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SRUC Students' Association

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Have your input into SRUCSAs Future

When I took up my new role as Students’ Association development officer last year, I was asked at the interview to for my vision for SRUCSA. The first thing I said was ‘My vision for SRUCSA is unclear.’

I took on this role knowing what SRUCSA needed was a new vision written and owned by the students and staff of SRUC.

The SRUC (Scotland s Rural College) Students’ Association was created in 2012 as part of the merging of the colleges that formed SRUC. In 2014, we laid down its ideas in a strategic plan; this strategic plan was revisited in 2019, it is outdated, and we had lost focus around its vision and mission statements.

Co-creating a new vision

To create a fresh new vision for what SRUCSA could be, I started the conversation with staff at SRUC at various levels. I then had workshops with student groups and the SRUCSA student officers and interviews with individual students. Honestly, it was a challenge to engage with students during a year of huge change and the constant unknown of what the pandemic would bring. To get additional student input I reviewed the 250 manifestos of students who nominated themselves for student officer roles over 9 years of student elections. One particularly good one stated ‘to create a SRUCSA that excites you.’ Which struck a chord with me.

I took what I learned from these workshops and interviews and grouped the themes that came out. I then wrote statements based on those themes of what I thought what SRUCSA would be like if these things that people desired were true. See my working here.

Where you come in

SRUCSA Logo and text reading 'Watch the draft SRUCSA vision video' on a rainbow gradient background
https://jamesbamkin.survey.fm/srucsa-vision

Now I have a draft vision, but I need you to help me fine tune it. I have a made a 5-minute video for you to watch where I introduce and read it out. You can also read it here. I would then really appreciate if you would point out all the failings of what I have worked on for 9 months. Genuinely, any criticism that shows where our ‘future SRUCSA’ might be lacking will help us build a plan that will bring about a SRUCSA that excites you, our students, and staff.