2. Is the impact for students sufficiently explained and is there enough of an impact to take any proposals forward?

Transcription

1 Paper Number 6 Meeting Date 06/15 Title of Paper: President Report Purpose: Recommendation: Summary: Financial impact: Student opinion Student impact: Risk: Contact: To inform the board of the Sabbatical Officer team activity To note activity This paper is in response to the recommendation from NUS diagnostic that the president reports separate to the board from the CEO N/A The paper includes updates on objectives of the officer team and activity/feedback from students from GOATing on campus The officers work influences the future of the students union as they are elected to lead on the work we do Low Risk Sam Davys, President. president@ljmu.ac.uk Questions - When discussing and asking questions about this paper, trustees could consider: 1. Has adequate explanation been given on the benefits, risks, alternatives or if nothing were done? 2. Is the impact for students sufficiently explained and is there enough of an impact to take any proposals forward? 3. How and when will you know if any benefits have been achieved? 4. What will the impact be on any partner organisations or departments within LJMU or externally? Could there be any unintended consequences of taking a particular action, leading to problems that will need to be resolved later.

2 Highlights of the year Sam My highlight has been the progression we have seen through Copperas Hill planning. To come into the year knowing we had been allocated just enough office space for all members of staff, there was a challenge ahead, for me to help ensure the architects and LJMU understand why we need more space that is fit for purpose. With the help of the officers, Jane and Jon, I am now leaving the year with potentially all staff members in the building, in addition to a large dedicated activities space, space for campaign work or media sales, a reception hub, radio station, green room, digital media suite, and a whole mezzanine for social space, comfy seating, games, TV screen for films etc. There is also now talk about different options for the roof, two of these being a common room for the Student Union to run, but also scope for a licensed bar. The rest of the building has also shown a lot of change, and it has been so important to involve student input as a user group in itself, to influence decisions of how the building will look, feel and operate. It looks to be an exciting building, and I am looking forward to the opening party in 2018! Josh Firstly, the Join with Josh Project. This has probably been my favourite thing about my year in office. From the first to the last it has been an absolute joy! I loved the opportunity to visit loads of different teams throughout the year, see how they function and enjoy the things that they get up to. Also seeing new students come along and try out these different activities was amazing, because in a couple of cases, it really made a difference to them. Also watching the videos and see the production value of them was great. I think the videos was a great channel to promote some of what we do at LiverpoolSU and was great to see such a positive response overall from anyone I spoke to about the project. Secondly, I was probably the most nervous about varsity this year because I wanted it to be amazing and I really wanted us to win. Unfortunately we did not win, but it was such an amazing day and I was so proud of everyone that took part, whether that was our digital media content team filming and taking photos, or it was team members putting their heart and soul into their performance, it was overall a fantastic experience for me. It was great to work with University of Liverpool to

3 organise this event and we worked well together. The additions (Varsity T-Shirts, Free Shuttle Bus and Bay TV programme) to this year s Varsity were also a massive success for me and I was so glad they were met positively. Finally, the last highlight of my year has to be the Welcome Fair and Refreshers Fair and subsequently the increase in membership. The Welcome Fair saw over 8000 students attend and was the most successful it has ever been! It was amazing to see so many students come and sign up to clubs and societies and it worked because we tripled our total membership this year which is the icing on the cake for me! I am so happy that our clubs and societies had so many members this year and I hope that they have enjoyed it. The Refreshers was also great for me as it was bigger than ever before as well. Just under 1500 students attended this event, which was amazing because once again, more clubs and societies increased their membership and students really benefitted from it! All in all, I have done everything this year that I set out to do which I am proud of and the things I have done I will always remember! Dan Transport Students have voiced their opinions on this and thus has been a priority area. Following progress with supporting IM Marsh students, we worked with the university to introduce 50 student only on-site parking spaces for 1 a day, a popular move! To improve the offer of support to IMM students, I met with Senior Management Team to discuss travel pass subsidies. After the success of this, SMT agreed to fund 125 subsidies for all 1st year students living in the city centre to support their travel costs. Working with unhappy students, I supported a student petition and produced a report for SMT, who approved the recommendation to open the offer to any undergraduate studying at IMM. 125,000 a year funding for this scheme has now been confirmed until the closure of IMM. I have also extensively persevered with my work with Merseytravel over the past 2 years, and held a focus group at their HQ with students from all 3 unis. Using this feedback, I produced the Liverpool Students Transport Charter, which I presented to the Meresytravel board of directors and was officially endorsed. Accommodation We introduced a new improvement impact award as part of our Rate Your Landlord awards to encourage accommodation providers to provide action plans on the improvements they aim to make, based on feedback from students. One of my objectives was to increase engagement with private sector providers, and we saw the number of providers, as well as total number of private sector responses increase. The survey continues to grow in its credibility and importance. I also filmed a housing advice video, with over 2,000 hits. This gives students advice about what they need to know when looking for a property and the process of signing a contract. Alcohol Impact This year long project has seen us focus on creating a safer drinking culture across campus and accommodation, to ensure students feel safe ibn Liverpool and anyone can get involved in the social side of university life. We have been working towards gaining accreditation, and after our audit in March we were awarded with Alcohol Impact Accreditation, gaining 179 of a possible 191 marks available. Particular highlights include securing 10% student discount at Liverpool bar of the year The Brink, and seeing a large decrease in the number of alcohol related incidents in student accommodation. Particular credit should go to Craig and Jon for a lot of hard work and dedication over the course of the year.

4 Safe Taxi After launching Liverpool s first safe taxi scheme, we have seen 5 people use the service. This is pleasing, as one of our apprehensions was that students may abuse the service, to the cost of the organisation. However this has not happened, and students have benefited from this when they have been in need. Lorraine Course rep training and awards night- I really enjoyed training our course rep volunteers this year and even more elated that we increased the amount of course reps to receive training significantly this year. The reps really responded well to the training and really appreciated the awards night where they met the Pro vice chancellor Education. Setting up the BME academic society (Now named Afro-Caribbean Asian Academic Society). I set a target of 8 people as members and there are 27 members currently members of the society including Dominique Walker- the founder of the Anthony Walker Foundation. It s been a great success and hope to help the elected president of the society to grow in members of the society. The Course Rep Accreditation Scheme has now seen its first year cycle with 201 Course Reps gaining accreditation of Bronze, Silver and Gold. We had 182 Bronze, 6 Silver and 13 Gold. Faculty Break Down Faculty Bronze Silver Gold Arts, Professional and Social Studies Education, Health and Community Science Technology and Environment Burma In April 2015, Sam and Dan had the honour of visiting Myanmar for 8 days, representing LJMU and LiverpoolSU alongside officers from Oxford University SU and Nottingham SU. We had the pleasure of meeting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi who had initiated this project. Our purpose was to meet with students and explain how representation within Education happens in the UK, and how we achieve better things for students. Burmese students are currently facing huge challenges as the country is not democratic, and so they are forced to take to the streets and protest which often results in students being arrested. It was an eye opening experience for both sides, in understanding each culture, and seeing how we are worlds apart in the progression of the country but one thing that

5 was clear was the main purpose for all student leaders, was to make positive change. At the end of May we were thrilled to welcome 4 students to spend 2 days with us here at LiverpoolSU where we guided them around the city, and met our Pro Vice Chancellor, Lord David Alton, facilities, Media Tutor and of course LiverpoolSU Feel free to read this recent report that LJMU has published on their website.

6 Awards Nights LiverpoolSU Loves You This year we had another successful event to celebrate our student activities. 500 Students attended our sell out event as we shared a great evening seeing students winning awards that had been decided from over 530 nominations. It was a lively event as always and one enjoyed by all students. The LiverpoolSU Loves You Awards was on the same day and was also a great experience. It was great to present the night and give a speech, which is something I thoroughly enjoyed. Also seeing all of the teams together and having a great time was massively pleasing for me.

7 Course Reps Awards This year the Student Voice team held their first ever Course Rep awards ceremony at Byrom street campus on the 16th April We created this awards night to reward and recognise our course reps, who have been the first students on our new accreditation scheme. Students received certificates to acknowledge their efforts to achieve Bronze Silver or Gold, but also to celebrate all their great achievements of the year. The awards were opened by Vice president Academic Quality Lorraine Sebastian-Francois and Pro- Vice Chancellor Education Peter Byers. The students were presented with their certificates from the Associate Dean of each Faculty and celebrated with fellow course reps and LJMU staff members. Teaching and Learning Conference This year we had submitted a request to run a session at the annual Teaching and Learning Conference at LJMU that is attended by Academics from across the institution. We wanted to run a session on what students think Amazing Teaching is, taking anecdotal evidence from our Amazing Teaching Awards nominations, and Faculty Student Voice Report We were delighted to know it has not only been accepted, but has now been devoted to the main session of the conference and has a prime time for people to engage in the main lecture theatre.

8 This is a great opportunity for us not only to show what we think teaching should look like within LJMU, but also to raise our profile amongst staff we would never usually come across in the university at all different levels. Peter Byers, our Pro Vice Chancellor for education will be chairing our workshop. We have all had a challenging but highly enjoyable year in office, and we wish the new officers the best of luck for the year ahead