Membership Feedback

Answer feedback collected during election campaign through officer blog; install a feedback board at the Students' Union Shop exit; meet regularly with outlet managers to discuss feedback; encourage students to offer feedback on Students' Union services by promoting the channels through which they can do so; create a 'you said, we did' section on the Students' Union website.

Update on this objective (from Union Council Nov 2011)

• I have so far written two blogs with a rather depressing total number of views of 160 people. However, this has not deterred me and I am in the process of writing a third blog answering feedback! My new blog will have an exciting twist as I will not only answer feedback collected during my election in March, I will also answer feedback sent in by students so far this semester! I do think that the blogs give me a chance to explain in more detail what’s going on around the Students’ Union and how ‘regular’ students have had an influence on it. This gives them a greater sense of ownership and affinity, and if just one of those 160 students now feels more of a part of the Students’ Union I have achieved my aim.
• Commercial Services Committee got a grant total of *two* sign ups during the Activities Fair. Prior to this, Tom Hastings (last year’s finance officer) contacted the schools of Business, Economics and Management as groups of students who might be likely to get involved. There was no response, and in addition to the low level of interest at the Activities Fair I’ve taken the decision to scrap the committee as I believe the new ‘Our Students’ Union’ forum will deal with many of the issues that CSC did a few years ago.
• Working with Sarah Charlesworth on creating a board to put at the shop exit. Bob Brown (the shop manager) has agreed to it being installed. We’re going to try and explain some of the ethical policies the shop has on the board as well as using it as a way to give feedback. I’ve started writing some text to go on the board and will look at getting a designer to create it when it’s done.
• The new ‘U talk back’ feedback system has been installed and has been rolled out across the website. I’d like to see more feedback opportunities around the building and around all the different services we offer. Working with Lisa Scanlon (marketing manager) on doing this as well as Graeme Wood (commercial director). Graeme has encouraged me to do a presentation to the whole commercial team on the importance of answering customer feedback and I think this will help create the culture change I’m looking for.
• Working with Lisa Scanlon to create a ‘you said, we did’ section of our website. This would list a whole host of things, not just commercial services feedback.
• I’ve met with outlet managers at various times over the past few months. Working a shift in Bar One and Coffee Revolution provided a good opportunity to ask staff what they thought needed to change in those outlets and a fed that back to Graeme. Much of the feedback from the new Bar One is positive, although there have been some comments on the quality of service sometimes. I’ve fed this back to Graeme who is working on it.

Update on this objective (from Union Council Feb 2012)

• I have written another ‘feedback’ style blog.  In addition in replying to feedback in this way, there’s also been a few enquiries submitted through the ‘u talk back’ system on the website that have required an officer to reply.
• The ethical information/feedback board at the shop exit is ready to be designed.  I’ve written all the text for it, and I’m going to get it designed and priced up over the next few weeks.  I’ll wait until just after the Nestle referendum before I order it to see whether we can include that policy or not.
• Graeme Wood (Commercial Director) has collected for me all the different ways in which commercial outlets collect feedback from students.  There’s many different ways in which outlets collect feedback, and Graeme suggested I work on coming up with a consistent model for all outlets.
• The ‘you said, we did’ that have been collected over the past few months are now up on the website as a news story.
 

Diversifying our offer

Conduct a piece of research into our current commercial offer and the student groups it appeals to, as well as what certain groups of students want; investigate what the Students' Union can offer to non-students; research other Students' Unions income streams; following research, devise some outline proposals.

Update on this objective (from Union Council Nov 2011)

• This project has been on the back burner since the whirlwind of intro week and it’s only in the past couple of weeks since everything has settled down that I’ve managed to pick it up again.
• Funding has become a slight problem. Originally I was led to believe that the project might cost around £200-£400. I’ve since been told that it might be up to £2000. I’ve been talking with Nigel Hallam (director of services) who is helping me find funding. If the project looks like it might be able to generate extra income in the long run, I might be able to get some funding from the commercial budget.
• I’ve met with Naomi Green (research assistant) who is helping me write a brief to send out to prospective researchers. Naomi is very busy with all the strategic plan work which has unfortunately restricted the amount of time I’ve been able to meet with her. Whenever we have met though she’s been very helpful and a proposal is slowly coming together!
• In the strategic plan working group I’ve stressed the importance of targeting less-engaged groups. These aren’t just the obvious like post-grads and international students, but groups like local and mature students.

Update on this objective (from Union Council Feb 2012)

• I’ve written up the research project brief after working with Naomi Green (research assistant) and Nigel Hallam (Director of Services).
• Nigel has agreed that the project can be funded from the commercial budget, so the previous problems of funding have hopefully subsided for good!
• The project went up on the Students’ Union website for two weeks and any research student at the University of Sheffield could apply to do the project.
• We received a total of 6 applications, and having gone through them (just this morning!) I think we’re going to interview 2 of them before making a decision on who we wish to conduct the research.  I’ve set a deadline of 31st March for the research to be completed.
• Once the research is completed, I’ll devise some proposals which I can bring to Students’ Union Council to discuss.

 

Ethical & Environmental

Ensure sure the bottled water policy is communicated effectively to our members; work with ACS to increase the number of sign ups to the Student Switch Off campaign; ensure E&E issues are properly represented in the Students' Union, either through E&E committee or Students' Union Council; implement a programme to re-distribute waste food at the end of each day to people of need in the local area; encourage the University to embed sustainability into the curriculum.

Update on this objective (from Union Council Nov 2011)

• Bottled water policy has taken up a lot of my time recently. I could write a 3-page update entirely on this! In terms of what I’ve actually stated in my objectives, I have worked a lot on communication of the bottled water policy. Any ardent readers of Forge Press will have noticed a letter in each issue this semester either from me or from someone criticising me and suggesting I should burn in hell. I’m working on the philosophy that ‘all press is good press’. I’ve also written a blog (80 views WOO!) on the matter to try and break from the weekly letter in Forge but someone else wrote in instead.
To help communicate the policy we’ve enlisted the help of a group of marketing volunteers who are students at the University of Sheffield. I’ve briefed them on what messages I want to see as part of the project. The volunteers are busy working up a brand to go on the bottled and around the fountains that gets this message across, as well as creating some sort of stunt/flashmob/stall in the foyer to help make students aware of the policy.
Finally, I’ve communicated the work we’ve been doing at Sheffield on a national level. Myself and Ben Fisher (Community Officer at Leeds University Union) have set up a national ‘Students for free water’ campaign (www.s4fw.org) which is in the first steps of getting started at the moment. So far I’ve done two workshops on how to get your Union to switch from bottled water to tap water, one at NUS Zone Conference with Ben and one on my own at Shared Planet 2011. We we’re invited to do a session at NUS Activism 2011 as well, but unfortunately both our schedules are too busy. The idea of the workshop is to create student activists who actively campaign for things rather than just passively sit by and do nothing.
• Away from bottled water, I’ve been working on other Environmental issues too! Student Switch Off is a campaign run at the Endcliffe Village and Ranmoor sites that encourages flats to save on energy in return for prizes throughout the year. This year, the number of sign ups started off slowly and we were slightly disappointed. They’ve pushed hard since though and are now not far off last year’s numbers. I’ve been working hard to get some prizes for students involved, as well as promoting the campaign through the officer twitter account and facebook page. It won’t be until later in the year that we get the first figures on energy saved. I’ll update council when they’re out.
• I’ve had various thoughts throughout the summer on how we can create a physical space in the building to promote E&E issues. The latest on this (and probably permanent plan) is to turn the pillars in the garden view foyer (area where Santander bank is) into green ‘trees’ carrying messages of all the cool environmental things we do in the Students’ Union. I’d also like to get a feedback box/branch/birdbox for students to submit their environmental ideas which E&E committee can then discuss at their meetings!
• Tim Allen (Environmental co-ordinator) has worked hard on setting up a programme to re-distribute waste food from the shop at the end of each day. I managed to find a couple of local charities the details of which I passed on to Tim. We’ve now got a charity to collect on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, one to collect on Wednesday and Friday and one to collect on Saturdays. Monday is the day when most of the fresh food is delivered so there’s always very little food waste (sometimes none at all). On the whole, the shop now no longer throws out any waste food which I think is fantastic! In addition, one of the charities, The Jesus Centre, puts on a big Christmas meal on the same day that the Students’ Union closes for 10 days and would usually have to throw out a lot of food. This year they’re going to be using all of the food we’d usually throw out to give to homeless people around Sheffield! Tim Allen has worked hard on this project along with various other members of staff and I think they’ve done a terrific job.
• Nabil Alizai and I hosted a session for societies to talk about how they can be greener. We came up with a huge list of ideas which is now in the process of being typed up and will form the first ever ‘Green Society Guide’ or something like that. This will go on the Zone Online section of the website and will hopefully encourage societies to be a bit greener and in turn encourage their members as well. Very good session, and good work from Nabil , Tim Allen and all the societies that turned up.
• I’ve spoken to my pro-vice chancellor buddy (Tony Payne) about sustainability in the curriculum. He said the University had a responsibility to teach that kind of stuff which was nice. I’ll keep pressuring various academics whenever I bump into them at formal dinners, meetings and when walking through the corridors of power in Firth Court.


Update on this objective (from Union Council Feb 2012)

• Having worked with Tim Allen (Environmental co-ordinator) on the NUS Green Impact award submission I’ve decided to bring a proposal to council in the near future regarding the use of paper.  I think there are some councillors who would be happy to collect their agenda either by email or by collecting a printed copy from the Students’ Union.  Obviously being sent the agenda in the post should remain an option (one that I would choose, by the way!) but I don’t think it should be opt in rather than opt out.  Anyway, I’ll be bringing a proposal forward soon so we can discuss then!
• On the Bottled Water policy, you should hopefully start to see some quite visible changes over the next few weeks.  A team of marketing volunteers have taken the project on board following a brief from me, Tim Allen, Lisa Scanlon (Marketing Manager) and the group of students who campaigned for the policy in the first place.  The volunteers are now running the publicity campaign alongside the policy.  They’ve also designed all the branding that will appear around the fountains, on the bottles and on the website.  The fountains have been delivered and most have been installed around the building.  The NUS activism project now has its own website which I’ll be adding content to over the next few weeks.  Various other Students’ Unions have been in contact asking for help with  campaigns on their campus and I’ve sent off a few advisory emails.
• The Student Switch Off campaign has recently got a new co-ordinator, who I’ll hopefully meet in the next few months.
• I’ve been working with Tim Allen and Nabil to arrange events for Climate Week, taking place in March.  We’ve got a guest speaker to do a lunchtime lecture on climate change in the auditorium and there’ll be various other events going on throughout the week!
• E&E committee are going through a re-brand and will be holding an EGM to recruit for some new positions on the committee.  I’ve been helping them re-structure their committee and look at what it is they want to achieve this semester.  If you fancy joining, the EGM is taking place at 4pm on Wednesday 8th Feb (that’s exactly one hour before council starts!)