  I then organised a proper planning meeting, which included the election of a new committee (congratulations to Adam Alagiah and Florence Fasanya, the new Co-Chairs and Michael, Felicity, Elena, Laurence, Laura, Jonny, Clare, Camilla, Matt, Martin, Edison and Nicholas who are the committee).  The committee have a meeting to discuss Easter plans on Thursday 7th week, and then will be launching the volunteer recruitment campaign next term with the aim of signing up hundreds of students to visit their local schools over the summer.  If you are interested in taking part, please email targetschools@ousu.org.

Alternative Prospectus – 10,054 copies are printed and turned up in an articulated lorry this week.  It then turned out that they hadn’t been boxed, so the prospect of moving them all by hand was impossible.  I then helped the lorry reverse out of New Inn Hall Street.  It’ll be back soon.

Open Days – We have 65 booked onto the BME day, 25 on the women, but no one on the SWD day.  Volunteers are still welcome, and there is training next week.

Academic Affairs

Prelims Regulations – Successfully lobbied Senior Tutors committee to alter the regulations so that every student gets a retake, the only exception being when they have been through a process of academic discipline and have been warned in writing they won’t receive a retake.  This is a substantial improvement on the different regulations currently in operation.

Academic Discipline – My paper on undergraduate academic discipline regulations was discussed at Senior Tutors meeting, and a working group established.  This has already met once, and looks to make recommendations leading towards an escalating series of measures that seeks to encourage rehabilitation, rather than draconian punishments.

Finals Forums – Ran two finals forums, one for scientists and one for arts students this week.  Between the two, over 100 students attended, and a quick scan through the feedback forms suggested they were both appreciated.  Joy and I are currently considering whether to run another session next term, and also looking at running a Prelim forum.

Final words

As this is the last report of the term, few quick thank yous.  Main ones to the sabbatical team for good humour, advice and support; and to the new exec for their enthusiasm, but especially Joy, Laith and Kat for their efforts and suggestions.  To everyone else who has done something to make my life easier: thank you as well.

Claire Addison         V-P (Charities and Community)

Aside from the usual OUSU stuff (box carrying, graduate events, meetings etc etc) this is the bulk of what I’ve been doing in the last fortnight:

Community

Oxford Student Volunteers –
Lots has been going on with the development of this new committee.  I had a productive meeting with the Access Office about the new volunteering website we’re working on and plans for student and staff volunteering in the next academic year.
In consultation with OxHub and the president of OSV I’ve been working on a strategic plan for OSV, along with a report for the Vice Chancellor on possible directions that student volunteering could, and should, take in the next 6 months.  This formed the basis of the question I’ve sent in for next week’s Vice Chancellor’s Question Time to try to highlight the issue to the upper echelons of the university.I’ve arranged for CRB checks for the committee.I attended the first community planning meeting for the Cowley Road Carnival.
I’ve been in correspondence with Marie Wright about the OxDox Film Festival.

RAG

RAG week 2008 was 6th week and it went really well.  Special thanks go to Riya and Jack for all their hard work.We’ve got a RAG raid in support of Engineers Without Borders so I’m trying to recruit volunteers for that.I’ve also been organising next term’s Bungee Jump, which will take place in Oxford and include the RAG groups from LSE, Kings and maybe UAL.We’re already starting to work on events for next term, including a huge cocktail evening in the Town Hall.We have decided upon next term’s RAG charities: KEEN, The British Heart Foundation, Botton Village, Practical Action and Oxford Development Abroad.

Environment

Daniel and I attended the university’s Environment Panel.I’ve been promoting Environment and Ethics Committee’s College Bags for Life scheme amongst common room presidents.  This is going really well.   Speak to me or Daniel for more information.  I’m also working on a Green/Recycling report for MCR presidents due to be sent out by the end of this week once.

PART TIME OFFICERS

Dominic Weinberg                     Rent and Accommodation Officer

I had two really good meetings this week - firstly with accommodation officers and then with those officers involved in rent negotiations. The accommodation meeting was clearly really helpful for those who attended (and me), and I plan to make them regular and to announce them a little bit earlier so that more colleges attend. The rent meeting was very well attended and I think we got some very useful ideas from each other on how to approach negotiations. I spent a long time compiling statistics, which may surprise those that saw my rather messy looking table of data, but rent data is a minefield of confusion. Every college seems to work differently. I suppose I shouldn't have expected it to be any other way...

The term has been successful, but I really need to build on that next term with more regular meetings with those conducting rent negotiations and accommodation officers. I think one of the most important things that has come out of rent meetings is to try and get some kind of framework in place in each college so that those conducting negotiations know what they’re dealing with, so we’ll be working out how to push for that next term. I’ve also been alerted to the problems with kitchen facilities in many colleges, and with the VP Women plan to tackle this.

Becci Burton                                Health and Welfare Officer

Hi all, not much to report but:
1. attended the rules committee mon of 6th week - as exciting as you can imagine for a 2 hours meeting with the proctors..
2. have a final welfare committee of the attend
3. have been putting together the Walk Safe constitution - all is going well on that front.
Hope you are all well,
Becci xxx

Laith Dilaimi                             Access and Admissions Officer

This term as Access and Admissions Officer I have mainly been involved with helping to set up, co-ordinate and support the Access Days in Ninth Week. There will be three Access Days going on simultaneously in three different colleges, with each Access Day being tailored to a specific group under-represented among Oxford students: there will be one open day for women, one for black and ethnic minority students, and one for students with disabilities. We are still recruiting volunteers to help on the day with shepherding and the like, so if you or anyone you know would be free on Tuesday of 9th and interested, please get in touch with me at accessandadmissions@ousu.org .

Also in my work for OUSU this term I am co-ordinating a meeting for all Common Room Access and Admissions Reps, and I am serving on the election regulations working group.

Katherine Wall                                Women’s Officer

Hello everyone,

Over the course of this term I have been working on several projects, the most wide-ranging has been trying to encourage more women to get involved in student politics, offering support to women officers in colleges, and providing training workshops for public speaking and debating skills. Part of this has been directed specifically to the mixed doubles debating competition which I have been organising, taking place this Sunday at the Oxford Union, to try and encourage a wide range of people to get involved in debating, learn public speaking and encourage more women to get confidence in debate.

Other than this I have been working with WomCam to sustain the momentum which has been built up this term by a truly excellent committee. We are now working on the term card for next term and focusing on a positive consent campaign. Alongside this various events are also planned for the summer term which WomCam are involved in – notably LadyFest and the Love Your Body Day.

More specifically next term, I will be continuing to work with women’s officers to ensure that we have an integrated network across the university constantly aware of issues affecting women, and being in a position to act on them. To encourage more women to get involved with student politics I will also be running a series of training events early on next term, related especially to hust preparation, confidence in public speaking. Alongside this I also want to run ‘How to organise a campaign’ training sessions to ensure that the Women’s Campaign is in optimum position to act in a way to create positive change.

Sarah Hutchinson                            Graduate Welfare Officer

I’ve really enjoyed this term, though I feel I’ve spent a lot of it learning about the role and welfare provision in OUSU.  I’ve attended welfare committee meetings and have found it useful learning about the wide range of services welfare officers provide and talking with them about these, and undertook welfare training within OUSU.  One of the most interesting things has been going into common rooms, hearing what is going on in different colleges, and speaking to people about what OUSU does.

One thing that I was particularly keen to do was speak to as many MCRs as possible – I’ve managed to speak at two MCR meetings and have spoken to a number of MCR Presidents (and welfare officers), finding out what grads in different colleges need and talking about what OUSU can offer graduates, in particular in terms of welfare.  PGA was fairly well attended, with a good discussion resulting in a number of motions being passed.  As a result of one of these I am working on a survey of grads to find out whether there is adequate provision of non-alcohol based social events.  I’m hoping to get this out before the end of term.  I was sad not to be able to attend the Grad event but hope to build on its success with the rest of the grad team next term.  I also attended Rules Committee.

Joy Wong                                 Academic Affairs Officer

Last Friday, the Academic Affairs Reps have had their second meeting of the term, discussing issues such as academic discipline and exam feedback – areas that will be looked into in greater details for the institutional audit next term.

This week, two finals forums have been organised for scientists and artists respectively.  The forums include brief talks by students who had recently finished finals and tutors, as well as a QA session.

All together about 80 people attended and we had got extremely positive feedback – everyone who attended said they would recommend it to friends.

Notes on the final forums will be available online by the end of week 8.

Hannah Smith                            Equal Opportunities Officer

This fortnight I have been mainly working on the SAS Review Working Group, and I have been in contact with the autonomous campaigns over this in order to ascertain their views on the way the service works. Next week I will be attending a meeting of all the autonomous campaign co-chairs to review the work done this term, and I will also be continuing to work on the SAS Review. Next term I hope to be in contact with common rooms about generating greater awareness of the University's equal opportunities policies, such as race and disability policies.

Sian Renwick,                            Graduate Women's Officer

It is with regret that I have to report that I will be standing down as Graduate Women’s Officer at the end of this term. I plan on seeing my current commitments to an end – most particularly the Eating Disorder Handbook, which is scheduled to come out at the beginning of Trinity – but feel that I am currently unable to devote the time and effort which this position requires and deserves. I will continue to be closely involved with Enough!, the disordered eating support group, and with the Women’s Campaign

Daniel Lowe                            Environment and Ethics Officer

The E&E committee has been quite busy this term, with two campaigns getting started. We have received our delivery of eco friendly beer mats which will be distributed to college bars over the Easter Vac.

Anti Excess Packaging & Anti Plastic Bags

We started this campaign with the hope of reducing all the unnecessary packaging in supermarkets and the introduction of a charge on disposable plastic bags. We ran a stall on the 24th February and collected an average of one signature a minute on our petition on these points which will be sent to the City and County Councils as well as Westminster. We also received a kind donation of 100 bags for life from Elizabeth Von Hof from the City Council which we distributed to shoppers in Sainsbury's Local.

E&E officers in common rooms have also been collecting orders for college bags for life, which have proved to be very popular, the University Environment Panel have also supported the idea and are looking into ways of having university bags for life made for staff.

Anti Animal Testing of household Products
This campaign has only just started but we have begun to write up draft letters to lobby MPs to support the early day motion.

Jamie Li              International Students Officer

The Oxford International Fair is finally here! We’ve had a full calendar of international events from many societies all week. The fair is from 10 am to 4 pm at Keble College tomorrow, on Saturday. There will be live performances, movies, a raffle, and a “Global Marketplace” where societies will be selling different cultural wares. Please encourage your common room members to attend, and we hope to see you there!