Barry Nevin

Societies Guild OCM 2013 / 2014

Why Me? I’m the Auditor of the Live Music Society and a 3rd Year Computer Science student. Think of any major on-campus event, such as Fáilte Fest or R&G Week; these would have been nothing if it were not for societies’ presence on campus. Society members put in the hours of voluntary work in order to pull off the events that happen on campus every week. As a member of the Guild Executive, I will continue to support and develop societies. I will push them to the best of their potential and fight for the resources that they deserve. My Experience I Joined the Live Music Society last year (despite not playing any instrument!) Initially I was elected OCM and was PRO within two weeks. The following March I was elected Auditor of the society at the AGM. Last year was a turning point in the life of the LMS. We went from being a virtually unknown society to running huge events.

• While I was PRO, the society was nominated for ‘Best Promotion’ and won runner up for ‘Best Poster’.

• At the annual STARS Awards, the society won ‘Best Charitable Event’ for the Simon Street Mash-Up. I was the main person from the LMS responsible for the organisation and running of this event.

This year, I have built on the work done last year and brought the society to new heights.

• I received a STAR Award for the work that I put into the LMS and everything that the society achieved this year.

• I introduced Thursday night gigs in the Old Bar, after negotiating funding from the SU. • I put a huge push on collaborations this year, from helping various societies book

bands for balls, to organising events with other societies, including the “Miracle on McCurtain Street” with Dramat, an electronic music workshop with DJ Soc, and providing music at the Relay for Life.

• LMS won runner-up for ’Best Collaborative Event’ for our event “Miracle on McCurtain Street” run in conjunction with Dramat.

• The society was nominated for ‘Best Collaborative Event’ and ‘Best Charitable Event’ for the Street Mash-Up, run with Choral Society and Simon Society.

• On top of this, we were nominated for Best Small Society. This year, along with my work with the LMS, I sat on the Entertainments Committee for the Students’ Union. I helped organise many of the SU events around campus this year.

• Assisted in the planning & running of UCC Christmas Day. • Organised the music and facilitated events taking place on the stage during R&G week. • Assisted in the scheduling of all society events across campus during R&G week.

Outside UCC, I have worked at music festivals around Ireland, such as Electric Picnic and Body & Soul. As you can see, I have a huge amount of experience in Events, Entertainments and PR.

PR & Media Society, Students’ Union & Club Event Timetables

• Currently, a “Societies Calendar” exists on collegeroad.ie but is hidden away in some back corner of the website that nobody ever visits!

• I want to introduce a new timetable, combining the events of Societies, the Students’ Union and Clubs, so as to reach the most people possible. I have begun looking into ways to achieve this and have the support of next year’s SU Ents Officer, James Murray.

• This will be prominently displayed on collegeroad.ie, Societies Guild & Clubs Exec Facebook pages, and the UCC Societies website.

Societies Website • www.uccsocieties.com is currently underused by societies. The information is initially

updated by the Accommodation Office staff and can often be incorrect! !• Societies often don’t have access, or know how to get access, to update their own

section of the website. • The website also needs to be set up in such a way that it can redirect users to a

society’s own website, should the society already have one in set up.

Improve “Traditional” Promotion Methods • There needs to be a society noticeboard in the ORB. This is one of the busiest buildings

on campus and yet there is no dedicated notice space for societies. • Encourage societies to post photos & videos of events on their Facebook pages. If

people are tagged in photos and videos, they are more likely to ‘like’ the page and thus further boost the publicity of the society.

• Assist societies in sending press releases for large-scale events to gain more media attention. Additionally, I would like to build up a relationship with local media outlets so that news press releases are actually considered.

Society & Membership Development Steering Meetings

• Having not been offered a single steering meeting this year, I will push all Guild OCM’s to hold at least 2 steering meetings per term. These are incredibly important at the start of the year to ensure committees are working well together.

• One steering meeting should be held prior to Societies’ Day for any societies that are available so as to ensure they are ready for what will be the biggest membership drive of the year.

• In mid-late October I will hold another steering meeting. By then, societies will have held EGM’s and will be up and running.

• This meeting would deal with any problems encountered, such as issues regarding budget & Special Project applications, and also to encourage collaborative events.

Societies Day, Fáilte Fest & Orientation

• Training needs to be given to societies prior to Fáilte Fest & Societies’ Day on how to showcase themselves properly and promote themselves beyond just giving out sweets!

• Extend the Societies’ Day to be more than just the Devere Hall, as this can be cluttered and ineffective for promoting yourself adequately. Instead, I would include:

o Showcases & performances in the Amphitheatre and area near the Library to create an atmosphere similar to Fáilte Fest 2012.

o Guild stalls in satellite campuses, such as Brookfield, where students can sign up to societies. It would not be feasible for every society to have a presence there, but the new electronic sign up system will make signing up to any society easy.

o Additionally, I would push for the new electronic sign up system to be used during the orientation days. If information was supplied on the various societies, First Years could sign up on the day.

Other Development Ideas

• If the new electronic sign up system is in place, I would like to see First Year students offered the option to sign up to societies during their orientation days using this system.

• Crossover meetings are vital. These ensure that committees do not spend the first month figuring out how to get everything running properly and allows societies to put previous committees plans in place over the summer.

Events & Entertainments All-Society Events

• If assigned this position, I would push for considerably more inter-society events than took place this year.

o Beyond the annual larger events, such as the Christmas night out, I would like to re-introduce smaller scale events. I would like to see these events organised once per month as a means to promote relationships between societies and encourage collaborations.

o I would like to see a day out for all committee members, similar to Auditors Training, which would go on to (hopefully!) encourage collaborations

Supporting Society Events • I will establish a database of hotels, bus companies, venues, bands, DJ’s, decorations

and equipment rental companies, etc., that societies can use. o This would be extensive enough to be used by more than just balls and will save

committees a huge amount of time as we can get a competitive, bottom line price off these companies with the weight of 92 societies behind us.

• With the LMS, I already set up a database of bands to play at UCC events and it proved hugely successful.

o We provided bands for balls such as the Architecture Ball, Clinical Therapies Ball and more, for an average of !300 - !500 cheaper than normal.

• Additionally, for events where alcohol is involved, the Student Community Support team may be required. I would provide societies with guidelines for types of events that require the SCS and assist them in getting in contact with them.

Mystery Tours Alternatives, unfortunately!

• Mystery Tours were a massive part of college life when I first came to UCC and their absence has left something missing in students’ social calendar.

• This may not be a problem for some of the larger/social societies, but I want to work with all societies to provide some events that are focused on a social aspect for their members.

• These events may even (God Forbid!) include alcohol free events such as: o The Go-Carting Centre in Watergrasshill o Ballyhass Lakes Activity Centre where Auditors Training took place

Society R&G Week Events

! After assisting in the coordination of society events for R&G week this year, there is an awful lot that can be improved upon for next year.

• I would like to give all of the Auditors the option to be involved in organising R&G week and keep them updated of progress regardless of whether they are involved or not.

• This would also prevent the same event being organised by the SU and a society, as happened this year!

Training Event Management Training

! I will introduce Event Management Training: this is separate to Entertainments Training and will be given at Auditors Training, along with being offered to all committee members at a later date.

• Despite most committees having an Events Officer, responsible for overseeing the running of events, there has never been adequate training in Event Management.

• This training will be both general and include some specific areas that would be common to many society events. For example, it would cover areas such as:

o Booking and contacting venues, acts, booking agents, etc. o How to oversee and ensure proper promotion of an event o Practices for ensuring the event runs smoothly o Health & Safety and other regulations that apply to events in UCC

Auditor’s Weekend • If it isn’t broken don’t fix it! I think that Auditor’s Weekend

works brilliantly for both training and encouraging collaborations and I would like to see it continue in its current form.

• In addition to the above, things I would like to see included are:

o Workshops on stress and mental health. Identify if someone is under too much pressure and what to do about this.

o Include an emphasis on delegation, leadership and conflict resolution, as these are issues that can make or break a committee during the year.

Entertainment Training

• Similar to this year, I would like society specific entertainment training to take place for society Entertainment Officers and at Auditors Training.

• This would include details of how to organise social events in order to encourage membership engagement.

• The training would also include details on organising larger scale events, such as balls, which are often included in the responsibilities of the Entertainments Officer.

PRO Training • Offer PRO training twice, once before Societies’ Day so that PRO’s elected before a

societies EGM are adequately trained to promote the society to incoming First Years. • This should cover training in the use of mailing list and web texts so that each Society’s

promotion can hit the ground running and really engage with new members. • I also will encourage more innovative and quirky methods of promotion and attracting

new members. o People are sick of the same sweets and Facebook statuses; Societies need to do

something to catch students’ attention. • Continuing from the Media Training given by Ian Power, I will include training on how

to contact and deal with the media correctly. Finance Finance Applications

• Always mentioned, but yet to be put in place, is more detailed responses to Finance Applications

• I would make use of the comments section when denying Finance Applications, detailing reasons why the application was denied, and in particular if it would be approved given certain changes.

• Committee members often won’t come in and discuss their applications so simple feedback on the form ensures that they know what applications are appropriate and will reduce similar mistakes in the future.

Online Finance Portal • The new online portal was introduced without much warning or training and left many

quite confused! • I think that the portal is a step in the right direction, the old system had too many

errors, and this way is more closely linked to our accounts. That said, there are still some things that need to be fixed.

o From my own experience, we didn’t have a breakdown of the year’s expenditure, which made our end of year finance report unnecessarily difficult. The majority of our expenditure was marked as “other”.

• I would like to see a situation where full details of expenditure and come for both the current year and previous years can be accessed.

• Seeing amounts paid, previous transactions and dealings with various companies would prove helpful for future committees when planning events.

Budget & Special Project Submissions

• I would encourage committees to set out a plan for the year before September if possible, and have budgets due in October. This was not adequately communicated this year and saw societies rushing to get estimations for potential events in a short deadline.

• Additionally, I would change the current Special Applications process. I would like to see societies being given the chance to apply for funding each term. This would both give societies organising larger events a larger time frame in which to do so, and it would provide societies with a longer time scale to brainstorm ideas for events.

• Another issue I would address is the time in which Special Project Applications are processed and confirmed/denied. Any delay in this can cause the organisation of a large-scale event to be severely disrupted and so they should be processed in as little time as possible.

Sponsorship for Individual Societies

• While some societies are brilliant at getting sponsorship, others often don’t realise the exposure they can provide to companies and what business are willing to give in return for on-campus exposure!

• I would like to see a guide released prior to term starting which would detail:

o How to approach companies for sponsorship o Reasonable and reasonable expectations

from a company o Types of sponsorship that might be

prohibited (e.g. alcohol) o Details of companies that have been willing

to work with societies in the past

Collaboration With the Students’ Union & Clubs

• This year, with the LMS, I collaborated with the SU to run weekly gigs in the Old Bar. o This arrangement shows a situation where the SU wanted something from a

society (our experience) and we needed something in return from the SU (funding for the gigs).

• There has been a huge divide in the past between the SU and some societies, something that should not be the case and needs to be addressed in order to provide higher quality events.

• Societies often feel that the SU are attempting to take advantage of them. o This should not be the case, as in most situations both the society and the SU

will have something to gain from the working together. • Bridging this divide between the SU, Clubs & Societies is something that I feel strongly

about and will push the guild as a whole to do next year. o We each have separate resources available to use but together we can offer the

students of UCC the outstanding events that they deserve. Planning for the Future Hub Project

• The Hub Project has been talked about for the past few years but not much work has been done on it. The SU have their offices, the Clubs have the Mardyke but Societies currently have no state of the art, dedicated facility.

o Because of this, it is ridiculous that societies have been so far sidelined on the project.

• I will push for more direct involvement and negotiation with societies. We should not be an afterthought. The Hub Project needs to match our needs, as societies are the driving force behind most activity on campus.

Bunker Project • While the Hub Project should be a massive benefit to societies, it will be 2016 before it

is finalised and societies need the facilities sooner than that. • The Bunker Project is aimed at addressing the needs of those societies whose

requirements cannot possibly be fulfilled by the current Hub. o One example of this is the need for dedicated resources for Film Soc to run

professional software. • This project will benefit every society. For those in need of the resources, they will be

of use for years to come. And for all other societies, the computers in the Hub will be less cluttered and will run faster.

Storage

• The other big issue that needs to be addressed is the issue of storage. Again, this is something that has been talked about endlessly for the past two years, and yet not much progress has been made.

• The sheds cannot continue in their current condition, with equipment constantly going missing and getting damaged. There is going to be no major improvements unless we are allocated additional storage space.

• I will work with the Space Allocation Committee within UCC to ensure that before the year is out that we have some concrete guarantee of additional storage space.

Thank you for taking the time to read my manifesto. I want to build on the work achieved in previous years and believe that I have the drive to push societies, big or small, to new heights. If you agree with my ideas, I would appreciate your support at the AGM on the 28th of March. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Email: barrynev@gmail.com Phone: 085-1759117