SRUCSA VP monthly blog – February 2015
SRUCSA VP monthly blog – February 2015
February has been one of the busiest months in the job so far with lots of meetings and the start of the elections!
My month began at the Ayr campus for our February SRUCSA Executive Team meeting. Briony & I normally jointly chair the exec meetings, but with Briony away I chaired the meeting myself. It was a concise and effective meeting and I think we’re all really getting the hang of making these meetings efficient now.
The next day I returned back to Aberdeen and joined in the Joint Campus Officers (CO’s) campus council meeting, it was really good to get feedback from students regarding the proposed Thainstone move, Hunter Hall heating issue and future events on campus.
The following day I went to a Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) event in Edinburgh, it was a joint meeting of student and institutional team members. It was really interesting to hear what other institutions and students associations and doing for this year’s enhancement theme: Student Transitions.
On the Thursday I attended the Aberdeen Student Liaison Committee (SLC) with the Join Campus Officers and several class reps. The main issues were the proposed Thainstone move and the Hunter Hall heating. Students were unhappy about the lack of information and consultation on the proposed move and wanted greater student/SRUCSA input. Hunter Hall at SRUC Aberdeen has had no/intermittent heating & hot water since November; students had been given a weeks rent rebate but myself and the two CO’s communicated that the situation had been badly handled and that the students felt a 3 weeks rent rebate was the minimum. SRUC weren’t willing to accept this figure so the situation continued on for 2 more weeks.
On the 9th February, myself and David Friend had a meeting with the Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) Sabbatical Officers. Neither SA’s have many details about the proposed Strategic Alignment yet but the meeting was a good chance to get to each other and learn about the structure of the two very different SA’s.
The following night I went along to the Aberdeen CO’s Valentines event and on Wednesday afternoon I played drums at the Craibstone Burns Lunch & Ceilidh. Later that night the CAMPUS bus came out to SRUC Aberdeen. CAMPUS is a ‘frat-bar’ in Aberdeen and it has an American School bus which mostly picks up uni students. It was organised to come to out SRUC Aberdeen and it was well received; the bus was completely full with over 50 SRUC students using the free service to get into town!
On the 23rd February the SRUCSA Elections officially began, it was nomination week and I put myself forward for election as the ’15-16 Student President. 2nd-6th March is campaigning and 9th-13th March is voting, unfortunately we didn’t get any candidates for Barony CO, VP or Postgrad officer so another election in May will be required. I’m still VP so I have to ensure I adhere to these full-time duties but I’m hoping to get out and speak to students at Aberdeen, Oatridge and Ayr about my manifesto.
After weeks of talks between SRUCSA officers and students, SRUC finally awarded all the Hunter Hall residents a £300 rebate. A special mention should be said for Craig MacKenzie (join CO) who put in a huge effort during this process to get a good deal for residents! Gordon Maloney (NUS Scotland President) and Rob Henthorn (AUSA & NUS Scotland) have both said this was an amazing victory for a students’ association especially considering SRUCSA is only in its second year.
On the 24th I travelled to Edinburgh to attend an NUS workshop on the project Responsible Futures. SRUC is a pilot institution in this project and there is likely to be a great opportunity for students to get involved as auditors.
The following day I went to SRUC Edinburgh for a SRUC-SRUCSA meeting about the ’15-16 SRUCSA Block Grant, the meeting was facilitated by NUS Scotland & Sparqs who were very helpful. Disappointingly it looks like SRUCSA will have less money to spend next year which is likely to make things even more challenging.
On the 26th I went back to my old school Bucksburn Academy to promote SRUC to prospective students. It was great to be back and there were a decent number of pupils interested in studying a range of courses across the campuses. I also used the opportunity to begin building better links between SRUCSA/SRUC and the local community.
Alex Robb,
SRUCSA VP
27th February 2015