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 In 2014, we laid down its ideas in a strategic plan; this strategic plan was revisited in 2019, it is outdated, and we had lost focus around its vision and mission statements.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

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.