Executives meeting - 6th February 2023

BuckinghamExecutives OfficersSU

SU Executive Meeting Minutes 06/02/2023 

Attendance - Toby, Chrissie, Tolu, Fay, Audrey, Erik, JJ, Eleanor 

Sabbatical Updates

Toby 

  • The three-strike system: Officers given 3 chances to be absent/ late to meetings, or not communicative. If happens more than thrice, you would be removed from the executive team. Also mentioned in the PTO reporting previously 

  • 20-minute catchups- Prefer to have 20min catchups to check role, progress and any updates or issues 

  • Office hours- an hour or two to come into the office on a planned day to focus completely on SU executive work with the sabbaticals. Still being discussed as it shouldn’t provide an opportunity to neglect work on other days. 

  • Tolu’s position on council-Toby is trying to get Tolu into the council meetings to better represent student voice but this is still being discussed by the council. 

  • PREVENT - policy and initiative at university that staff members from university work to counter terrorism, extremism or thoughts that might encourage violence at university, in students, staff or anyone associated with university.  

  • Current policy includes filling in a risk assessment form to prevent any kind of radicalisation. Up to discretion of the person inviting the speaker to decide whether or not the speaker must fill the PREVENT form out.  

  • Vote to be taken whether PREVENT should be mandatory for all external speakers regardless of invitee’s discretion. 

  • Care to be taken to prevent making it more difficult for students to run talks and events. 

 

  • Med school evidence gathering- Gathering evidence from med students on placements who feel they have been supported or neglected from medical school and student support.  

  • Started by conversations with wellbeing team, where students mentioned that it was very much a one way communication, where students problems weren’t heard but any time there was an issue with a student, the medical school would be quick to send emails about concerns.  

  • Collecting evidence and information through medical student representatives. 

  • Less building up a case for or against medical school, more collecting information to improve student voice within medical school. 

  • PTO officer of the month 

  • January focus on adjusting to the roles, therefore, too early to do it this month. Start from Feb onwards. 

  • More of an initiative to recognise and appreciate PTO’s for the work they are doing and awarding them with something like an amazon gift voucher 

  • Policy on same person not winning two months in a row for example, but just something to promote good work ethic. 
     

Chrissie 

  • Med School Update 

  • Fay, Toby and Chrissie to meet with phase 1 lead next week to see if policies need to be changed or to see what can be done.  

  • Protective communities and events- short discussion on if there are any major points or ideas that people would like to raise. 

  • collaboration with wellbeing must be authentic but making sure at least something is done even if it’s just educational. Also, to implement in Crewe. 

  • Freshers fair and new societies update- Mentions scalpel society and Nigerian society made active again. 
     

Tolu 

  • Student council brief- working on the structure for student council 

  • Still to be finalised with current student reps and meet with JJ as well to talk about Crewe student council structure. 

  • PTOs on a separate committee for Buckingham with the student representatives instead of all sabbaticals. 

 

Updates from PTOs 

Eleanor 

  • BSU Pop Up: Our BSU pop up fair in Buckingham Campus was very successful, all sports clubs were very engaged with the freshers and we have had a lot of sign ups 

  • Crewe Freshers Fair: is next week, all 4 BSU Execs will be attending. I will ask to meet the crewe sports club execs at this fair and go over any queries or things they would like. 

  • Party: We have submitted an OTM Party form for the 20th May. The BSU will be hosting a white theme party. We are looking at dates to replicate this in the ICB. 

  • Crewe Football and Netball match: Rukky has been looking at dates for football and netball to go up to Crewe to do a match together. 

  • New Clubs: We had our first volleyball session and it was very successful, should be developed into a club. Cricket also had a great first session 

  • New taster sessions: We are looking into doing archery taster sessions.  

  • Wellbeing Department Collab: I have a meeting next Monday with Cara from the WSD department to discuss a collaborative event with the charity ‘Sport in Mind’ 

  • Transparency: I have sent my first email out to all sports club execs in which included the layout of my goals: BSU member of the month and equal attention. The email included: 

  • BSU Member of the Month: Introduced, we believe that members of clubs should be recognised more frequently for their dedication, work ethic and team spirit, rather than merely at the annual Sports and Society Awards. We have asked clubs to nominate one member from their club each month and provide a brief explanation of why that member deserves to be BSU Member of the Month. I will ensure to send reminders out to sports clubs teams chat 

  • Communication: after consulting with the BSU Execs, we decided that each BSU Exec will be assigned 3/4 clubs each term. The BSU exec which has been assigned to the club will contact them every two weeks. This was chosen at random and will change with each term.  

  • The following are the BSU Execs and their clubs:  

  • Eleanor: Korfball, Basketball, Crewe Football, Volleyball 

  • Shay: Tennis, Cricket, Men’s Football, Rugby 

  • Pepa: Badminton, Crewe Cricket, Women’s Football, Netball 

  • Rukky: Cheerleading, Swimming, Crewe Netball 

  • This is like a check in service! 

  • Meetings: planning Buckingham and Crewe sports club exec meetings                                                                                           

 
Audrey 

  • I am currently working with wellbeing to arrange for an event for non-drinkers...however.... I am trying to also get information from students on what kind of events they would like to see on campus (still a bit tricky). 

  • I am also in the works of trying to arrange for pop shops from different cultural backgrounds to come to Buckingham. (Erik, I promise to get back to you this week). 

 

Fay 

  • There were many complaints regarding the quality of the Eta3, Osce and QE examinations, they had many grammatical errors, spelling mistakes in fill in the blanks (questions which students find difficult anyways) - I asked to set up a meeting with Vicki Hermon - part of the quality team at medical school to discuss. 

  • I have now started sending the individual cohort reps for each hospital, a message that toby drafted regarding providing them support and a platform to voice concerns with student support or regarding communication with med school. 

  • Joanne Harris, dean of med school, contacted me to organise a talk with Soma Sara, the CEO of Everyone's invited, for something around the topic of eradicating rape culture, so i will be doing that soon. It will be an event available for everyone in the university to attend, not just med students and will probably be streamed via teams as well. 

 

Erik 

  • Toby and I are meeting with admissions on providing transport for freshers from the airport.  

  • Working with Tolu on surveying students if they want transport provided to the airport.