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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15

ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

15th June 2015

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AGENDA

* * *

1. Ratification of minutes from the previous AGM (2013-14)

2. Accounts of the Union for the financial year 2013-14 (PAPER A)

3. Appointment of the auditors (PAPER A)

4. Report of the Trustees on the Union's activities

5. End of Year Reports from the Executive

6. Financial Improvement Plan

7. Approval of the list of affiliations of the Union (PAPER A)

8. Amendments to the constitution of SGSU (PAPER B)

9. AOB

10.Ratification and Closure

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PART 1: MINUTES FROM AGM 2014

ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION

MINUTES

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

15 th May 2014 MONKTON LECTURE THEATRE

1. BUSINESS

1.1. Quorum achieved: 65

1.2. Apologies:

Naim Slim

Henry Gray Society

Gender Equality Society

1.3. Minutes 2012-13: PASSED BY SIMPLE MAJORITY WITH AMENDMENTS

2. REPORT FROM THE TRUSTEE BOARD

The report from the Trustee Board was circulated to the ordinary members, questions posed as follows:

Adam Jones asked who the other trustee is? Madeline Mackeand stated that it was her.

Georgina Chamberlain asked what headway they have made with sports facilities? Tom Arjomandi stated that they were looking at the Springfield ground as it is up for tender in a few years therefore they will be looking to use it as a home ground. He also stated that when Cobham as sold a million pounds was made by the University therefore this money has been ear-marked for future sport facility development.

3. OPEN QUESTIONS TO THE TRUSTEES

The following questions were posed to the Trustees in their absence:

REPORT PASSED

For: 59

Against: 0

Abstain: 1

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4. END OF YEAR REPORTS FROM THE EXECUTIVE

End of year reports from each member/team of the Executive were circulated to ordinary members in turn. Questions as follows:

4.1. PRESIDENT: Mohamed Amer

Steven Gilbert what plans do you have for the SU Office regarding the big project. Mohamed Amer stated that he sees the place as a quieter space that would resemble more of an office that would discourage individuals from sitting around. Mohamed Amer stated that he sees it as being more open plan with an office for Education and Welfare.

Adam Jones asked if he could comment on the criminal damage that occurred at WW8? Mohamed Amer stated that they had to battle quite hard for a pub not to take the matter to the police. He stated that traditions within the families have caused issues to come up and perhaps an email should be sent out prior to the event to stop this from happening as this event will not happen in the future if it continues this way.

Yan Leung stated that in his manifesto he mention brothers and sisters but the event itself had a low turnout. Mohamed Amer stated that he believed that the idea is good, and the ethos is to encourage people to integrate. One of the issues was that the event was held at the end of the week therefore Fresher’s were reluctant to attend.

Dheemal Patel asked what was happening with the rebranding of St. Georges. Mohamed Amer stated that this has been put on hold as there was a lot of resistance from both staff and students.

Ryan Salisbury asked if the rebranding has been taken off the table or if will be occurring in the future. Mohammed Amer stated that they had done the ground work for The rebranding but it has been ‘shelved’ due to the resistance.

Sam De Neijs asked what the current situation is with the addition of new ablutions facility to the multi-faith room. Mohamed Amer stated that there have been issues regarding Fresher’s not knowing the correct etiquette. He also stated that this refurbishment needed to be confirmed by the higher ups who are resistant to this as they believe it might create a sense of ownership over the room towards one faith. There is also the issue of finding space and money.

REPORT PASSED BY SIMPLE MAJORITY

4.2. VICE-PRESIDENT (EDUCATION & WELFARE): Yan Leung

Mohamed Amer stated that wellbeing week was a success this year and asked how this can be continued in the future. Yan Leung stated that pet therapy was very popular and it would be good to bring new ideas in every year.

Adam Jones stated that it is mentioned in the report that they were looking at setting up a notice board between Kingston and George’s and asked if they were looking at a more technological joint faculty? Yan Leung stated that they are looking at a physical as Kingston are quite bad at replying to our SU and there is also a problem with IT as they currently do not get all the all student emails.

Ruben Thumbadoo asked for clarification regarding the honour degree. Yan Leung stated that even though our students have higher entry requirements they are not achieving high grades in their degree. Therefore the university are looking at changing the weighting for certain degrees depending on the amount of teaching they receive. Yan Leung stated that there is currently a blanket rule declaring that if they are 1% below the grade line then they are automatically given the higher grade.

Nicole Doonan asked if this was in place for all course. Yan Leung stated that this was the case apart for all degrees apart from the Medicine degrees.

Yan Leung stated that in her report it was written that there is library refurbishment that was to occur this summer but this is no longer going to happen as the university cannot afford it. Therefore there will not be 24 hour access to the library. She stated that the space was meant to a flexible group study space.

Matthew Farrant asked if there was reason that we cannot get 24 hour access to the base rooms. Yan Leung stated that currently they do not have enough money for security or for security cameras.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15 Ryan Salisbury asked why the library refurbishment has been turned down. Yan Leung stated that at the

beginning of the year they were given £500,000 but last Tuesday it was decided to decline the project as the university did not get the money ear marked from HEFCE therefore they needed to cut the money.

Sam de Neijs asked how it would be possible to advertise the Welfare services as the beginning of the year? Yan Leung stated that it is mainly self -referral therefore it is hard to encourage people to partake but they have a talk at the beginning of the year to inform them of the services.


4.3. VICE-PRESIDENT (FINANCE & STUDENT ACTIVITIES): Tom Arjomandi Chantell Umadia asked why the transition to Barclays occurred? Tom Arjomandi stated that this was

due to university changing their banking system and as we are a subset of their account we had to transition too.

Simi Akinwale asked if the £70 budget would continue on in the future? Tom Arjomandi stated that he has every intention to keep this going.

Andrew Mott asked if the subvention grant from the university was increasing with inflation? Tom Arjomandi stated that the grant has remained static for the past 8 years, he also stated that SU will have to fight to keep the grant the same.

Andrew Mott asked how many more students the SU has had to cater to in the recent years? Tom Arjomandi stated that he does not currently know but it true that the students we are catering to have gone up but the grant has remained stable. Yan Leung stated that there will be increasing numbers of student in the coming years as the international cap will be abolished.

Charles Horn asked if the online minibus system will be set up this year or the year after? Tom Arjomandi stated that this was unlikely to be done this year but he has been looking into doing it but has not had time to set up the online system.

Yan Leung asked how Tom Arjomandi sees his job progressing into the activities side as the SU will be moving to Agresso and therefore invoices would be done by the finance department of the University? Tom Arjomandi stated that his job will be more related to societies therefore he will be looking at budgets and society expenditures. Tom Arjomandi stated that this will have pros and cons related to societies therefore they will be less lenient on last minute payments

Maeve Toner asked if it would be possible to give the SU bank account details to the treasurer of societies so that they would not need to come in. Tom Arjomandi stated that this would not be possible as these details are confidential, especially with the financing system downstairs.

Tom Arjomandi stated that any company and charity accounts have to be zeroed, this allows one to see the losses and the gains. Tom Arjomandi stated that this means that any subs left in the accounts gets re-absorbed back into the SU. Tom Arjomandi stated that the subs fees are for the society but also for the SU therefore it pays for the background needs. Tom Arjomandi also stated that as we are a charity, we cannot have constituents of the charity making money. Tom Arjomandi also stated that if the money was ear marked for something in particular then it can be rolled over into the next year.

Andrew Salmon asked for clarification regarding the VAT? Tom Arjomandi stated that VAT cannot be claimed back as in the past we have been claiming it back illegally. He stated that legally a business can claim back VAT but a charity cannot.


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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/154.4. GENERAL SECRETARY: Anjalie Rajapakse

Georgina Chamberlain asks what is the thing you are most proud of? Anjalie Rajapakse says she is most proud of the website changes and that she can now write code.

Corey Biffa asks how do you plan on handing over to the next General Secretary? Anjalie Rajapakse says she has already started a handover document but the main thing

is that there will be now be a Webmaster position Mohamed Amer: You definitely went above and beyond your role, do you think the next officer should

do the same? Anjalie Rajapakse stated that she wouldn’t put a campaign on that’s below par and that if she didn’t contribute then the week’s wouldn’t have been as good. But she does recognised that she needs to be stricter with the officers

Eshan Ashcroft: How has it been balancing General Secretary and T Year? Anjalie Rajapakse says she has found it very difficult and at times may have put the SU above her academic work.

Jordan Colman: What code are you using? Anjalie Rajapakse states that it is CSS and HTML5


4.5. EVENTS OFFICERS: Kirsten Shoemaker, Kat Telford, Jack Grierson and Steven Gilbert Lucy O’Reilly asked what happened with the traffic light disco and how we could prevent this from

happening in the future. Kirsten Shoemaker stated that they did not want to have this disco as they was very little uptake.

Ester Breij asked in what terms their events were a success. Kirsten Shoemaker stated that this is based on event turn out and the lack of making a monetary loss.

Georgina Chamberlain asked what happened after the events shake up meeting and what they would pass onto the next year? Kirsten Shoemaker stated that it was a re-structuring between President, the officers and the events Officers. Kirsten Shoemaker stated that from then on it has been better. Steven Gilbert stated that there has been restructuring within the group so that people are designated with certain roles.

Ruth Varney asked if letterbox flyering was useful? Kirsten Shoemaker stated that they have had many complaints that too much of their advertising is on facebook hence why this was done.

Adam Jones asked what the WKD forms mishap was? Steven Gilbert stated that this was completely his fault as he did not pick up the forms at the end of the event. Therefore he had to forge many forms.

Adam Jones stated that this year’s family quiz events was poorly attended. Kirsten Shoemaker stated that on this night in particular families had promised to come to the events but they did not attend.

Aaron O’Callaghan asked why the event organised by them was so poorly attended during RAG week. Steven Gilbert stated that it was because there was uncertainty between charities and events as to whom he event belonged to.

Luke Alexander asked if there was a theme throughout as to why the events were poorly attended? Kirsten Shoemaker stated that apart from Post Graduate freshers and a couple of small events there has been nothing that has flopped

Ryan Salisbury asked if they have considered using the Year Reps and creating groups of the heads of families so it can get the message further? Kirsten Shoemaker stated that this is relying on people to do the job where they sometimes they do not. KS stated that one of the mediums of media that people respond to is Facebook.

Reuben Thumbadoo stated they mentioned the Tram and that they have more money but they charge more for drinks, therefore what it is reason for people going to the tram instead of the bar? Kirsten Shoemaker stated that part of it because people get so used to the Bar and being in this building therefore they go out for a change.

Durva Patel stated that they have had some bad reviews for music therefore how can this be improve upon? Jack Grierson stated that it would not be possible to satisfy everyone. Kirsten Shoemaker stated that they only way to do this is to have a good relationship with the tech officers.

Eshan Ashcroft asked where the bad reviews come from? Kirsten Shoemaker stated that it comes mainly from word of mouth therefore a survey should be done.

Corey Briffa asked if it would be better to involved RAG in more of their events? Kirsten Shoemaker stated that they were incorporated in most discos as they were selling items.

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Martin Gannon: I propose that we reduce the quorum to 40.

Seconded: Reuben Thumbadoo

Martin Gannon gave a one minutes speech for the proposal

Tom Arjomandi gave a speech one minute speech against the proposal.



4.6. MEDIA

OFFICERS: Ester Breij and Charlotte Lea

Corey Briffa asked how far they have come with the SGSU app and if it is feasible? Ester Breij stated that have met with a representative from Apperio and that they are waiting for terms and conditions. This should be ready by August. This means that you can plug the App during freshers.

Adam Jones asked what would happen to the current app and if the new app would include room booking? Ester Breij stated that they will be taking the app off the store but the new app will be connected to the website therefore it should run through it.

Charlie Lea stated that the new media role would be divided in to one person doing the newsletter, one person doing the app and two people doing website work. There will also be the webmasters who will be doing the background work for the website. She stated that they have been keeping up this year therefore with more people it should run more smoothly next year.


4.7. SPORTS OFFICERS: Georgina Chamberlain and Jordan Coleman Matt Aranouti asked what happened with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School varsity? Georgina

Chambelain stated that they are still pushing it to happen but they’re quite difficult to get hold of. Therefore it would be games in the day time in Brighton and then a night out. Jordan Coleman stated that getting a confirmed date has been difficult.

Adam Jones asked what happened to the sports ball? Georgina Chambelain stated that the organisation started too late and there was clash with their exams.

Isabella Laws asked if there was funding for external places to prates? Jordan Coleman stated that they were initially looking at Wimbledon rugby club but this fell through. Georgina Chambelain stated that netball has been the only club that have flagged the issue with the Rob Lowe.

Steven Gilbert asked what happened with the responsible drinking socials? Georgina Chamberlain stated that we have narrowly avoided a fine as BUCS require a policy for responsible drinking an induction into sports clubs.

Oliver Cummin stated that with caertain clubs having a fixture secs, should other clubs start electing one? Georgina Chamberlain stated that the role of fixture sec alleviates more from the president but if you have one individual it gives a point of contact.

Matt Aranouti stated that a lot what they have said seems in the making. Therefore he asked if it would be possible to pass this into the new Sports Officers? Georgina Chamberlain stated that this will be done in the handover and that having an Ex sports officer was very helpful.

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Anjalie Rajapakse: I propose that we reduce the quorum to 45

Seconded: San De Neijs

For: 53

Against 0

Abstain 0



4.8. HERITAGE OFFICERS: Michael Lee and Dheemal Patel

Anonymous: the General Secretary’s AGM reports stated that she had a heavy hand in the planning of Heritage Week.

Dheemal Patel stated that the General Secretary had to be involved as officers were very busy during that time therefore the General Secretary had to step in.

What else did you do apart from WW8? Dheemal Patel stated that the principle is spearheading the heritage meeting group and there is money put aside for the archiving of objects.

Durva Patel asked how well the Huntarian museum tour went? Dheemal Patel stated that this is the only event that they had to cancel as people dropped out.

Yan Leung stated that there was a concern with Cobras and Spiders and that there was a meeting with higher ups in the university who described the it as a minefield of vomit. Dheemal Patel stated that the turnout was unforeseen and that in the future this will be passed on to the oncoming Heritage Officers.

Tom Arjomandi asked who came up with the decision to make the t-shirts free? Dheemal Patel stated that it was a decision between the heritage officers and that they believed that it was cleared with Tom Arjomandi.

MA stated that the heritage officers job is to uphold the traditions of George’s, and asked if it would be possible to continue the traditions without promoting drinking? Dheemal Patel stated that tea with history was very helpful and other non-drinking events were well attended.


4.9. CHARITIES

OFFICERS: Elesha Vooght, Sam de Neijs, Luke Alexander and Aaron O’Callaghan

Adam Jones asked how pram race went? Elesha Vooght stated that Pram Race was a nightmare to organise as in previous years they had not told the pubs they were coming ahead of time. Therefore this time when they rang around only five pubs agreed to have us. She also stated that there was an issue with obtaining trolleys. Elesha Vooght stated that there were 6 teams even though they advertised it was very difficult to organise.

Steven Gilbert asked what happened with RAG post RAG week and that maybe it was time to change things.

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Jack Grierson: I propose that we reduce the quorum to 40

Seconded: Sam De Neijs

For: 46

Against: 0

Abstain: 0

ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Sam De Neijs stated that they are looking at abseil and that the health and safety has now been done. He also stated that they are looking at the feasibility of this event. Elesha Vooght stated that there were some issues were changing traditional events. She stated that they don’t make much money from the traditional events but it brings out a great atmosphere.

Elsha Vooght stated that there has been a big issue with student participation Ryan Salisbury asked if combining both Events and RAG was a good idea or did that take away from their

identity. Aaron O’Callaghan stated that it takes a lot of communication between the two teams and this can be hard work.

Kirsten Shoemaker stated that RAG week was not well attended and how can this be remedied? Sam De Neijs stated that there were many issues that lead to this, part of it was that the week was too late as most of the fresher’s had gone home. Aaron O’Callaghan also stated that brining the fortnight forward made a difference as it left less time to advertise the event.

Tom Arjomandi asked if they ended up losing money on pram race? Elesha Vooght: Yes Tom Arjomandi asked if their figures are correct? Elesha Vooght stated that they were £2000 short


4.10. SOCIETIES OFFICERS: Bhina Patel, Alice Walker-Earwicker, Lucy O’Reilly, Michael John Fran Graham asked if they have had any major problems with sorting out the music room? Alice

Walker Ewarwicker stated that biggest issue was sound proofing as it took a very long time as there were a lot of channels to go through.

Bhina Patel stated that fundamentally the issue was soundproofing. They stated that they has spoken to the library who were keen on soundproofing initially but they had backed down.

Michael Lee asked if they are doing implementing banning people from dance studios? Alice Walker Earwicker: yes.

Anjalie Pathak asked if something was going to be done about the HGR being used as a store room for fashion show? Tom Arjomandi stated that the SU had been trying to contact the Fashion Show regarding tidying up of the AHR


4.11. COMMUNITY

PROJECT OFFICERS: Jonathan Hurst and Esme Siriboe Georgina Chamberlain asked if after the INTO presentation of they had the INTO students becoming

involved? Jonathan Hurst stated that this was the case. Yan Leung asked if they will be going through the store room this year? Jonathan Hurst stated that

they will be looking at doing this and what they really needed was the CPs to be involved to let them know what could be thrown out.

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4.12. TECHNICAL OFFICERS: Eshan Ashcroft, Omar Abbassi and Andrew Mott Mohamed Amer stated that looking at their report it was shambles and why was this not done

properly? Eshan Ashcroft stated that this was because he did not contribute enough to it. Andrew Mott stated that a lot of what they have done is repetition therefore it is very repetitive to write.

Steven Gilbert asked what progress has been made this year? Andrew Mott stated that the main progress has that with the Monckton and the new mic system is better and that the tech in the bar has improved to accommodate for the increase in comedy nights.

Kirsten Shoemaker asked if the events officers had kept them in the loop? Eshan Ashcroft stated that this had happened better this year and in terms of improvement he stated that it is not really broken therefore it should remain. Andrew Mott stated that sometimes the tech are left out of the loop until the very last minute.

Martin Gannon stated that a couple of years ago the deposit scheme had come into play therefore has this been continued? Eshan Ashcroft stated that they have done a couple throughout the year but a lot less has been happening outside of George’s.

Mohamed Amer asked how it is best to police what is in the booth when they are not in there? Andrew Mott stated that the booth has a lot of space but it is currently being occupied by old equipment.


4.13. ENVIRONMENTAL & ETHICS OFFICER: Lydia Kay and Eren Costu Yan Leung asked what the other events in ethics week was and why were these not successful?

Eren Cosu stated that there were some events that were meant to happen but did not occur, one of this was the saving water event.

Steven Gilbert asked if there was a long term plan to make the university more environmentally friendly? Lydia Kay stated that it was mentioned briefly in the five year strategic plan. Georgina Chamberlain stated that this was the bronze award.


4.14. EQUALITY & DIVERSITY OFFICERS: Steph Peters and Alexander Reed Alice Walker-Earwicker asked what ideas they have for the campaigning week? Alex Reed stated

that they are looking at a week revolving around discrimination. Alex Reed also stated that it has been difficult getting in contact with some of the faith groups.

Jane asked for elaboration on the complaints regarding tooting show? Alex Reed stated that he does not know what the problem itself was as he did not deal with it but a formal complaint was not made.

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4.15. INTERNATIONAL OFFICERS: Onkar Rehal and Sharenja Jeyabaladevan

Officers not present

Martin Gannon asked if they sent their apologies in advanced?

Kirsten Shoemaker stated that they she heard earlier in the year regarding getting guarantors for international students where has they gotten with this?

Sam De Neijs asked what they had done apart from the International Officers.

Yan Leung stated that she had met with the International Officers in fresher’s regarding their lack of involvement. She stated that they had meetings regarding what they could so for the rest of the year. Yan Leung stated that therefore she brought them into the office as an ultimatum and they chose to step down.

Reuben asked what would happen to do a vote of no confidence.

Nathan Eager states that for a vote of no confidence there needs to be a long process that needs to occur.

Yan Leung stated that her opinion of a vote of no confidence is that it will add no benefit to the situation as they have already agreed that they have not done their job.

Adam Jones asked if there was a way of preventing this from happening? Yan Leung stated that this is difficult to do as the methods of people holding the SU accountable is varied.

Ryan Salisbury asked who would be giving the handover to the new international officers? Yan Leung stated that she will be doing this.

Martin Gannon stated that by not giving them a certificate it does not go with the constitution has it does not hold them accountable but having a vote of no confidence hold them accountable constitutionally.

Yan Leung stated that by the Top 4 will not be signing them off. Adam Jones asked if the role is valid? Yan Leung stated that this position is necessary due to increasing

numbers of students.

Kirsten Shoemaker asked what stops people from going for the role and then not doing the role? Yan Leung stated that this is the role of the student body to elect wisely and responsibly.

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REJECTED BY SIMPLE MAJORITY

4.16. COUNCIL ELECT: Demelza Beischon-Murley and Matthew FarrantOfficers not present

Tom Arjomandi asked how many written reports they submitted to Exec and Council? Lucy O’Reily asked how they believe that their role can be utilised more? Georgina Chamberlain asked if more verbal reports during the year would make them more

accessible to the student body.

REPORT Rejected BY SIMPLE MAJORITY

4.17. SENATE CO-OPT: Not elected


5. ACCOUNTS, AFFILIATIONS AND AUDITORS

5.1. Accounts

TA introduced Elizabeth Neal as the accountant for the SU.

Details of the Accounts of SGSU 2012-2013 are included in PAPER A

Andrew Mott asked where the money is going and what deficits need to be picked up. Tom Arjomandi stated that they will be speaking about this later and that he will be sending an email around to the student population with regards to what is happening with the money.

Adan Jones asked why as a charity we are spending so much on food and drink? Tom Arjomandi stated that £26,000 goes to Grad Ball. Tom Arjomandi stated that these figures were expenders but not losses as some were recouped.

Jordan Coleman asked what miscellaneous expenses were? Elizabeth Neal stated that there are a lot of expenses that have not been properly filled therefore it needed to be filled under miscellaneous.

Esme Siriboe asked where the money comes from if we are making losses every year? Elizabeth stated that the money we are spending are surpluses from the previous years.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15 Jonathan Hurst asked what depreciation accounts for? Elizabeth Neal stated that big purchases such as the shop

comes under this banner. Natasha Lee asked what has changed from the previous years to the current year. Tom Arjomandi stated that our

grant from the University has not gone up but our expenditures have gone up due to inflation, and an increase in clubs and societies.

Elizabeth Neal stated that we have been needing to spend money on auditors for the past years therefore they would like to change this.

Andrew Mott asked if there is anything that will be done to increase profit in the trading arm? Elizabeth Neal stated that we have a commercial manager that looks at this and he has been working in this year on year.

Tom Arjomandi stated that it would not be possible for the SU to carry on as it is currently: He stated that an issue is subs from clubs and societies. The SU pays for pitches and referees and coaching. But other necessities are paid for by the SU. Some societies have a deficit for a large sum of money that if not recouped is paid for by the SU. It might be that next year it will convert back to the old system so that societies cannot use money that is currently not in their account.

Andrew Salmon stated that if money is not allowed to be carried on year on year then there is no incentive for the money to be in the account. Tom Arjomandi stated that he did not feel that this was the case as initial payments are made by the SU budget.

Tom Arjomandi stated that for bigger sports team that are used to having training and pitches paid for them, might experience a change as only essential pitches and training will be paid for next year.

Tom Arjomandi also stated that Year Rep events such as ball have been getting help from the SU, but these have cost us a lot of money. Especially P-Year ball where none of that money has been recuperated.

Martin Gannon stated that the SU should try and help out at half way dinner and grad ball and that this is stated at the beginning of the year. Therefore we will have to make a choice as to if we would want dinners every year.

Maeve Toner asked why the grad balls need to be paid for as the physios pay for themselves. Tom Arjomandi stated that they are not funding the ball but they are lending the money, but if the money is not made back then the SU ends up paying for.

Andrew Mott asked if it would be possible to take a deposit from everyone so that you have a better idea of ticket sales.

Edward Palmer asked if it would be possible to use the SU bank account as a central bank? Tom Arjomandi stated that this would be possible therefore the SU would be working off the deposits.

Martin Gannon stated that the problem with the deposit system is that it would not be possible to get people to put a deposit down on an events that has no date or plan for it. Tom Arjomandi stated that this is less of a problem compared to the SU losing money for Events.

Elizabeth Neal stated that overheads will be recovered by finances that do not effect clubs and societies.

PROPOSAL BY SAM DE NEIJS: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT THE PRESENTED ACCOUNTS TO BE APPROVED.

SECONDED: Mohamed Amer

FOR:68

AGAINST:1

ABSTENTIONS:2

5.2. Affiliations

Details of the Affiliations of St. George’s Students’ Union 2012-13 are included in Paper A.

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PROPOSAL BY: Tom Arjomandi I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT THE AFFILIATIONS TO NUS seconded by Mohamed Amer, - passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO NUSSL, seconded by Mohamed Amer – passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT THE AFFILIATIONS TO ULU, seconded by Mohamed Amer – passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT THE AFFILIATIONS TO BUCS, seconded Mohamed Amer – passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO NIGHTLINE, seconded by Mohamed Amer – passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO THE UK CHEERLEADING ASSOCIATION, seconded by– Mohamed Amer passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO UK MEMBERSHIP SOLUTIONS LIMITED, seconded by Stratton King – passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO THE WIMBLEDON RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB. Seconded by Mohamed Amer PASSED simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO THE AMATEUR FOOTBALL ALLIANCE, seconded by– Mohamed Amer passed simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO THE UH RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB, seconded - Mohamed Amer passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO THE UH HOCKEY CLUB, seconded by– Mohamed Amer passed by simple majority.

PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO BRITISH ROWING, seconded by– Mohamed Amer passed by simple majority.

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PROPOSAL BY Tom Arjomandi: I PROPOSE THAT WE ACCEPT AFFILIATIONS TO SCOPE, seconded by– Mohamed Amer passed by simple majority.

PASSED BY TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY

5.3. Auditors Constitutional amendment

Elizabeth Neal stated that the auditing company we have been using have been charging us a lot of money and therefore they would like to put the auditors up for tender.

PROPOSAL BY: Tom Arjomandi

SECONDED: Mohamed Amer

FOR: 45

AGAINST:0

ABSTENTION: 1

6. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

All constitutional amendments are made in Paper B

Point: 16

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Mohamed Amer: I propose that we accept the changes made for the Student Trustees

Seconded: Eshan Ashcroft

For 43

Against: 0

ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15 Jordan Coleman asked why they needed such an increase in the number of Media officers to 4 and

Webmasters to 2? Mohamed Amer stated that there is a greater demand as our SU is growing.. The app will also increase the demand on the media officers.

Martin Gannon stated that he does not disagree with increasing the media role but does not see the need to increase the webmaster role. Mohamed Amer stated that the webmasters are solely focused on the website.

Point 17

Jordan Coleman asked why it was people running separately instead of together? Mohamed Amer stated that this was because there was more flexibility and that it is more accessible to the general student body.

All constitutional amendments are documented in Paper B.

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Mohamed Amer: I propose that we accept the changes to the Media officer Role.

Seconded: Ester Breij

For: 42

Against:0

Abstain:3

Mohamed Amer: I propose that we accept the changes to the webmaster role

Seconded: Aaron O’Callghan

For:41

Yan Leung: I propose that we pass these amendment to the council and senate elect roles.

Seconded: Martin Gannon

Accepted: 44

Yan Leung: I propose that we pass these changes to the Year Rep role.

Seconded: Ryan Salisbury

Accepted: 43


7. Music Room

Alice Walker Easrwicker stated that they have implemented a new room booking system book pianosShe also stated that lockers have been placed and that they will be differentiated depending on size.

She also stated that the societies currently do not pay any money for the music room and therefore societies that use the room will be charged £5 per month.

Andrew Mott asked if societies using the other rooms will be charged too? Alice Walker Earwicker stated that she could not judge this and had only looked at the music room.

Alice Walker Earwicker stated that sound transference has been an issue therefore they will be buying a drum podium to reduce the sound.

Alice Walker Earwicker also stated that as of July 31st there are people with access that will no longer have access to the room.

8. Societies Officers:

The following societies are to be dissolved:

CNS

Arabic Society

Chess Club

Film Society

Play Society

Patient Safety Society

Medical Women’s Federation

Krishna Consciousness Society

PROPOSAL BY: Bhina Patel: I propose that the above societies be dissolved.

SECONDED: Adam Jones

Accepted: 44

Abstain: 1

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Against: 1

9. AOB

10. SGUL AwardsYan Leung showed the document for the awards accreditation. This acknowledges the extracurricular activity done by our students.

11. AOB – NONE

12. RATIFICATION AND CLOSURE

PROPOSAL BY Anjalie Rajapakse: I PROPOSE THAT THIS AGM RATIFIES ALL THE AGREED AMENDMENTS AND ADDITIONS MADE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND REGULATIONS, AND RATIFIES ALL DECISIONS AND PROPOSALS PASSED AT THIS MEETING, SUBJECT TO APPROVAL BY THE TRUSTEE BOARD AND, IN THE CASE OF CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS, BY SGUL COUNCIL. I PROPOSE THAT THE MEETING BE CLOSED.

SECONDED: MOHAMED AMER

PASSED BY SIMPLE MAJORITY

PART 2: ACCOUNTS OF THE UNION FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR 2013-14

PART 3: APPOINTMENT OF THE AUDITORS

PARTS 2 and 3 are in PAPER A

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PART 4: REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES ON THE UNION’S ACTIVITIES

Report from the Trustee Board19

ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15The trustee board is the overarching governing body of the SU Charity, and is comprised of the Senior Officers, three student trustees, two staff trustees, four lay trustees and the ex-President. They oversee the strategic direction of the SU. The trustee board has met three times this year and will meet one last time in this academic year in July.

The trustee board has considered many issues this year, including space, resourcing, our financial positions and commercial activity. One of the big things the board considered at the beginning of the year was our CCTV system. With compliance issues from insurance companies and for the safety of our students, we decided to upgrade our internal system. The majority of that upgrade is now complete and we have a new system which will allow coverage across the entire SU. We are currently waiting on the repair of some defunct cameras in the bar.

In terms of our financial position, the board of trustees have been very active is looking at what we can do to improve our situation. The board discussed issues such as the viability of summer ball, and from these discussions we ultimately decided that we would not proceed with one this year to save costs. The trustees also highlighted that we have no formal financial strategies or plans, and therefore I have written a financial improvement plan which will is looking at the best ways to cut any unnecessary costs. This plan has been taken to the board and has been endorsed for implementation from next week.

The website was also a big project that was worked on this year. I wrote a business case to the Trustee Board which was endorsed and the board have been very supportive of the maintenance agreements of the new site.

Going forward, the board have agreed that the financial improvement plan along with a newly formed risk register will be a standing item at all meetings. This will ensure that the board keep a close eye on how we are spending our money and to review and update the risk register to ensure that we have contingency plans in place.

Dheemal PatelPresident and Chair of the Trustee BoardSt George’s Students’ UnionJune 2015

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PART 5: END OF YEAR REPORTS FROM THE EXECUTIVE

President: Dheemal Patel

1 Year ReportPresident - St George’s Students’ Union

In all honesty, this year has whizzed by. We have seen St George’s Students’ Union grow and flourish this year and we have a lot to be proud of. Equally, we have foundations in place to ensure that the SU is able to continue to develop.

24 hour library:One of my main manifesto points this year was to try and secure the provision for a 24 hour library. After many discussions and meetings at the beginning of the year, SPARC approved a trial of a 24 hour library over some of the IFP exam period. As part of the trial, a headcount was done every hour of every day and the data showed consistent use of the library until about 2am. As a result of that I pushed for these extended hours during the summer exam period, and this has been approved – Hopefully going forward we will be able to extend this provision for longer periods over the year and also include weekend use.

Inclusion:I wanted to address inclusion because I feel it is important that we are a united front. I wanted to do this by bringing students together, holding non-drinking events, and promoting the SU. At the beginning of the year, I hosted an afternoon with our INTO students where they came up to the SU and we had refreshments and told them about what we did. They really enjoyed this and as a result we see lots of INTO students embracing our SU space. In terms of non- drinking events, we have hosted numerous Karaoke and Open Mic nights this year, which have gone down very well. However, I think a key issue around this is that some people don’t feel comfortable coming to an event if it is held in the bar. This is something that needs to be considered for the future of where we decide to hold out events. The SU showcase was our chance to show off a non-drinking event which was also inclusive and I feel that the Showcase this year was a great success. Thanks must be given to our events officers who put in a great deal of time and effort into the operational organization of the event. The money raised from the event will go into some small games room refurbishments such as new microwaves, and I hope that this has started a tradition and that the SU showcase will continue for many years.

One thing which I think did not work out very well this year was my drop in clinic. It is incredibly difficult to set aside a consistent time every week for this to happen as it is in the middle of a meeting day. I do however feel that an open door policy does work well and something that should continue to be adopted in the future.

Promotion:I feel that the promotion of the SU has grown throughout the year. This has firstly been done through events such as use your SU weeks before exams and elections though also by other means such as promotion through our new website. I feel that the App is our secret weapon, and I don’t feel that we used it enough this year and we need to utilize it more. I recently met with the developers of the App who were very supportive in helping us to come up with new ways of using and promoting the app which will hopefully be useful for next year’s executive.

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I have also made good links with the sabbatical officers at Kingston this year. It was a great experience going over to see how another SU works, and we were able to share experiences and it provided us with a great insight on what we can do to develop as an SU and promote what we do well as well.

Student Satisfaction: One thing I was very keen to do was understand our student satisfaction and more importantly find ways of improving it. I have been heavily involved in a number of university committees this year, which have focused solely on the student experience. This has given the SU a foot into playing a big part in helping to ensure that the student experience is a big priority, and the extended library opening hours is an example of a good result from this.

As an idea that came from the last year’s executive, I have set up a halls user group which helps to understand the concerns and issues of students who live at halls. I chair this committee and currently the membership of the group extends to 3 halls residents, the halls manager as well as the Deputy Dean of Students. This group feeds directly into the halls management group who are the operational governing body of halls. I am hoping that this group will continue on next year, and for the membership list to grow to a student representative from every block.

You may remember a few months ago when I was throwing student surveys at all of you for the annual WhatUniChoice awards. These awards are based solely on the reviews of students and this was a good opportunity to see what students like and what students don’t like. I am happy to announce that we came 6th/113th for Job Prospects, 14th/113th for best SU and 18th/113th for student support. However, there are areas where student satisfaction isn’t so good such as University Facilities, where we came 107th/113th. These results show areas where the SU needs to work with the university on to try and make improvements.

Summer Ball:Some of you will also be aware that this year, we have regretfully decided to not hold a Summer Ball, and the reasons for this are purely due to financial constraints. The SU has historically subsidized ticket prices in the past because we feel that we should give back to the students, but as a result, the Summer Ball has run at a substantial loss for several years, which has amounted to over £30,000 in some years.

It has been a difficult decision, but we feel that we cannot justify that big a loss for one night. The SU’s mission and vision is to provide you with a service, and to ensure that every single student has the opportunity to be a part of the SU, whether it be in a sports club, community project or just having a voice and this decision was made to help protect this vision and ultimately the longevity of our SU.

Website:I feel our website is our secret weapon. It is the central hub of where students, whether current or prospective can get vital information and many of our critical functions such as elections and ticketing are based around our website.

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This year, I felt that we needed to upgrade our website for many reasons. The first is because of navigation and I feel that we need to restructure our website so that information is easily accessible to our current and also prospective students. It is also gets us onto par with other universities, and I used the models of KCLSU and Cardiff’s SU to help us with the restructuring. Importantly, I also feel that we can use our website as a source of income in terms of advertising sponsorship and hiring opportunities. After writing a successful business case to the Trustee Board, we embarked on the redesign with our web developers. Within the 1 month scheduled timeframe, we completed all aspects of the redesign including new content and restructuring the website as a whole. With our new website, we hope that we will provide clearer information, gain commercial opportunity and provide a platform for student feedback. I liaised heavily with both Kings and Cardiff’s SUs. They were incredibly helpful in providing me with an insight on how to go about such a big scale upgrade, which I was very grateful for.

Financial Status and Improvements:

It is not news that we are in a financial struggle. I have been committed this year to making sure that we do something about this to ensure the prosperity and longevity of our students’ union. Many of you know this year we have had to make cut backs in society budgets and in other areas such as the summer ball. We need to get into a position where we are financially stable and this year we have put in safeguards to ensure we are able to do this. I have also written a financial improvement plan, which is going to be in place for the next academic year, which will be governed as a standing item by the Trustee Board and will be delivered by the sabbatical officers and SU staff.

I have also created opportunities for further income generation. One of the main points in my business case for the website was that it would give us a platform to advertise our venue. We have already hosted 2 private events this year and are hosting a 3 rd in August. I am currently working with the commercial manager to set some terms and conditions along with price to formalise these arrangements so that we can start advertising on the website. We are also in the finalizing stages of a joint commercial venture between the SU and the University with regards to branded merchandise, and this will hopefully be in place and running by Fresher’s week.

Overall, I have had a great year in office and I have certainly learnt a great deal. I would like to thank my Executive Team this year, some of whom have put in an incredible amount of work and effort to ensure that the SU runs smoothly as well as Lucy, Chris and Tash who have stopped me from losing more hair than I already have!

Finally, I would like to thank all of you for your continued support of the SU and giving me this opportunity. It has been nothing but a pleasure and an honour to serve as President of St George’s Students’ Union this year.

Thank you!

Dheemal PatelJune 2015

Vice-President (Education and Welfare): Natasha Lee

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Natasha Lee’s Sixth Month Report

So far this year has been a challenging experience but overall I have had a great experience in the position of VP ED and Welfare. I have thoroughly enjoyed working and getting to know everyone on exec and hopefully the next sixth months will be just as enjoyable as the last.

Handover and Pre-Fresher’s

The initial first few weeks of the role was a challenge (a good challenge however) and a challenge that I had never experienced before. Settling in was a big part of that and learning the ropes was quite a steep learning curve for all of top 4, but slowly and surely we managed to get there. We started with induction talks from different members of staff from various departments and I tried to put faces to names of people we’d be working with in the upcoming months. Top 4 were all in the same boat and the pressures we faced together were a major part of us becoming a team.

Shorty after starting the role I quickly started learning the procedures I would need to know well as exam results were on their way to being released. I needed to be able to offer advice and guidance during this time, as there would be students who needed to resit and others who would be going to discretionary panel. I would like to thank my predecessor Yan knight for the handover and helping me through this.

This was also the preparation month for Freshers and was as you can imagine, very hectic. This included organising all events throughout the fortnight, sourcing/designing wristbands, making a distributing handbooks and organising Fresher ball.

Freshers

Freshers was one of the busiest times this year. It started with post-grad Freshers, and this went down a treat with all of the students including exec! The feedback we got from the post grad students was excellent and they were very appreciative of the events held. Over all postgrad Freshers went really well but we all knew it was the calm before the storm. With some last minute planning, two weeks later was undergraduate Feshers and it was manic. The events went very well and we were delighted when we found that the record was broken for money taken at Toga & Tequila.

Moving in: We knew this year was going to be challenging as we were moving in the most number of students into halls than there has ever been due to the increase in intake. Basically every single room was filled. I think the operation was very slick with our huge team effort and our great feedback from parents and students. The only issue

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15was not having enough trollies, but we got as many as we could and managed to the best of our ability to get belongings to rooms in a quickly and timely manner.

Freshers was a manic time but I was really proud of what we achieved!

Student Support & Welfare

There are obviously strict limitations to what can be written down as this area must remain confidential but there has been good use and access of the support mediums in the SU and around the university. I myself have had to manage quite a lot of welfare cases some of which are serious personal issues and others which are procedural.

I attended a suicide first aid training course and I was extremely grateful that this was booked for me in advance. I wanted to able to represent all students across the campus including those that aren’t primarily based at George’s and this included making trips to Kingston university to represent SGUL students there.

The counselling service continues to thrive and I always hear very positive feedback on the convenience and confidentiality of online booking, however it was clear that the counselling service function on the SU website was hard to find. I regularly attend the counselling service’s team meetings as this gives us a chance to catch up and come up with new ideas to promote wellbeing. They were also very welcoming for me to visit on a personal level and I have done so, as the nature of this role can be very difficult sometimes.

The Think SMART in The Dark campaign was run this year again in November. Here I joined forces with the university and I gave out lots of freebies including leaflets, personal safety alarms, high vis wristbands, bag hooks and drink spike testing kits. The police also came down and carried out bike tagging. It ran very successfully and hopefully more students were safety aware.

I have been in contact with the onsite courtyard clinic and the National Chlamydia Screening Programme (NCSP) and I have organised free regular chlamydia screening for students all year round. I have set up provisions for this to continue next year.

In the run up to the February exams Top 4 were outside the library during lunchtime offering free tea, coffee and biscuits. We wanted to promote that the SU were there for any student in need. This was very much appreciated by all students.

One of the big campaigns the SU run is the Wellbeing Week campaign.

The week ran very successfully and included yoga classes for both students and staff, a pet therapy room, life drawing classes and workshops and sessions. I had a tight budget but I was still able to provide free stress balls,

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15calorie counters and drink measurers. Some SGUL staff kindly were able to give talks and run workshops and it was wonderful to see the staff involvement and how everyone engaged together to promote wellbeing. I received some really pleasing news from staff as they stated that the student engagement in the workshops and sessions were the best they had seen.

Since the recruitment of the new E&D manager in SGUL we are now looking on how to improve and set provisions up for the dignity advisors scheme. This is an excellent scheme as it provides confidential advice from a trained advisor on campus for anyone you may have been subject to bulling or harassment. I thought it was very important for my role to have the training to become a dignity advisor so I have set up provisions with the E&D manager for the upcoming years to receive this training.

Education

On the education front there was some major changes to the institution. It was the first year of enrolment of the tablet to T-years. This involved being apart and meeting with the e-portfolio group. As with anything there were initial problems but these are slowly being rectified. Another change in conjunction with the enrolment of the tablet was that a lot of courses went paperless so students were therefore not being given lecture hand-outs anymore.

With the results from last years NSS there were three areas which SGUL were significantly below the sector average these were:

- Assessment and feedback - Organisation and management - Learning resources

To specifically act upon those areas three sub-working groups, which I was a part of, were formed to actively identify the problems and come up with solutions.

We worked hard alongside SGUL to promote and encourage students to complete the NSS and internal SES.

I was involved in the run up and planning of Education Day that is run by Elizabeth Miles. I got together a variety of students to promote and present posters and some of their work during the day. I also organised a student panel for the day and I set topics for them to discuss and they answered questions from the audience.

I organised year rep training this year and collaborated with Deborah Bowman (dean of students). This year we thought we would focus on making the training more scenario based. We worked through different possible scenarios year reps may come across in small group discussions.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15One of my main manifesto aims coming into position was extending the library hours.

I am very please that this year we are currently piloting extended library hours during exam time. Feedback from the year reps has been very positive and students are appreciating this during exam time. Hopefully this will continue in years to come.

I have received a number of complaints this year with regards to cheating in OSCEs. This has been an ongoing issue at SGUL for some time and I expressed my concerns at the Medical Assessment Committee and was adamant something needed to be done. After multiple discussions with the university it was agreed that the best way forward would be to ask the student body what they wanted to solve the issue. A student ballot will take place once the feasible options have been identified and give students the option, one of which will include giving out the OSCE stations before the exam so it is fair for everyone as they do in some other medical schools.

This year we are trying to introduce the use of a senate forum whereby year reps will submit their monthly reports as well as end of year handovers. I have asked the webmasters to also create an exam feedback tab so students can post any issues they may have had during their exams. With the launch of the new website I hope that these features will be used effectively as the functionality and access should be easier.

Students’ Union

This year we have been on a massive money saving bid and we have all done our part to try and cut unnecessary costs, and that has meant having to carefully budgeting campaigns.

At the end of 2014 I started the process of organising a summer ball and in the following months I found possible caterers, venues and rides. At a trustee board meeting at the beginning of the year were questioned how we could have a ball that makes a considerable loss every year. Since then all of Top 4 had a very difficult decision to make. We could not justify making a loss of that amount as we do every year. We need to secure financial stability to the SU and holding a ball on that scale would have hindered that. We communicated this to the student body via the senate and council meetings.

A lot of work hard work went in to the planning of the new website. We wanted to make it more user friendly and put us in line with other SU websites. I carried out a lot of market research into the advice and education sections on other SU websites. The old advice section on SU website was previously disordered and very hard to navigate. I worked with the website designer to design the layout of the advice section and I was able to make this section much more streamlined so that the most important information was easily accessible such as academic advice, counselling service and the access of student procedural guides.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Top 3 were involved heavily in the progress and monitoring of all our commercial outlets. This included regular meetings with our commercial manager, the manager of Eddie’s café, and frequent commercial service’s meetings. We are currently all involved in the merchandising steering group and are currently having ongoing discussions.

Even though I have just over a month left and I am still busy working on things I’d like to get done, I would like to say an enormous thankyou to my colleagues, members of staff and all of Exec that has made this year one of the most challenging, enjoyable and fun years I have experienced at George’s. I am extremely proud of what we have achieved this year. Thanks for all your hard work!

Vice-President (Student Activities and Finance): Chris Raby

AGM Report

Chris Raby – Vice President of Finance & Student Activities

Steep Learning Curve

The first thing I had to do once our term started was to meet the new colleagues I’d be spending pretty much every day with for the next year. It has been a pleasure to get to know Dheemal, Tash, and Lucy, as well as the rest of exec, most of whom I’d never met. I felt very welcomed from the first day, and I really enjoyed getting to know everyone.

When I took over from Tom back in August, I had some sort of idea of what was to come, but was also well aware that I had a lot to learn and that the year ahead was going to be long and hard. I knew it wasn’t going to be all fun and games, of which there has been a significant amount of, and I was prepared to learn a lot about things I hadn’t had much previous experience of. Namely finance. I was introduced to the vast amounts of paperwork I was expected to do in my month’s handover, and also some of the duties that would be expected of me throughout the year, but there was still a lot that I would come to learn.

Freshers’

Alongside learning all the new things I had to do, Freshers’ was starting to loom so planning had to commence. My first job was to engineer a refreshed Freshers’ Fayre sponsorship pack that appealed to potential organisations to give us some money for a space for a stall, or inserts in the Freshers’ handbook. As well as this, I trawled through the masses of promotional brochures to find the best deals on the merchandise we wanted to give (pens, USB’s, wristbands, t-shirts etc) and ordered them in time for the festivities to start. We managed to recruit a good number of external companies for Freshers’ Fayre and they all gave us good feedback on what a good day it was and how they signed up lots of new recruits.

Graduate Freshers’ (at the beginning of September) was the first big event organisation we had to oversee. The events team had planned lots of good things for the week, with events tailored more to needs of graduate students.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Sushi & Sake and Casino night (not to mention Bar FTSE Karaoke!) were extremely well received and many of the graduate students have maintained their interest in events throughout the year so far.

Undergraduate Freshers’ crept up on us very quickly from then on and before we knew it, it had arrived. We had spent the previous week preparing the goody bags for Freshers and preparing everything with most of exec, who were involved in helping out. Then came move in weekend. Saturday was very busy but we worked effectively with estates and facilities to move in the most people ever on the first day – so many we were only needed until lunchtime Sunday. Freshers’ Fayre ran very smoothly with some brilliant organisation from the societies officers, and thanks very much for all who helped out on the day, particularly the Webmasters for their good scanning (even though the internet went down). The two weeks flew by after this and lots of fun was had by all. A new record bar taking was made at Toga & Tequilla, with £13,175 going through the tills.

Things to note

One of the first things I was doing after Freshers’ was to transfer several contracts from SGUL’s name into the SU’s name. This made the way our payments went through much more streamlined so we didn’t have to be recharged by the University for things, and so it looks better when we are being audited. We also interviewed for a new office manager quite early on in our tenure. There was one standout candidate – Michelle – who has been extremely useful since she has started.

Sports kit was also ordered as it was the changeover of the 3-year kit cycle. The majority has finally arrived. We hosted 999 here for the first time ever. The bar takings made it worthwhile for us to hold the event here as they significantly outstripped the costs, and those who attended seemed to enjoy it very much. 8 shows have passed so far this year (24-hour musical, Diwali show, fashion show, Revue Christmas show and Pygmalion, Tooting Show, Musical & The Showcase), so the year has been busier than ever before in this sense, with it usually limited to 5. This hasn’t impacted much on my workload, but I think it’s great that a more diverse range of events is happening. Due to high demand, and in advance of next year, there was also a minibus test last weekend that all societies were informed about. The new drivers have now been added to the list.

Since the turn of the year, we have also developed a new website. It took a lot of planning and discussion to decide exactly how the website should be; this included colour schemes and a slight rebrand of the SU logo. I contributed mainly through the digitisation of forms to make things easier, such as music room purchase through the website, and I am hopeful that this work can be carried on next year. The primary development that would make the workload easier for both the VPF&SA and the societies officers would be to digitise handover packs for clubs and societies, something I have discussed with this years societies officers.

After budgets had been sent out, I arranged the first, and then second earlier this year, finance committee meeting. In the first, clubs/societies that made budget appeals were assessed as to whether they were valid and in the second, community project funding was decided. This gave more transparency to the funding allocation process, and to make it fairer to clubs and societies.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15One of the first projects I had to embark on was implementing Agresso as the new finance software. Agresso is the package I use the most on a day-to-day basis and I am still learning its full functionality. It is very complex to use initially but, once you get used to using it, it becomes more intuitive. I have spent a lot of time with the technical expert from SGUL, as well as the Finance Manager, on trying to get him to teach us how to use it to the level we need to be able to use it at, whilst also showing us how to generate the appropriate reports so that we can be more accountable. A lot of the creases have been ironed out but, as I have learnt from my time down in the SGUL finance offices, which have used the software for years, there will always be things to improve!

Another task that has taken up a lot of time recently, alongside that of the Financial Manager’s, is forecasting a budget for 15/16, so that my successor has something robust to work from throughout the year. This is something that would have been great to have from the start of the year. It will allow an accurate and transparent view of our finances from the beginning of the year, once it has been inputted into Agresso, and can give an up to date reflection of the financial situation of the SU. As well as this we have forecasted a budget for the trading arm for the first time, which means we have an idea of the amount of income we will be getting throughout the year. This will allow the Trustee Board, the Director’s, and us, to scrutinise the activities of the trading arm to a greater extent, and help to remove any inefficiencies so it can function better.

There have also been a couple of papers that the other sabbaticals and I have worked closely together on. The first of these, which was shown at the last council, will be presented today for reference and has been endorsed by the Board of Trustee’s, is the SU’s finance improvement/key performance indicator plan. This is a development on the SU’s strategic plan, which had no previous mention of finance as it was written when there was a perception that the SU was ‘rich’, and outlines where the SU should be most prudent with their finances and areas of expenditure that are a financial risk for the SU. The next paper is a case for change for our subvention grant. Myself, Dheemal and Tash, have put a lot of time into it over the past few months and we have arranged a meeting with the principal, the heads of finance to present the paper. As I am writing this report in advance of the meeting, I am unable to tell you the outcome, but we feel the paper is very robust and puts forward a very good case for the SU to receive more subvention.

I have been discussing refreshing our printing contract with a new supplier, and have also discussed a better deal with our current suppliers. Now that printing in the office has been limited to only permanent staff there, our needs have changed so we will be able to get a better deal. I have had a quote that has offered us a better printer and reduced costs from the same company, which would save us around five thousand pounds for the remainder of our contract.

We have recruited some new auditors, GSM, for this year. The price they have given us is significantly lower than what KPMG charged us last year - £3000 lower in fact.

Trading arm

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15The School Shop is doing exceptionally well, with takings higher than they have been in our records. It’s the same story for the bar, with takings for each event we’ve held being higher. This is an achievement for the bar due to the improved social scene at local bars/restaurants in Tooting, whilst the shop is nearing its full potential. Another potential income source is greater merchandising presence, and we are currently in a series of meetings where the logistics and agreement with SGUL is being discussed. We trialled the first Saturday night event during RAG, which was indicated in the bar survey as something that students would like. The turnout was better than expected. We’ve got a VAT return done and there will be a few more to come this year. Now that we have set up the logistics of it on Agresso, it should be much easier in the future.

Mitie have had struggles with ‘Eddie’s’, mainly from an internal catering point of view. Their service seems to have improved now there is a more stable general manager and we are offering our support and ideas in regular monthly meetings. The number of internal events they are catering for has increased greatly and their feedback is improving. A bonus for the SU is that the contract stipulated we will receive increased rental from them after the first year, so we witll receive an additional ten thousand pounds in addition to what we received this year.

Conclusion

It has been a very busy year, and it’s a shame that it’s coming to an end, but it’s time for someone with fresh ideas and motivation to take over. I feel we have made a valuable contribution to all aspects of the SU this year, and I will end the year happy with the great job this year’s exec has done. The trading arm performance has improved greatly this year, and I very much hope the effort put into it is upheld so that it remains competitive and an invaluable source of income.

General Secretary: Lucy O’Reilly

General Secretary 2014-15 Year Report

August

Started off getting organized with Exec spread sheets in order to get email and drive access for everyone – the transfer over the summer to Outlook make this much less straightforward. Finalized room bookings for Senate, Council and Exec meetings for the year. Emailed Exec to explain how Exec meetings work and with important information on how to subscribe to emails ect. I organized weekend away which included arranging transport, accommodation, the activity and food requirements. It was a successful weekend and the team got to know one-another. I also organized T-shirts for all of Exec. I started emailing societies and students with various enquires for Fresher’s and setting new committees up with log in details for room booking ect, communicating with new society/club committees was a lot of work. There was a lot of planning for Fresher’s during the month with Top 4 – deciding events, Fresher’s booklet, move-in days. I updated the Society start-up pack to send to people who were requesting to set up a new society. With help from some of Exec I filled the 800 welcome bags that Fresher’s received at Fresher’s fayre.

September & October

Started having meetings every week – making agenda pack and minutes, collating reports, sending out weekly meeting reminders. Had the Exec meeting with 4 society proposals – wouldn’t suggest doing this again, the meeting was far too long and took hours to minute. There was a high number of emails due to new Society committees. Had

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Fresher’s events – this was lots of work with 2 move in days, week of PG Fresher’s then fortnight for UG Fresher’s (well done to Events for working so hard and making Fresher’s really successful). The move in days worked well by Undergraduate move-in, there was a good system in place and Exec was great at helping out. I did my first senior disco duty for Toga – had a few problems but otherwise very successful, boys toilets flooded but we got people through the door very quickly at 8am and reached capacity. I helped with and organized other events like Fresher’s Brunch and drove on a few trips to bookers in the minibus for supplies. Dheemal and myself met with SGUL room booking staff to discuss issues with the SU booking rooms. The first Council room booking went well but lasted 5 and a half hours. I started looking at clearing out the Blue Unit that the SU have been loaned by the University and thinking about buying a stage to store in there. I attended a finance committee meeting to discuss appeals for budgets from clubs and societies. I received the advertising pack for University Challenge and looked at dates for trials, advertised the event and emailed student body. There was also Agnella’s leaving party – I organized the date and invites which were sent to past Exec and alumni (thanks to Anj for ordering the food). I updated the Council manual from last year so it was ready to be handed out at the first Council meeting and printed new Council voting cards for new societies that had been set up.

November

Helped at 1st Year Rep Hustings. Had University Challenge auditions and got a team together (thanks for the help Nathan and Michael Lee) – submitted the application pack. Had an afternoon as Top 4 clearing out the junk in the Blue unit, got half way through it. Had meeting about the Website. Meetings every week – minuting, agenda packs, emails, room booking carried on as usual. I organized secret santa for Exec and a Christmas meal at The Manor which everyone seemed to enjoy. I had lunch at the Principles house with Top 3. I also held Zone meetings and reviewed how each team in the Zone was doing. There were some issues with the Media team who were not sending out the newsletter every weeks and there didn’t seem to be much development with the app.

December

Had some issues with the T year rep situation where all the reps were in one stream and the other stream felt underrepresented – this resulting in a meeting with them to resolve the issue. An agreement was made that for next year the T year reps would be split between the two streams to avoid this situation. The rest of this month was fairly quiet as there was only one Exec meeting as everyone had gone home for Christmas break. I caught up with emails and dealt with the usual room booking requests.

January

I uploaded the Minutes and Agenda packs to the Website and had a Trustee meeting along with Senate, Council and Exec meetings. I organized room booking at Council, I organized requests and made into a spread sheet for the meeting – it went smoothly and finished by 9.30. We started having more regular Top 4 meetings and as Top 4 we served Tea and Coffee outside Library at lunchtime for 1 week for students with Exams – to promote the SU and care for students.

February & March

I organized the 6-month Exec meeting where each team presented their 6-month reports. I organised room booking again for Council – last one of the year, it went very quickly as there was only one clash. Did RAG disco duty which was a trial of holding a Saturday disco, went successfully there were no issues and there was a decent attendance. Started holding zone appraisals for the Communications Zone.

April

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15I attended the awards nominations decision day where the Exec team decides who should win an SU award, this took all day (8am-midnight) but we managed to do nearly all of it except life membership which was carried over to the next Exec meeting. I attended the Which Uni award evening with Top 4 as we had been nominated for Best employment prospects. We had regular Top 4 meetings where Part V and the summer ball were discussed. It was decided that the Summer Ball wasn’t a sustainable event given our financial situation, so with the Trustee boards input the decision was made to not hold one this year. We started discussing possible alternatives.

May

I held use your SU week from the 18th-22nd May – everyday I was outside the Library with SU related games and prizes, I also encouraged students to give feedback about the SU and learn about the different Exec roles with have using the ‘Exec tree’. Thanks to everyone who came and helped with the stall that week. I helped with Sports Ball by driving the Tech to and from the venue – the evening seemed to be well enjoyed by everyone. As Top 4 we started discussing plans for AGM and Elections, I requested year reports from all of Exec with frequent reminders about the deadline and AGM. I created a register of attendance for all Exec at the Executive meetings. Dheemal and myself requested a meeting with the Media team who had already received a written warning about their work in the role. Only one member of the team attended this meeting and a decision was made by them on behalf of the team that they would quit the role as Media Officers – as this was very close to elections the role was not re-opened for nominations.

June

I booked rooms and advertised the AGM and Hustings events. I have created the agenda pack for AGM and circulated it to the Student body. I have started to liaise with room booking about booking rooms for the next years worth of Exec, Council and Senate meetings – the system is not yet working for next academic year. Later this month or in early July there will be an Exec handover meeting. I have been talking to a number of different people hoping to set up new societies and coordinating with them so they can attend an Exec meeting.

July

Upcoming I will be writing my handover and meeting with next year’s General Secretary to handover.

It has been a very busy but enjoyable year being General Secretary of the SU and I’d like to thank the Exec team for all their hard work and also Dheemal, Chris and Tash who have been a pleasure to work with this year!

Events Officers: Corey Briffa, Mitzi Munuo, Aniqah Rahman, Durva Patel

August 2014:Preparations began mid-August for GEP-Freshers and Fresher’s Fortnight, this month consisted of preparing promotional materials for Freshers as well as contacting external companies regarding the events planned. We completely changed the layout of this year’s fresher’s advertisement, incorporating our social media presence onto all the posters and advertisements that were released. Our planning began during the holidays with a meetings with the Top-4 and Rich regarding the plans we had for the Fresher events, as well asking the top 4 their opinion on our new and improved advertisement / poster collection. There were a few problems in planning some of the events. For example we had been in contact with companies regarding a ‘St George's It’s a knockout’, however the field we were planning to use fell through and the cost would have been too high meant that this idea was not viable at this time. We were still hoping to run an event like this as well as looking into the possibility of an outdoor cinema viewing; nevertheless the plans for GEP freshers and Freshers Fortnight were as follows….

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Graduate Freshers: Saturday 30th August - Meet and Greet at the Selkirk Sunday 31st August - Meet and Greet at the SU bar Monday- Sushi & Saki Night Tuesday- Mums & Dads Wednesday- Rest Day Thursday- Karaoke/ Beer pong Friday- Casino Night

Freshers’ Fortnight: Saturday 20th September- Meet and Greet at the Selkirk Sunday 21st September- Call me maybe meet and Greet Monday: Back to School Disco Tuesday: CPO evening & Multicultural Dinner Wednesday: Circles / Restaurant visit Thursday: Mums and Dads Friday: Toga & Tequila Disco Saturday/ Sunday: Laser Tag Monday: Family Quiz (Postgrad vs. Undergrad) Tuesday: Wandsworth 8 Wednesday: Circles / Hidden City Scavenger Hunt Thursday: Hypnotist, Ian Dee Friday: End of the World Foam Party Saturday: Rest Day

Sunday: Freshers Ball

The rest of the month consisted of finalising and publishing all promotional material and launching any new social media coverage. This was also the time we contacted external suppliers: Sushi Chef; Laser Tag; Ian Dee; Foam cannon. Additionally we finalised our decoration orders and all external guests via Chris and any ‘tech’ requests with the Technical Officers, as far in advance as possible.

On the 30th the events team assisted with the GEP move in, and ensured the location of the Saturday ‘Meet and Greet’ was confirmed and sufficiently advertised, we spent that evening mingling and meeting all the new GEPS. We encountered a few issues with the Sunday ‘Meet and Greet’ in the bar as the GEPS did not yet have their SGUL pass, so some were unable to gain entry into the university. (A learning curve that we corrected for Undergraduate freshers).

Mondays Sushi night was very well attended, although this event did require a huge amount of preparation, it is well suited to the GEPs and the evening was thoroughly enjoyed. On Thursday we launched the new ‘Karaoke/Beer pong’ craze, which packed out the SU bar and proved to be a huge success! Finally on Friday we held the ‘Casino night’ and SU bar was transformed into a casino. However, the event began started off quietly the turnout eventually picked up, we blame GEP’s curiosity of the ‘Tram’.

Overall we believe that our GEP Fresher’s was a great success, apart for some minor issues and speaking to GEPs they mostly agreed that the events were all advertised well and very enjoyable.

September 2014:

After the end of a successful postgraduate fresher’s week, we continued to plan for the undergraduate Fresher’s Fortnight. Our first event was 'Meet and Greet’ at The Selkirk, which turned out to be surprisingly popular. The Selkirk agreed to have a drinks and pizza deal which helped. Our second Meet and Greet (Call me maybe) was an extremely successful event. We

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ordered white T-shirts, which allowed Fresher to write ‘facts about themselves’ the idea seemed to work really well as an icebreaker for the Freshers. We also set up the Beer pong tables, which went down really well.

On Monday we helped set up Fresher’s Fayre, manned the events stall and sold Freshers Fortnight wristbands. We sold around 200 wristbands, although Chris will be able to confirm the exact number. Tonight was our first disco ‘Back 2 School’, which required setting up and making of some decorations.Wednesday had the first alternative event to Circles, which was a curry night at Lahore. We had 22 people turn up to this event, which we were extremely pleased about. The event worked out well and from the feedback we received people really enjoyed it! This was followed by second disco of the fortnight: Toga and Tequila, which was our best-attended disco out of the three.

On Saturday and Sunday saw we ran the Laser Quest ourselves with equipment we hired for the weekend. With the help of Kat and Tech the 2nd floor was converted into a very realistic laser quest maze. We saw nearly 320 people across the weekend and filled all the available slots, all the attendees seemed to really enjoy this event. However we would not advise running the event for the future events team, as It was a lot of work for four events officers to do alone.

Week two began with family quiz where there was a massive increase in the turn out compared to last years. It definitely brought out the family spirit, and we even managed to get some GEPs to attend!

October 2014:October was a busy month, including the last week of undergrad freshers, UH 999 and Halloween disco. Our alternative event to circles on 1st Oct was the ‘Hidden city scavenger hunt’ which we attended ourselves. We had over forty signups for this, however only about half of them turned up, perhaps because Wandsworth 8 was the day before! Nevertheless, the four teams had a good time.The comedy hypnotist was thoroughly enjoyed by the people that went to it but the turnout was much less than anticipated. We feel that this was due to the Fresher’s starting their first a full day of lectures. Since it was well advertised, we would suggest moving the costly events, like this one, to earlier in the Freshers fortnight so they are better attended and to sell tickets beforehand. Ian Dee said he would be happy to work with us again and perhaps offer a discount.

During the week, preparations were underway for our final disco of the fortnight- End of the World Foam. We had the decorations ready and up, foam guy came on time, and it was well attended despite being the quietest of the three discos.

The 5th October was Fresher’s Ball, which we went to with the exec crew. We had a meeting with Rich to discuss events happening during the month such as open mic, revue show after party, Halloween circles, karaoke/beer pong etc. and drinks deals.On the 19th October we held another ‘Karaoke/Beer pong’ that was yet again well attended; this event tends to attract the older years and the GEPS. On the 20th October the UH 999 disco was held at the SU. We helped advertise, and stayed on duty for the night.

Prior to the Halloween Disco, was Halloween circles where we judged the best-dressed sports teams to win a bar tab, this went down really well with the sports teams, as you can image. Halloween disco, on the 31st, was a success. The ‘3 jager bombs for £5’ before 10pm enticed people to come earlier and we had a rodeo pumpkin and a haunted Ouija room. Surprisingly this event reached capacity at 9:30.

November 2014:We had a meeting with Rich about what new events we could do in the bar and started to discuss

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the idea of having a regular event every other Saturday in the bar. The Rag disco will be a trail and if turnout is good enough it will be something we will consider in the long term. We discussed dates for Music soc to hold an open mic night and all of their events seems to be well attended. The end of November was taken up by shows (Diwali and Fashionshow) therefore we didn’t have any events but we started planning Christmas disco: booked the photobooth and vodka luge. RAG agreed that they would be happy to run the vodka luge and in return they could take proceeds.

December 2014:We continued Planning Christmas disco involving ordering the vodka luge, making skittles vodka and buying general decorations, we liaised with HZ Photo-booth, who provided the excellent photo-booth, which proved to be a great success! Unfortunately a student did damage the Photo-booth, which meant we had to compensate the company. This was one of the more stressful events, however as the disco was understaffed meant we had to stay on duty past our normal finishing time. The RAG team arrived late, which also meant some of the events team had to man the vodka luge for a period of time. As usual advertisement for the Christmas disco was published at least 2 weeks before the event.January 2015:We came back into exam seasons so this month was very quiet due to university deadlines etc. We had a meeting with Rich, RAG, Tech, President and VPs about Rag week which the Smirnoff representative attended and was able to give us information about what they could do for the last disco event. The events and theme for RAG week was decided. After exams we intend on launching the recruitment for our sub committee and should have some more events planned for after RAG week, we are looking at a St George’s themed disco and had discussions with heritage about this.

February 2015:February was also rather quiet, although there were lots of emails back and forth regarding the up and coming RAG week. We made the poster for the RAG week Casino night, which the events team ran. This event was poorly attended. However the people who attended enjoyed their night! This month was also used to plan for our upcoming St Patricks’ disco.

March 2015:After exams we began planning our major non-drinking event the ‘SU Showcase’ which would be a talent show allowing any St George’s students to show off talents that they may not have other platforms to do so. We started by advertising the auditions, which were held on 17th and 18th of March. Before the auditions we had a stall outside the library where we advertised the Showcase and people we able to sign up for an audition time slot online. The links and posters were also put Facebook and on the event page. From our stall we also advertised our subcommittee positions for which we had some interest.

The auditions that took place on the 17th and 18th March were very successful and we had approximately 25 acts audition (including video entries). From these auditions we picked the top 10 which would perform in the show on the 28th April.We had St. Patricks disco on the 20th March for which we ordered decorations for the bar and printed out prizes that were hidden around the SU bar in pots to be found by the students at the event. As usual this event was publicised at least two weeks in advance. Students really enjoyed the hidden ‘pots of gold’ and we would recommend doing an event like this on a larger scale to the future events officers.

April 2015:During the Easter holidays we spoke to the Tech officers and acquired all the technological needs of each act for the showcase to ensure it was all prepared for the rehearsals that would take place on the Friday and Sunday before the show.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15In this period we also started planning for Part V and carried out some ‘market research’ to find out if there were any specific requests of the finals years for the disco; this included ‘cheesy’ music and discussion about entrance privileges and doughnuts! The photo booth and order for Krispy Kreme’s were placed for the disco along with the decorations.

The run-throughs for the showcase went extremely well, on the Friday 24th we had all the acts perform to us without tech for us to give feedback on each of them. On the Sunday we had a 10-hour rehearsal day with tech (thanks Tech officers). Then a quick run through on the night of the performance in order to make sure the transitions were smooth. Introduction videos were made for each act and played before they performed. We organised ourselves so that: Mitzi and Corey acted as the hosts with Aniqah managing backstage (with the help of our events subcommittee) and Durva in the tech booth. The turnout for the show was great and we made a total of £405 from ticket sales of which £300 went to the winner and the remaining £105 will buy some microwaves for the SU. The show was also videoed and is available on YouTube. We had some great guest judges organised by Dheemal, Professor Peter Kopelman, Professor Deborah Bowman and Dr Christina Baboonian.

The Showcase was definitely a highlight for us as a team, and hope that it continues to stay as a tradition.

May 2015At the beginning of May, we had part V. It was very well attended as expected and the event ran very smoothly. The Krispy Kremes were especially well received. It was also the first disco we had our sub-committee helping set up.After part V, on the advertising front, we took over the App completely, made a venue hire brochure and posters for the upcoming elections. We also helped at Use your SU week in promoting our role as well the SU as a whole.

June 2015We have our last exec meeting with the new exec and AGM. We are in the process of writing our handover for the new Events Officers and aim to have a meeting with them after the elections. To enhance the student experience year after year, it is important to obtain feedback about the events this year. Therefore we will be publicising a short survey where students can provide anonymous feedback via our surveymonkey link. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2DLJZCV

Overview:Overall we have had a brilliant year and have thoroughly enjoyed being your events officers. We feel that our year has been successful and hopefully enjoyable for the students of St George’s University. Supported by the brilliant attendance at the majority of our events, as well as financial success in regards to the takings at the bar on event nights. We have also implemented the new SGSU showcase, which we believe was a great success! One of our aims was to ensure students got what they wanted out of our events, for example our communication between the F years and the organisation of Part V. Which also broke another bar record. We would love to hear your feedback on how you think the events have been this year and ask kindly if you could fill in the survey below.https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2DLJZCV

Best Wishes,Events Officers 2014-2015

Sports Officers: Isabella Laws, Matthew Arnaouti

Sports Officers AGM Report

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https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2DLJZCV

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2DLJZCV

ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15A reminder of our manifesto, and what we have done this year:

Bold font indicates any additions to our 6th month report.

• Bring back the sports ball to help share and celebrate our successes for 2014/2015

We are currently in the process of planning Sport’s Ball, which we are eager to host again this year. We have set up a Facebook poll, and sent out an email to Sport’s Captains asking them to vote on their preferred date (May 13 th or May 20th.) Currently it seems it will be hosted at Cannizaro House in Wimbledon with a cost of between £40-60.

We hosted Sports Ball on May 20th at Kingston Park Lodge Hotel. It sold out and was a successful event overall! The hotel are keen on us continuing to host this event so we can pass on all the details to next years officers. Thanks to Matt Boon for helping with Tech on the night, and to Alice Walker for helping out with menu choices. • Continue St George’s participation in our current UH, LUSL and BUCS leagues

This has gone well and teams have continued their current participation of all three leagues and competitions. This does involve a lot of administration, and weekly emails so takes up a lot more time than anticipated. The only mishap was with Swimming Short Entry, where the deadline was missed so they were sadly unable to participate. This was due to a lack of organisation on both sides, but hopefully won’t happen again!

This has run smoothly throughout the year (since the mistake with the Swimming entry). We have entered teams for next year, including the first year of Volleyball being entered! • Work with the university, sports teams and the Rob Lowe to improve our facilities and make sure they are allocated fairly across all clubs

Allocating the Rob Lowe time took a lot of emailing at the beginning of the academic year and there were a few crossed wires. Towards the end of the year, or when the new Sports Officers are elected it may be worthwhile to make policy of booking the Squash Courts and Rob Lowe clear to both the Rob Lowe manager and sports teams so that time doesn’t get double booked.

We have initiated Summer and Winter timetables at the rob Lowe in order to allow the limited space at the Rob Lowe as much as possible. We have also underlined policy: that sports clubs booking the space must go through the Sports Officers with the new Rob Lowe manager which will hopefully reduce any complications next year. We feel it may be a good idea to have an online document as the timetable next year (perhaps on OneDrive) in order to facilitate this. • Push for a resurfacing of the flooring in the Rob Lowe sports centre

The Rob Lowe has had a ‘deep clean’ over the Christmas period in order to try tackle the slippery surface that has been complained about by sports teams. We will soon send out a survey looking to find out how effective this has been and then continue to liase with the new Rob Lowe manager about the possibility of a new floor.

Not much progress has been made here, as there is a lack of funds to resurface the Rob Lowe. If clubs are very keen to push for it (or if new Health and Safety policy recommends it), fundraising will be needed. • Promote Varsity for applicable clubs

Brighton have been very slow in their response to emails so while we want to host a Varisty day, it seems they are less eager than us. We may evaluate contacting another university to do Varsity with.

There has been no progress with Brighton, so we would advise contacting a different university to initate this next year. • Organise new kit for teams who need them with suppliers

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15New kits have been organised and ordered but are yet to arrive! This was quite a stressful start to the year for us, so we hope that it all matches what the teams wanted.

Kits have now all arrived (finally!). This was a frustrating process but hopefully, ultimately, worth it. • Improve communication by making ourselves easily contactable by giving our phone numbers and liaising regularly with team captains

This isn’t really for us to judge – we hope that captains have found it easy to contact us, we definitely endeavour to help as much as we can.

We asked for feedback from the captains who said they found us easy to contact, and we will pass on their recommendations to next year’s Officers. • Help captains to rearrange games so we can avoid any walkovers where possible

As above, we think we have had very few walkovers thus far so have been successful at this, though it may increase during exam season.

We have been very lucky in having few walkovers this year.• Celebrating our successes by updating sports scores in the SU newsletter and on social media such as Twitter

We really haven’t been doing this so is a point for improvement in the next few months. It would also be a good idea to promote the SGUL Sports page by making the various Sports captains administrators on the page as well.

This is where we feel we have been weakest and perhaps should have made a plan at the beginning of the year on how to go about promoting sports. We still wish to publish a Sports Focus in the newsletter – we already have the information from the captains, so that could be a good start. • Help clubs organise trials during Fresher’s week to ensure they run smoothly and problem free

Trials went very smoothly – all the coaches were booked and on time and there were no room clashes! We had good feedback on our organisation of this.• Investigate university wide sponsorship for our sports clubs

We haven’t had time to look into this, though still believe it’s a good idea so will try to promote it in the next few months.

We found out that the SU President and VP Finance were looking into university wide sponsorship that would encompass sports and so this became less necessary. • Promote participation in external sporting events such as Bournemouth 7s

Most external competitions happen during the summer months, so this is mostly going to be relevant in June to August.

This is still to come through the summer months, wherever teams request our help.

What else have we done thus far?

We have done some other things over the few months that aren’t mentioned above. This includes ensuring that teams have affiliations (this was a bit last minute so would advise to be more organized about it next year!), sitting on the finance sub-committee reviewing budgets for sports teams, working at various SU events and helped with Post and Undergrad Freshers.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15We have also ordered First Aids kits that have been delivered and are in the SU Office to be picked up at the beginning of next season.

A lot of work as Sports Officer is administation and emails to ensure everything runs smoothly. We have enjoyed this role and hope we have met our manifesto! We welcome any feedback.

Heritage Officers: Michael John, Kirsten Shoemaker

Heritage End of Year Report 2014-2015

Our year started off well in September, as we both helped move GEPs and undergrads into halls. We also attended many of the Fresher’s events organized for both of them. We had a stand at undergrad Fresher’s Fayre to promote Heritage to the new students, and our tattoos were well received. However, the main aim of the stall was to promote a survey about George’s merchandise. This was not accomplished because eduroam was down during the entirety of the day, and people were not able to complete our survey monkey. We have looked into redoing this survey during Heritage Week, when people are keen again.

Wandsworth 8

During this time period, we also began organizing Wandsworth 8. We walked the route in Wandsworth, talking to the pubs, and scouting for potential new pubs. Most of the pubs were very keen for us to come back, and many said they really enjoyed the evening as it brought in a lot of business and they liked everyone in costumes. We organized drinks deals with many of the pubs, and assured them that we were taking extra precautions this year in regards to theft and vandalism. As you may be aware, this has been an issue in the past and has threatened the longevity of the event. We sent an email out to the Family Heads, as well as told an extraordinary amount of people, that this behaviour would not be tolerated this year. We decided that anyone found exhibiting this behaviour would be held accountable by the SU, through a discretionary panel. Thankfully, no incidences were reported.

The evening was very well received by the students and most of the pubs. There was an incident in the Grapes where a window was broken. This was a longstanding issue due to communication issues between us, Dheemal, and the pub owner. However, it has since been resolved and we paid around £200 in damages and we apologized. There may be difficulty for next year’s Heritage Officers in convincing that pub to continue being a part of the evening. Subsequently, the wooden dolly that was mysteriously in the SU for the past year was determined to belong to Tir Na Nog, it was returned much to the happiness of the owner.

October – February

Not much was undertaken during this period as we I were incredibly busy. We continued to attend Exec meetings, helping out when needed, and performing Exec duties (notably 999). We contacted Hugh Thomas about attending the Heritage Steering meeting, which was very informative. No meetings have occurred since and are not scheduled to occur during the rest of our term.

At the meeting we made numerous connections with university staff also interested in the preservation of the archives and important historical artefact including Christine Goodair and Sue David. It was decided and agreed by the group that access to the archives would be immediately limited to prevent further damage to the items which already are requiring extensive and expensive restoration. It was also revealed that we would be exporting a fair number of artefacts to the London Metropolitan Archives and we were concerned this would limit student access to them however it was revealed that students can still access them at the LMA.

Heritage Week

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Heritage Week was overall a great success, in particular our Spiders & Cobra’s, Tea with History and Comedy

Night event which were all well attended! We also raised a good amount of money for George’s to George’s which we put through the RAG accounts at our Bake Sale. We also published a ‘List of Lecturers’ which was well received by the Lectures and Students. We are considering uploading a copy of this to the SU website so that it can be further perused and is not forgetting however we still need to discuss this with the lecturers who were involved.

March to Present

Since Heritage Week we’ve generally been bogged down with exams, dissertation and the like. Cobra’s Shirts are finally here! There was a delay in receiving them due to an issue with the company and we have fed this back to exec so that the company won’t be used again. We’ve also created some constitutional changes to the role which were passed at Exec and are being presented at AGM. These were based on our experiences in the role and crafted to match our handover to the next Heritage Officers.

Charities Officers: Ryan Salisbury, Elinor Rees-Jones, Alexandra Hajiminas, Tanisha Amin

Charities AGM report

AugustWe chose the charities that we wished to support, which became: Spires, Alzheimer’s Society, Meningitis Research Foundation, Down’s Syndrome Association and St George’s Hospital Charity. They were contacted explaining what we would try to do to help them and asked if they had any advice or things for us to aid fundraising. Not all of our charities could provide fundraising equipment as some were smaller local charities but all aimed to support us in whatever way they could.

SeptemberWe ran a stall at fresher’s fayre promoting our chosen charities and providing information about them. We collected email addresses from those people interested in being involved with RAG. We had bags of popcorn to give away to those people interested and ran a competition of ‘how many objects in the jar’. Three of us attended the security training and exec weekend away; however we were all present to help the estates team on move-in weekend and to represent the Student’s Union to the freshers.

OctoberWe initially planned to have a sports themed calendar involving the various sports teams; however we did not receive sufficient responses so decided to email all of the societies and sports teams to allow them to show their interest in being a part of the RAG calendar 2015. We selected 12 teams/societies and organised dates to take each of their photos. We attended every photo between us and we enlisted the help of a student to photograph each scenario in a consistent style for the calendar.

NovemberWe retook some of the photos which were not up to the consistent standard set and designed the calendar. It was then sent off for printing and 150 calendars were ordered (this year the calendars were smaller - A4, and black and white) and the printing costs were reduced compared to last year. Last year they ordered 250 calendars at £3.33 each (approx. total – including delivery £850), and this year after negotiation with a

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15printing contact we ordered 150 calendars at £2 (£300). The company kindly offered us a discount and free delivery as it was for charity.RAG team members were present at both nights of fashion show, where we sold raffle tickets in exchange for the fashion show team agreeing to put their profits through the RAG account and aimed to raise general RAG awareness.

DecemberThe RAG calendar arrived and we started selling them at the SU shop by publicising its launch in the lead up to Christmas. Some of the team worked at the vodka luge at the Christmas disco, selling £1 shots to raise money for the chosen charities. We finalised the dates of RAG week, considering sport tours and exam dates and began to plan the events. Had a meeting with Dheemal, after discussing it at length, we agreed to have one week of RAG events as opposed to two, to maintain consistent interest and attendance.

JanuaryWe finalised which events would be held within RAG week. This included a meeting with a member of the ‘Smirnoff’ team who provided deals and merchandise for RAG week, in particular the disco. After being asked by Richard, we agreed with Dheemal to trial the first Saturday disco. We planned to help with ACS fashion show during RAG week and also combined with Music society and discussed with Revue to add ‘Battle of the Bands’ to our list of events. We also collected merchandise such as badges, stickers, t-shirts etc. from our charities to use at our awareness stalls during RAG week. We also sourced prizes for our RAG raffle and auction.Our RAG subcommittee positions were publicised through Facebook and email. We accepted four members onto our subcommittee from the applications received as some were not available to help with RAG week.

FebruaryAt the beginning of February we compared prices, bought and made decorations for the Gold disco and any other events requiring extras such as the Man O’ Man and Woman O’ Woman competition items. We visited halls to post large posters on the main noticeboards as well as posting them around the university. Some posters were posted in registry and in the staff rooms. We spent an evening visiting all the students in halls to publicise RAG week. We told each flat about our events, asked each of the flats to put up a poster in their kitchen and recruited contestants for Man O’ Man and Woman O’ Woman on our online sign up page. We publicised our events on Facebook through our RAG page and each team member shared the events daily.After being unable to find someone old enough to drive a hired van we went with the cheapest quotes for ‘a man and a van’. We transported 15 trolleys to and from Tooting Broadway Sainsbury’s on time. Attendance to Pram Race was unfortunately poor, especially due to Rugby and Football teams being away on tour. Three teams did attend and gave positive feedback, although, as the majority arrived at 3pm, there wasn’t time to make full use of the trolleys which had to be returned at 5pm.We held a bake sale and awareness stalls during the Monday lunch time in the bar and outside the library. We visited all the tables in the SU bar and handed out stickers, cards and leaflets while explaining more about our chosen charities to raise awareness. The bake sale raised £58.29, a good amount of money as Bake Society helped out and provided some cakes which were very popular.Man O’ Man, Woman O’ Woman ran late as the majority of the male competitors pulled out at the last minute or did not show up on time. However it was very successful in the end. Dr Szarko made changes to the rounds and generally helped immensely. Each event had 5 rounds and a final and there was excellent crowd participation and support.The events team helped us to organise a masquerade casino night as our original plan to support the ACS Soc. project runway fell through. There was very poor attendance considering many people had shown

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15interest in the event but those who did attend gave us really positive feedback. It could have been a great success considering all the equipment was available from GEP freshers. We found itdifficult to encourage GEP students to attend our events and there may have been reduced attendance due to heavy drinking the night before at Man O’ Man and Woman O’ Woman.RAG circles were extremely well attended and successful. An entry fee of £2 was collected from everybody and competitions were held between teams. We went around the circles selling raffle tickets for a raffle draw on the Friday.Battle of the Bands was a successful and enjoyable night. We worked together with music society to host the event. Setup ran smoothly and there was a great variety of talented acts as sign up was full.After a huge amount of advertising for the RAG auction we were really pleased with the turnout from staff, both past and present as well as students. The night was hugely successful with the RAG auction raising £1433 by itself.We spent all afternoon Saturday setting up the gold disco with a lot of help from our subcommittee. As there was trouble with the lights in bar this had to be done in darkness, but decorations were set up in time. The attendance of around 200 surpassed our expectations and we were impressed with the extent to which people dressed up. Taking the risk of the first Saturday Disco paid off as we raised £896.

MarchThroughout March we contacted prize-winners to collect money from them and hand out prizes. Unfortunately we did not get replies from some people.

AprilWe continued to give out prizes and re-contact winners – using an excel spreadsheet to keep track of those who had paid.

MayWe are still finalising payments and presentation of prizes for the last of the winners and bidders. We created a handover pack and wrote our AGM report. We are currently in dispute over whether abseiling or bucketeering will occur by the end of this year, depending on the length required for health and safety checks or the interest the student body show.

RAG total so far = £3,115.95

Societies Officers: Fran Graham, Pedro Barbosa, Chloe Martyn, Morgan Hayden

Freshers Fayres:

Our first challenge this year was producing the freshers handbook and freshers fayres. Whilst the handbook went well and was sent out in time, freshers fayre proved a very difficult task. The major problems we faced were that we received most of the responses after the deadline due to handover forms not being filled out, and we were still getting emails asking to have a stall the day before the event, societies who had not booked a stall turning up on the day, external companies arriving late and struggling to get through the mass of students, and the cost of providing boards and tables, as well as freshers being sent up from their lecture half an hour early. Whilst tables are something that we have had to book externally every year, we normally have a number of boards to use. However, this year, only a few were available to us from the university due to damage in the past, and we had to rent additional boards. Our advice to next year's officers would be to possibly only use the boards for external companies as they pay a lot of money to attend. There are so few now available to the SU for freshers fayres that it may be worth either just having tables and asking societies to make use of the walls, or to buy our own although this

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15would be very expensive and probably not a viable option at the moment. Another problem we faced was getting help setting up on the day, but overall we think that both fayres were a success. Only a few students had trouble with the barcode system and these were quickly resolved by the Webmasters who were a huge help on the day.

Another important point to mention for next year's officers is to liaise with webmasters much earlier than we did.

Music Room:

We spent time with Matt Boon tidying the music room and allocating the lockers. We initially decided against the idea of making them available to rent as there are too few for this to be viable and there is too much risk of lost equipment and keys. After discussing this with exec, however, we have decided to keep the small lockers for expensive equipment and spare parts, the 4 double lockers for performance societies, and the rest available to rent. We drew up a contract for the lockers which will hopefully be up and running on the website by the summer/for the new year. The 4 double lockers are, as mentioned, for use by performance societies for the duration of their performance (rehearsals through to shows), with a maximum of 2 per society, as there are never more than 2 performance societies performing at the same time. Responsibility for returning keys and any damage to these lockers will be down to the committee for that performance. We will draw up a small short-term contract to stipulate these rules, with a deposit to cover the cost of key loss.

We also reviewed the music room contracts and decided that whilst we didn’t need to change the content, we did need a way to actually enforce these rules. The only way we can achieve this is by making use of the CCTV in this room, to hold users accountable for damage and violation of the rules. Many users have been seen breaking these rules, especially eating and drinking rules, and so we discussed the possibility of implementing a 3-strike policy whereby users who violate the rules on 3 occasions have their membership revoked for a certain time period.

We decided to produce some new posters to go in the music room, including one which shows how the drum kit should be set up and left after practise, and one clearly stating the rules agreed in the contract e.g. no eating or drinking except water, reporting any damage immediately etc. and these will be put up hopefully within the next few weeks, after exams.

Awards Evening:

We came up with some dates for awards this year taking into account exam timetables as much as possible, and the actual evening itself should fall after final years have returned from elective.Nominations fortnight – 9th – 22nd MarchAwards Evening – We had planned to have this on 26th June, but were advised that this may clash with another event to replace summer ball, so we are now holding it 24th June in the Monckton with a food and drinks reception in the boardrooms afterwards.

We agreed with the Environment and Ethics officers that nominations will be presented electronically this year, in the interest of saving trees and a significant amount of money spent on printing. This worked, although we will advise that next year, societies officers use encrypted memory sticks so that exec officers

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15can make notes and have a copy in front of them but still ensure that no confidential information leaves the room.

We've organised performances, running order, food and drink, certificates and names for the awards boards in the SU. We are using the week-by-week plan given to us by previous officers and so far everything is on track! We look forward to seeing you all there!

Handovers:

We've spent a lot of time scanning in all documents relating to handovers and constitutions for societies so that these are readily available in an online format for Top 4, exec, and societies to have access to.

Achievements board:

After several unsuccessful attempts to gauge interest in this, we finally got some responses from a variety of clubs/cps/socs to display on a board in the SU. Hopefully this is something that can be maintained next year with more success!

Community Project Officer: Jessie Lidstone, Antara Hayman

Fresher’s fayre – We helped set up and organise stalls for the Fresher’s fayre and general running of duties. We introduced ourselves as CPOs to the presidents of each CP who were running the stalls. We discussed their involvements in the CPO evening.

Postgraduate Move in Day at Halls – We provided physical assistance moving stuff from cars to rooms on two separate weekends. Tours and general information to new students.

Undergraduate Move in Day at Halls – We provided physical assistance moving stuff from cars to rooms on two separate weekends. Tours and general information to new Students and Parents.

Community Project Evening & Multicultural Dinner – This was one of our biggest jobs of the year to carry out. We first had to get information about who was on each committee in order to contact them as soon as possible so that we could organise the evening. The evening involved inviting eleven speakers (10 internal and 1 external) who we had contacted via email to speak for 5-10 minutes about their individual project to encourage the new cohort to take part and volunteer in the projects. For this event to run smoothly, we had to book a boardroom in advance and ask our speakers to send their presentation beforehand for organisational purposes and to prevent delays between speakers on the evening. We advertised the evening well by creating posters which we put up around university communal areas and in Horton Halls (on every floor). On the night it ran successfully, with lots of interest from students wanting to get involved. Leaflets were handed out to provide additional information and contact details upon leaving. Following the event, we then helped out with the International Multicultural Dinner by serving the food and clearing up afterwards.

Disco duties – We have helped with the general running e.g. Cloakroom and “Puke patrol” for Fresher’s Fortnight and events throughout the year (Mums & Dads, Diwali Show, Christmas disco, Part V, etc.).

Committee Meeting for Club & Society Finance – We attended a meeting with Top 4 and other exec members to discuss the allocation of funds for Sports Clubs and Societies . An email was distributed with the results of this.

Meeting with VP Finance to discuss HEFCE Grant Application Forms – We met with Chris Raby to discuss updating the application form for funding. Upon agreement with Chris, we decided to change the funding application so that it runs from 1st August to 31st July the following year, in alignment with the academic year. For the community projects running this year, we advised them that they only needed to account for

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15their expenses up until 31st July 2015. An email was sent out with the results of this meeting. Further to recommendation from last year’s officers, we have decided that the name will be changed in 2015-2016 (by next years officers) from HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) to SGSU Community Project Funding Grant as HEFCE is a misleading name as the funds do not come from an external source, but instead straight from the SU account.

HEFCE Grant Application Forms – We sent out emails regarding the completion of the application to all community project presidents with a given deadline that they had to meet. We had some enquiries and issues completing the form which we dealt with accordingly.

Finance Committee Meeting for Community Project Funding – We attended a meeting with Top 4 to discuss discussion of allocation of funds for each Community Project. An email was distributed with the results to this. The maximum value of the grant for each CP was up to a value of £1000.

Attended fortnightly Executive Meetings Attended Student Participation Zone Meeting with Chris Raby Attended Council Meetings Provided fortnightly reports on our activity (action points, recent activity – what we have done in the last

two weeks, upcoming activities and duties) Created a Community Project advertising Facebook page – We have created a facebook page to raise

awareness for each CP for them to advertise fundraising and general events. It is updated on a regular basis (when new upcoming events/important information need to be distributed). This is the first year that one has been created, and so far has been successful, as we have numerous ‘likes’ on the page and our posts so far.

Held an annual general meeting with Community Project Presidents – In February, we arranged a successful meeting to discuss the organisation and management of storage room, inventories of property, DBS forms and general issues. There was a good turn-out, with at least one representative from each CP in attendance. They had good ideas about the store room regarding the layout as each CP has varying amounts of shelf requirements. We then planned another date to rearrange and clean out the store room.

Established new connections with Giving to George’s hospital charity – We liaised with the head of fundraising who attended our CP evening during Freshers’ Fortnight. Further to this, we have kept in contact via email and will pass on their contact details to the next CPOs.

Maintained existing connections with INTO university – We liaised with the volunteer development manager, who we have regular contact with via email. We have advertised their volunteering opportunities via our CPO facebook page and the university newsletter. We will pass on their contact details to the next CPOs. We have received feedback from the volunteering manager that they have had many new volunteers and would like to keep in contact in order to promote this again next year.

Dealing with issues – At the beginning of the year, we had several complaints regarding the store room as many CPs kept putting their equipment on the wrong shelf, as well as damage to/misplaced equipment. Further to receiving these complaints, we sent round a stern-worded email regarding the store room and for each CP to respect each other’s property and keep their areas tidy as well as keeping to their own allocated space (old floor plan) unless they have prior permission to use others’ space.

Updated Store Room regulations – Following complaints, we devised a new list of rules and regulations regarding the store room which is on display inside and outside the room to ensure that it is kept tidy. Upon meeting with each CPs representative, they all agreed to abide by these rules. These include restrictions on the storage of food (no perishable items to be stored), only use dedicated shelves, consideration and respect for space of others, and to inform us if any additional space is required.

Meeting with CP Presidents/representatives – This was a general meeting to find out how the CPs were getting on in general and to organise a specific date for the store room clearance. There was a good turnout and no one had any serious issues.

Organised Store Room Clearance Day – Following the previous meetings with CPs, we devised a new floor plan in order to keep the room organised with their recommendations of how many shelves to designate to each project with assistance from their property inventories. Originally we had organised to clear the store room out over two days. However, we received lots of assistance on the day, so got it done within one (long) day. This was a task that was not completed in previous years so had years of build-up and the floor was not visible. We have received fantastic feedback from each CP president, with numerous emails thanking us for our hard work on a task that has taken years to finally complete. We have also labelled each shelf to ensure that the equipment stays in the designated areas. The miscellaneous items that were left were collected and

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15donated to Octavia Foundation Tooting, who were very grateful for our contribution (clothes, toys, etc.) to their charity. The old bulky computers have been moved to suitable location where they will be disposed of in the next few months. All in all, the room is beautifully clean and easy access (no longer a health hazard). We are very grateful to those who helped out on the clear-out day as we couldn’t have done it without them!

Informing Clubs, Charities and Societies that the CP store room is for CPs only – There had been some confusion as to who was able to use the store room. Upon clearing the room out, we found numerous items belonging to sports, charities, shows and societies, which we then emailed informing them to collect their items within a specific timeframe. We liaised with the Societies Officers and other exec members who reassured us that these items would be removed and that they would inform the appropriate people that this store room is for CPs only. Further to this, we sent out an email reiterating this to all clubs, charities, etc. and have had no issues since. We then decided to change the sign on the door to state clearly SGSU Community Project Store Room so that there was no future confusion.

Collected property inventories – We have received several inventories from each CP in order to document their equipment kept in the store room. However, we are still awaiting some even though we have emailed them asking for this numerous times. The inventory list has not been collected before but we felt that it was important in order to keep track of everyone’s equipment, especially because of the new layout of the store room and to ensure nothing gets misplaced. It particularly helped us when allocating shelves to each CP, according to the amount of stuff that they have. We hope to have a complete list by the end of the year which we can pass on for next year.

Fortnightly checks to ensure upkeep of CP store room – We check the room every two weeks to ensure that people have kept their shelves tidy and their equipment is in the correct area and that the floor is clear. So far it has remained very clean and tidy and we are pleased with the upkeep of this room and hope this will continue. If on the occasion we did find the room to be untidy then we would send round a stern-worded email as this is unacceptable and not in accordance with our regulations.

Frequent correspondence with CP presidents to ensure smooth running and offer assistance - We have sent out regular emails to ensure that there are no outstanding issues and to offer our assistance if needed.

Dealing with enquiries from external bodies such as local schools and parents – We replied to emails from several local schools and parents requiring information about specific CPs on offer. We provided them with the appropriate contact details and have forwarded their email addresses on to the relevant individual.

Awards evening nominations – We attended the Nominations meeting, whereby we discussed and voted for the allocation of the different awards for student achievement.

Student minds – We have established new connections with Student Minds, which used to be a society, but upon becoming a direct branch of Student Minds, a national charity, they have become a community project.

Established new connections with the events manager from Anthony Nolan charity – Via email correspondence, we have received information from them regarding Anthony Nolan events which we have promoted via the CP facebook page and SGSU newsletter. We have received feedback from the events team that they have had many new volunteers and would like to keep in contact in order to promote this again next year.

Updated the constitution – We have made relevant alterations that we feel are necessary to the constitution so that it will be effective to next year’s officers, as some of the points were no longer applicable to the role.

To chair the final CP committee meeting to receive feedback on this year and to receive details of newly elected CP Presidents in order to update our records

SGSU Summer Elections – We are promoting the different roles within exec for next year’s Exec. AGM – We are attending the AGM on 15th June 2015. Handover – We have updated the Community Projects Officer handover so that it is applicable for next

academic year. We plan to have contact with next year’s CPOs in order to help them settle into the role and answer any questions they might have. We also plan to forward them our list of updated CP President/Vice President contact details.

Technical Officers: Matthew Boon, Frankie Humpfrey

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Technical Officers – 6 month report

We began the year with a very thorough tidy-up and clean of the SU tech booth. A lot of rubbish was removed and all the equipment was cleaned. We then reorganised all the equipment so that we knew where it was and could access it quickly and efficiently. This also included organising replacement of several microphones that were previously stolen from the Monckton lecture theatre. Following this, we began preparation for fresher’s fortnight. This involved organising DJs for all the discos, and setting up the sound system. Previously the SU speakers were set up to provide mono audio, so we re-wired the speaker system to provide stereo audio. We also had a good look at our “audio tower” (19” rack with audio processing and amplification equipment mounted in it) to see how this could be improved. We incorporated a 16-band eq into the signal chain to allow for equalisation, and also volume limiting if need be. We also set up a previously unused piece of equipment which allowed us to split the audio signal between different power-amplifiers for sub-woofers and mid/high speakers. As a result of these changes we feel that sound quality in the SU bar has increased dramatically.

We also re-wired and set up the mounted lights, using daslight software to program new presets for various lighting effects. With help from Rich Ison, we managed to set up an agreement with estates and facilities whereby we can request temporary switching of smoke detectors for heat detectors, allowing us to use smoke machines at SU events when given advanced notice. With this in mind, we purchased a smoke machine, and built a large cardboard smoke/fire breathing dragon to house one of the smoke machines with assistance from the societies officers.

During fresher’s fortnight, we remained on duty throughout events to prevent people from bringing drinks in to the booth and potentially damaging equipment. We found that whilst some of the DJs were willing to cooperate with us on this policy, others were more resistant to the new rules. We also provided the tech-support for other events, including but not limited to; the family quiz, and fresher’s circle. We also worked on setting up the ability to host karaoke in the SU bar, which has now been successfully run several times.

We provided tech for several music society open-mic nights, hosted in the SU bar. Whilst these should only have involved providing microphones/amplification sound support, and lighting for the event, we also found that in order for the event to be successful we were required to set up staging and instruments as well, because nobody from music society was present on time to do so. We also provided light/sound support to the TAD society production of Pygmalion.

Moving on in the year, we continued providing tech for minor events, such as karaoke nights, or bar quizzes, and came upon the first of two ‘show seasons.’ We began work on fashion show by meeting early with the directors. Our job was to provide sound and lighting in the SU bar. For sound, we were required to assist in mixing the songs beforehand, and then play them on the night. We also needed to provide microphones for comperes and singers. For lighting, we were required to discuss in detail with the dance choreographers what they wanted and expected from the lighting, and do our best to make it happen with the equipment we have. Despite reassurances that all requests would be sorted early enough to give us time to fulfil them, most of the requests were made last minute, leaving us to spend extremely long hours of our free time programming lighting, and mixing sound. We were also required to entirely re-set up the SU lighting in order to accommodate some of the requests. The show was however a great success.

Following this, we had to provide tech in the Monckton for Revue’s Christmas Show. The first job for this was to tidy up the mess left behind by Diwali show. This firstly involved entirely re-wiring the receiver rack for our clip-on wireless microphones, which somebody had attempted to modify, then left in a semi-dismantled state. We also had to replace equipment that had been stolen during the course of Diwali show. We then also had to re-set up our lighting desk in Monckton as this had also been left disconnected. Following this, we began talks with Dheemal about having the Monkton tech booth code changed to prevent open access to all societies.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15For the Revue show, we provided sound and lighting for the band, cast, and stage. This all worked well until the last night whereupon the wireless microphones stopped working. Despite our best attempts we could not get them working again during the show. We believe the fault was cause by interference from the wi-fi on people’s phones, as this problem only occurs when the Monckton is full. For future shows we are working on a solution, but have yet to try any new ideas. During the show however, we were able to mic the stage with some success, and are looking in to this as a potential resolution for future shows.

This year, we have so far repaired several pieces of equipment that were damaged during the show season through wear and tear. We also repaired the malfunctioning DJ equipment. The damage turned out to have been caused by a spilled drink, further reinforcing the rule that no drinks are allowed in the tech booth during discos.

We have begun talks with Tooting show and Musical society about the tech support they will require. We have also re-done the speaker systems in the Alistair Hunter and Henry Gray rooms. We have worked with Societies officers to tidy the music room, and begun several repairs. We are beginning to enforce the already existing rules, and whilst this has been met with some resistance from people accustomed to mistreating the room, we are hopeful that it will start a shift in people’s attitudes towards respecting the room.

Coming up, we intend to produce instructional posters on how to use the newly set-up speakers in the dance studios so that people don’t attempt to modify or damage the set-up. We also intend to continue our work on the music room with Societies Officers, including equipment repairs and enforcement of rules to prevent the rapid deterioration of the room we are so used to seeing.

1 Year report

Following on from the 6 month meeting we began rehearsals for Tooting Show. This involved providing sound and lighting support in the Monckton for the show, as well as the after party in the SU.

The following week was musical, which entailed much of the same work,but for a different show, followed by the afterparty/St Patrick’s day disco in the SU. Following on from this we packed up and tidied all the equipment fom both shows back up to the SU tech booth, and had a thorough tidy and cleanup of the Monckton tech booth, leaving it in much better condition than we found it.

We helped the SU purchase a set of drum silencers for the Drum Kit which are very effective at deadening the sound of the drum kit to help those in the library, however most of the university’s drummers have shown a certain unwillingness to use the silencers. We also restrung, set up, and cleaned the guitars.

We’ve been on duty and provided DJs for all of the discos, including RAG disco, the show after parties, Part V and others, including an alumni event and a ball for the hospital midwives. There was also an event called Rise Up, which was a disco for disabled adults, requiring the same tech support as a normal disco.

During RAG week, in addition to the disco, we provided tech for the auction, man o man/woman o woman, an ACS event in Monckton, and a Christian Union talk in the AHR. During the week we also provided sound and lighting support to Battle of the Bands.

St George’s hosted UH Revue again this year, requiring us to provide sound, lighting, and AV tech for 5 different universities shows in Monckton. Despite varying levels of cooperation from the other universities, the night went ahead and was a success, followed by an afterparty in the SU.

Sports ball also required taking an entire sound system and several lights to an external venue to provide live DJing for the after-dinner disco. Tech was then needed for the SGSU awards. The varied nature of this show provided an extra challenge, however we feel that like all the other shows, it was a success.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15During all the shows, we have worked to maintain and repair all the equipment. We are still going through the older, unused equipment, and plan to provide an audit/inventory of all of the SU’s tech equipment before our time as tech officers ends. During the process we have also made several upgrades. Firstly, we upgraded our lighting software to a newer version of the Daslight software we already used. This provides us with increased flexibility to programme more complex lighting for the shows. We have taken apart and dusted all of our moving-head lights, as well as purchasing replacement lamps. This year, only two have been working, however with new lamps, we should be able to use four. We are also making moves to mount a set of Colourblast lights that we already own in the Monckton, in order to give us more lighting capabilities for future shows, as well as remove the issue of not being able to reach the Monckton lighting to rearrange it.

We have worked with Rich and Kenton to help improve sound facilities in the bar, by allowing them to play the sound from the jukebox through the large speakers for when the bar is more full. This means that people can choose their own music, and be able to hear it over a loud environment.

We have put in an application to obtain funding for new speakers for both the Alistair Hunter Room and Henry Gray room. Throughout the year we have fixed and rewired the sound systems several times, however many users of the room have taken it upon themselves to try and redo the sound system themselves. This has resulted in several broken speakers and we are now down to one working speaker remaining. As a result, if we do get the funding, we shall also spend some on re-securing the DJ booth in the AHR, so that people cannot overload the new speakers as they did wth the old ones.

Finally, we have worked with the Top 3 to set up our new YouTube channel so that it allows us to livestream events. This will be put to the test at Hustings, so how effective it is remains to be seen.

Overall, we have put on many successful shows and events, as well as maintaining and upgrading the SU’s tech equipment. We have rewired and set up much of the equipment to leave it more user-friendly and effective than we found it, in an effort to make sure that even if less experienced people are voted in as tech officers in the future, they can still be taught to use the equipment relatively easily.

Environment and Ethics Officers: Georgina Chamberlain, Kat Telford

From August through to December we undertook general duties required of Exec Officers.

Halls Move in Weekend

Georgina helped move people and luggage into Halls for both the GEP move in weekend as well as the FRESHER move in weekend.

Disco Duty

Georgina was present at Fresher Foam disco for Disco Duty and Kat was present at Mums and Dads Fresher event.

Fairtrade Breakfast Mornings at Halls

On the 19th & 23rd January 2015 Environment and Ethics hosted Fairtrade breakfasts outside Halls in the mornings. For this we contacted Matthew Bull who gave us permission to host the breakfasts at Halls. We also used up £150 of our £600 budget to buy the tea/coffee/biscuits/bananas/sugar/milk/cups/stirrers. Along with Chris Raby and Tash Lee we hired out the Minibus and went to Bookers to purchase these items for the breakfasts.

In total we gave out 150 bananas and 300 biscuits over the 2 mornings. The freshers’ and occupants of Horton Halls seemed to really appreciate the breakfasts and we got a lot of lovely feedback. We also raised awareness of

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Fairtrade and promoted the University Plot. Having advertised the Plot and our next Gardening weekend over the breakfasts, we gained a great deal of interest in the plot, and hope for a big turn-out for our first gardening event at the plot on the 7th Feb 2015.

Meetings

A big part of Environment and Ethics Job is to have meetings with various people, including: Anne Harris, Michelle Campbell, Dheemal Patel, Tash Lee and Chris Raby. These meetings cover topics regarding the Health and Safety of the Student Union and policies to be updates etc. Our Last Health & Safety meeting was 15 th January which unfortunately was cancelled however we have reviewed the minutes of the last meeting to complete any action points which could benefit the student body.

NUS Green Impact Award

For the last few years SGSU has been awarded the certificate for ‘working towards Bronze Green Impact Award’ but we have never completed it. This Year we are determined to complete the award.

Thus Far we have evaluated all the criteria for the award, and identified the ‘tricky topics.’ To complete these tricky sections early before the deadline in March we have been having meetings with people from various different departments within the university. We will also contact Tom from Kingston University for advice on the award as he has successfully completed it. Thus Far we have had a meeting with Anne Harris and Zara Gooch who have agreed to tutor us throughout the award.

We have also met up with David Evans and Derek Bannister regarding the Utilities and Procurement process of the Student Union.

We have also contacted OCEAN regarding the destination of the waste from the Student Union Bar and whether or not it is environmentally friendly.

We are awaiting minutes/confirmation following these meetings to use as evidence to complete these sections of the Bronze Green Impact Award.

Go Green WEEK

We have organised this campaign week for 23rd-27th February. During this week we aim to promote awareness of the impact we have on the environment and how we can be more environmentally friendly. We have various events lined up for this week. We have already started to set up these events and promotion will start soon. We have organised to initiate the SNAP IT OFF campaign on the Thursday of Go Green Week to increase awareness and promotion of the campaign.

Regarding Go Green Week we have sent the details of the campaign to Matthew Bull so as to fulfil a criteria for the Horton Halls Audit.

Go-Green week: 23rd-28th February

Meat-free Monday: Come outside the Library

to receive your FREE Go-Green lucky bag and BRING YOUR OWN MUG for some free tea and biscuits!

Travel Light Tuesday: Come to the AHR to take part in VISIBLE IMPRINT. A new experience to help you understand the true meaning of ‘travelling light’ and reducing our imprint on the environment.

Waste-not Wednesday: Also meet the MET police outside reception for some free bike tagging!

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Move n smooth Thursday: Meet outside Library to make a pledge and ride the smoothie bike to claim your free smoothie!

Flick it off Friday: Come outside the library to take part in the ‘Snap it Off’ campaign.

Wine & Cheese Tasting: for only £12 come and learn all there is to know about cheese and eat & drink to your hearts content!

Seedling Saturday: Meet outside Peabodys’ at 10.30am for a day of gardening followed by some free lunch, tea and cakes!

Go-Green week was a massive success! All of the events were well attended especially the finale “Sample & Spit” where extra tickets had to be sold!

NUS green impact also complimented us on our work on the “Snap it Off” campaign, saying that they were very impressed with our progress throughout the campaign.

After Go-Green week Georgina and I worked on completing the NUS Green Impact Bronze Award, our one big aim for our year in office as Environment and Ethics officers.

This involved us completing a number of criteria to help improve the environmental status of the university.

In order to fulfill the criteria necessary it required good communication with university members of staff along with frequent meetings to explain what we needed for the award or in some cases - persuading the university to consider changing their routines/facilities in order to be more environmentally friendly.

For the Green Impact Bronze Award we had frequent meetings and communications with:

Anne Harris

Rob Churm

Derek Bannister

David Evans

Ian Spires

Completing this years Bronze green Impact Award really challenged us! Not only were we forever in meetings or emailing university staff in order to push the environmental sustainability of the institution, but we thought that with the 5 year strategic plan for the student union finishing this year, that new legislation highlighting the importance of environmental surveillance of the union was required. Therefore we created – The ‘Environmental Induction Leaflet’ and a ‘Lighting and Equipment Responsibility Plan’ that we hope to be made constitution at this years AGM.

The NUS Green Impact Award kept us VERY busy but we are DELIGHTED to announce that for the first time ever SGSU has been awarded the Green Impact Bronze Award!

A brief report from the assessors:

This year St. George's University Students' Union is receiving a bronze award for the very first time. Getting started with sustainability is often the most difficult part and so they should be very proud of their achievements. I was particularly impressed with their water lobbying efforts and

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15snap it off campaign. I look forward to seeing how they build upon this work in next year's competition.

‐ Laura Williams

With Go-Green Week and NUS Green Impact Award successfully completed all that is left to achieve for this year as Environment & Ethics officers is ‘Ethics Week’, our second campaign week, which will consist of:

Monday – Ethics lecture by a Georges’ professor.

Tuesday – Fair-trade Bake-Off

Wednesday – Debate-off event - giving students the opportunity to come up with a team and debate a topic of their choice (the funnier the better!). This will be judged during ethics fortnight by a panel of staff and students.

Thursday – Auction of promises - including sessions with lecturers, to question whether the sale of services is morally correct.

Friday – Would I lie to you - run our own version of this popular programme, which would question our everyday assumptions and judgments of people, and cause students to pause for thought on how stereotyping affects moral decisions.

We’re planning for Ethics Week to be held from 22nd-26th June.

Challenges:

One very challenging aspect of our year in office has been maintaining interest in the allotment. We had one very successful allotment day where we managed to weed and sow the entire allotment, but maintaining frequent interest in the Georges plot has been difficult. However we have managed to make new contacts of keen gardeners this year which we will pass on to next years officers in the hope of stirring up further interest for the allotment.

Overall Georgina and I are very proud of what we have achieved this year and have thoroughly enjoyed our time in office. We wish all the best to next years Environment & Ethics officers!

Equality and Diversity Officers: Jonathan Hurst and Esme Siriboe

August:

The start of the year was extremely busy for us and soon after we officially started our roles we got to work. Our first job was to screen Revue’s Edinburgh Fringe show that was due to be aired at St George’s a few days later to ensure it complied with the SGSU No Platform Policy. Shortly after this, we organised meetings with both Kea Horvers (then equality and diversity manager for the university) and Margot Turner (who works to implement equality and diversity into the St George’s curriculum). These meetings gave us a good understanding of their role at the university and how we could work together to implement some of the ideas that we had for the upcoming year. Alongside this, we also got to grips with the numerous meetings and forums such as the E&D community and the interfaith forum meetings - which we’d need to attend throughout the year.

September:

The month begun with a great team building exec weekend away. To help promote our role in the student’s union, and promote upcoming events such as Black History Month and to provisionally sign some volunteers up for the ‘Rise Up’ disability disco due to take place a few months later, we hosted a stall at the Fresher’s Fayre. We also helped out with various events during Fresher’s fortnight such as circles, multicultural dinner, and toga and tequila.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15At the end of September we began planning events and a display for Black History month. We attended an Interfaith forum meeting.

October:

In October we worked with Dance society and Music society to put on events for Black History month, including a Blues, Jazz and Soul night and some African dance classes. We also met with Margot Turner who gave us some ideas for promotional material we could use for Black History Month and updated us on the details for Rise up Disco. We designed and put up a display of great black inventors and scientists in the SU bar. Together we attended two E&D committee meetings.

November:

The month begun with some organisation for the upcoming ‘Rise Up’ Disco – we contacted a list of student from a list we got at Fresher’s Fayre and had another meeting with Margot Turner to help us prepare for the event. Thank you so much Francesca for helping with Tech! We also screened Diwali and Fashion Show to ensure it complied with the SGSU No Platform Policy. Additionally, we were both on duty for the Fashion after show party disco.

December:

In December we watched the Revue Christmas Show to ensure it complied with the SGSU No platform policy. We also helped decorate the SU bar and helped at ‘Rise Up Disco’ to make sure everything ran smoothly. We spoke to Kea so she could update us on any current E&D matters before she left.

January:

Having had Kea leave the previous month, it was difficult to keep track of institutional issues other than what was gleaned from attending various meetings. As a replacement for the role of E+D manager did not occur until late March, this was to continue for the next few months. Regardless, there were no large events occurring in January, and much of our work consisted of replying to emails and doing general admin.

February:

In February we attended the Equality and Diversity committee meeting and were kept up to date with current E&D matters in the institution. We also discussed with the committee aspects of the 5-year plan focused on areas aimed at approving equality and diversity in the university. We also celebrated LGBT history month by making a display of famous scientist from the LGBT community that was placed on the boards along the SU corridor.

March:

March was the big show season. This required us to watch the Addams Family Musical, along with Revue’s sketches for the Heritage week show, and the Tooting show. We felt all of these shows adhered to the rules laid out in the No Platform Policy after suggesting a few changes to some of the shows, and have not received any complaints or heard of any E+D related problems experienced as a result of these plays.

April:

This was very busy month for us personally. Amma had to move home for 6 weeks and we both got stuck into revision! Aside from this, there were no other E+D commitments during this time and we had no queries or concerns arriving in our inbox.

May:

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15We attended the interfaith forum meeting and discussed redesigning the forum and ways to improve attendance. We also met with Rochelle (the new equality and diversity for the university) to discuss ways in which the E&D role for the students union can improve and ways to increase communication with the E&D manager. We also helped out during the Use your SU campaign.

June:

We hope to organise a stall outside the library focusing on promoting ‘time to change’ material on mental health issues such as anxiety. We think this will be beneficial for those who may be stressed due to upcoming exams! We’ve ordered time to changes event box and we’ll set a date once the materials have arrived. We will also be meeting with Rochelle again to discuss how we can guide next years E&D officers. We also plan to work with Gavin and some other members of the university on ‘Ladism’ culture.

International Officers: Jess Guo, Sharon Zheng

After the handover from 13/14 VP educations and since the beginning of office, we have been involved with planning the year. In terms of fresher’s fortnight, we were responsible for planning the multicultural dinner. We had 4 sponsors, Lahore, Mirch Masala, Chez Vous and Lick n Chick.

The ISS had a welcome weekend, organised alongside Elizabeth Witter, this was organised as a bus tour of London on Saturday 27th September and explored Shoreditch market on Sunday the 28th.

We had a meeting with Kirsty Smith to discuss the year ahead for INTO foundation students and a meeting with Elizabeth Witter to plan the year alongside ISS.

INTO MBBS4 students had issues with the university’s selection for placement sites in the United States. They approached the university for a meeting, which we were invited to attend. We have attended the international committee meetings regarding this issue.

For the international committee meeting, all 2013/14 logs have been completed.

As of 14th October 2014, 35 states have recognised SGUL medical programmes, 12 states (including California which the MBBS4 students was concerned about) follow Medical Board of California licensing therefore approval of SGUL application is still pending. The USMILE handbook was made available. The handbook is intended for the use of international MBBS (INTO) students, but can also be used by any international and home students interested in training in the US or overseas after their degree.

We have made suggestions to the first term 1st year international survey, of which changes have been implemented. The survey had a response rate of 71%, a lot of constructive feedback has been given and feedback will be distributed 6th February to the international committee.

International student lunches are good opportunities for international students to get together and socialise in an informal setting. It has traditionally been organised by the ISS. This year, due to the increased number of international students, the monthly lunch have been changed to termly. The lunch in December has been a success, with over 100 students attending.

Chinese New year took place Friday 20th February in China town. It was good to see both international and home students participate and celebrate. Chinese New year dinner was followed by the termly lunch on the 18th March and it was great to see so many students attending once again.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15Meeting with the ISS new committee and the international personal tutors, to discuss possible support for those who may not be an international student but may be from a family of international background but whom may still feel culture shock.

Graduation BBQ are for all final year international students who are graduating. However due to the disastrous earthquakes with Nepal this year, it was decided to invite all student body to attend and donate. Furthermore a bake sale took place to raise money, in which a total of £54.24 was raised.

We met with Natasha Lee to discuss the possibility of making a leaflet/handbook for the international students about housing issues that they may face whilst locating and dealing with accommodation. This information could also be used for home students. An international student working group has being set up to improve the international student experience from prospective student right through to graduation. Meetings will take place once a month, increasing near the time to enrolment.

Constitution has been reviewed and adjusted from this year’s experience. Hopefully this will now be ratified, with Council and at Executives AGM.

Webmasters: Molhim Ahmed, Steven Gibert

Steven Gilbert and Molhim Ahmed are the SU’s Webmasters this year. As the official role of Webmaster is new to SGSU it has been our responsibility to mould and shape the role of Webmaster in it’s first year.

We attended training on the 2nd September at the home of UKMSL, Warwick University, where we got to grips with the “blue screen” functions of the website and learnt the essential skills of setting up Freshers’ Fayre sales, tickets for events, setting up clubs and societies subs and basic website management. Similarly, Dheemal attended a training day at the end of August where he learnt how to set up Elections on the website. This training day set us in good stead for the trials and tribulations we encountered during Freshers’ and the first term of the year.

The first major task of the year was to set up the Freshers’ Fayre ticket/receipt/cashier stall. In general this went without any major issues however a small handful of societies/sports’ barcodes failed to process on the cashier stalls requiring us to add students manually in drips-and-drabs throughout October/November. In the future there needs to be significantly better communication between Societies Officers and Webmasters where each and every barcode is tested before commencing Freshers’ Fayre. For reasons unknown, this was not attempted this year.

Constitutionally, our main role is to maintain and upkeep of the SU website and answer queries from individual clubs and societies. Nothing particularly exciting happens here and between us both we try and solve issues within a week. Unfortunately, we got considerably less done during dissertation hand-in and exam periods. For future years the Webmasters should set up an automated response stating that responses will be slow, thus avoiding angry and impatient emails! Similarly, we’d like to set up a website request template for everyone to fill out that goes to the webmasters, to save both time and stress! This would include all the relevant details for certain types of request to avoid countless emails being exchanged to find out ‘lost’ or forgotten information.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15The redesign of the website has been our primary goal so far this year. Starting in October, we had several meetings with the Top 4 (Dheemal/Tash/Chris/Lucy) and the Office Manager (Michelle Campbell) to design a rough draft for the new website and to communicate with our service provider (UKMSL). We were very lucky to have Top 4 backing from the start in our push to get a redesign over the website, starting from the bottom up, instead of papering over the cracks. After obtaining a handful of quotes and meeting with web designers we chose to go with 17digitalmedia (Wayne Owens) and the website was put to redesign over a 4 week period.

On the 9th April, the website redesign was launched– hoorah! Since, we have slowly gotten to grips with the role of Webmaster with a brand new website! We were given a training document by Wayne which provided some basic maintenance pointers with some more advanced coding points that we have yet to use! We imagine some of these more complex mechanics will be used by the future webmasters in preperation for Freshers’ next year.

Unfortunately, we’ve seriously lagged behind on implementing the new society templates to the societies which actually replied to us! As of 28th May ’15 – we have replies from 18 socs/sports/community projects out of a potential 100+ … this is an extremely poor turnout and it’s very disappointing to see that so few groups cared enough to send a reply! Otherwise, people have been very patient with the teething issues and have been more than helpful when trying to secure their product or ticket on the website!

Constitutional roles:

Webmaster(s) (Maximum of two to be elected separately)

To work with the relevant Students Union officers (Media, Events, RAG etc.), year reps and Students’ Union Clubs and Societies in the maintenance and development of the S.U. website.

o We feel that we have communicated effectively with groups that have approached us for help and our opinions

To provide, upon request, a level of general support and design to clubs and societies which have areas on the S.U. website.

o We would like to design a request template for sports/socs/CPs to streamline website maintenance, general support and design in time for the next Webmasters

To be a member of the Communications Zone. To liaise on a regular basis with the Media Officer(s)

o We relinquished control of the website from the Media Officers to allow the Media Officers to focus on their specific roles and to allow us to work on the website… which has clearly worked this year!

Overall, we’ve had a very exciting year as Webmasters in it’s first official year as an Exec Officer. By completing revamping the website we feel as though we have achieved our manifesto points, constitutional obligations and gone above-and-beyond the call of duty this year. Furthermore, we shall both be looking with great interest into the future of the website in the hands of the new webmasters!

Finally, we’d like to thank:

Dheemal and Lucy for their constant support and encouragement throughout the year Michelle Campbell for her outstanding commitment to develop the new website and help pick up some of

the slack during academically demanding times for us both And finally, Ester Breij for putting up with our annoying questions in our infancy as Webmasters to help give

us a running start in our roles!

Council Elect: Bhina Patel, Alice Walker-Earwicker

We were elected in October and have been to the majority of all Exec and Council meetings since. Last year, there was a constitution change which meant that the role also involved writing a report to keep exec and council updated

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15about each other; we have done this and hope it will increase transparency within the SU. Council attendance is not very well attended and is not really representative of the student body so alongside Ruth, the Senate Elect, we decided to attach details of Exec meetings in the weekly newsletter to keep people informed, which were implemented. We have also given feedback about the poor attendance at Council meetings, however we do not want to encourage disciplinary action at the moment, instead we would like to encourage more members of Exec to present at council and use the opportunity to discuss any issues, gain feedback and help make decisions.

We made a survey in February to gain further information from the student body about Council meetings and found most feedback was associated with:

a) Lack of relevance to societies/clubs/cps

b) Unaware of time and location of meetings

c) More information surrounding university issues desired

d) More information about what exec teams had been up to

e) Agenda packs to be sent out prior to the meeting

We relayed this information back to the Exec and discussed with Lucy, our zone leader, the ways in which we could try and implement changes using the feedback. We used Facebook and the SU App push notifications on the day to try and increase awareness of when the meetings were, as well as giving information about what will be discussed. We also encouraged exec teams to come to Council meetings to keep the student body updated on upcoming events. Attendance to Council Meetings has increased slightly, however, could still be improved. Alongside these changes and the newsletter updates, we hope to have increased transparency.

After having a meeting with Ruth, Senate Elect, we discussed ways in which our role, which both involve attending meetings and relaying information from each, could be improved. Constitutional changes were proposed by Ruth and voted on, pending ratification, by the Executive Team which made the decision to merge the two roles, from two separate co-opted officer roles, to one two-person elected Representations Officer. It is hoped that by making Senate and Council Elect full officers if would clarify their duties i.e. disco duties, as well as getting them involved with the whole team from August. It also clarified their role and the Media Officers’ role, making both writing and distributing the meeting reports a constitutional requirement.

Senate Elect: Ruth Varney

Senate Elect is in place to provide a communication link between the SU Executive and Senate so that the student body is kept informed about upcoming events and developments via their year reps. The constitution states that Senate Elect represents the views and opinions of Senate, through an agenda point at Executive and should relay relevant information from the meetings of the Executive to Senate by writing a report and raising any issues as requested. This position allows for transparency of the decisions made at Exec and a way of providing feedback efficiently. It can also be used as a supporting role to the General Secretary.

SeptemberI was elected at the first senate of this academic year on the 16th of September 2014. There were very few reports and poor attendance which prevents the system working effectively. I had a handover with Yan as the role was unfilled last year and decided to utilise the Senate board as a way of heightening the awareness of year reps and utilising them better. I also did my first ‘Exec disco duty’ and assisted moving people into Halls.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15OctoberI attended fresher’s lectures to advertise the role of year rep and make them aware of my role as an interim point of contact, which many of them used. I also contacted the cohorts of the upper years with unfilled year rep positions to try and get them filled as it is a crucial role. I attended the Exec meetings on the 7 th and 21st and communicated the proceedings and important points to Senate. There were many more reports at the senate on the 14 th of October and year reps were encouraged to sit on a panel at Education Day. Year rep training was postponed due to room booking issues and the decision was made to wait until the new first year reps had been elected.

NovemberThe year rep elections were carried out, and I assisted with advertising. I attended the Exec meetings on the 4 th and 18st and communicated the proceedings and important points to Senate. Senate on the 11 th of November was poorly attended again and so the next meeting was held at a later trial time of 6pm in order to boost attendance. It was also discussed that if year reps miss more than 3 meetings with no apologies and reports then they won’t receive their certificate at the end of the year because it is a major part of the role.

DecemberYear rep training was poorly attended and very few staff came which was disappointing as good student-staff communications are vital in the year rep role. No AV training was given so I am aiming to organise it for the new year reps after exams in February as feedback is positive on its usefulness. No Senate was held in December due to term dates. There was an Exec meeting on the 2nd of December which I attended in order to report back to Senate in January. Also decided at the Exec meeting was that there should be a summary in the weekly newsletter of the Exec meeting as Council and Senate are not being used as efficiently as required for all the student body to be aware of events and major changes to the SU and their courses; this responsibility will be shared by Council elect and Senate elect and require the General Secretary to approve the reports. This initiative could be very effective but relies considerably on the newsletter including the report and being sent out regularly.

JanuaryI attended the Exec meetings on the 6th and 20th and communicated the proceedings and important points to Senate. Senate on the 27th of January was well attended with lots of input from the new first year reps. I began collecting photos for the Senate board. There was a lot of discussion with regards to the AV department and lectures going paperless. The year reps were requested to collect written statements from their cohorts to provide evidence which can be presented in order to achieve the satisfaction of students. We discussed RAG with the 1 st year reps in order to raise its profile. Issues relating to the library in the run up to exams were discussed such as noise and extend hours. All extended opening hours feedback was positive.

FebruaryThe 6th month report meeting was held on the 3rd of February. Most questions I was faced with were regarding attendance and improving/maintaining enthusiasm. Following this I met with Natasha Lee to discuss ways of rectifying the attendance issues which resulted in the composition of an email to year reps encouraging attendance, explaining that meetings were compulsory. Senate on the 24th of February included lots of discussion of issues, including: the loss of AV, upholding the no platform policy and wifi. The graduation ball & halfway dinner planning had begun and Chris Raby was there to ask and answer any financial queries. I gave the Year Reps a list of SU event dates in the upcoming month to pass on to their cohorts. I also created a Facebook group for Senate as this provides a good method of contact which most Reps check. I also attended Exec on the 17 th of February and reported back to Senate.

March

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15I finished the Senate board outside the SU office to raise awareness of who the Reps for each cohort are. I assisted Dheemal with collecting feedback from Reps about feedback. I also assisted the Events Officers by contact the final year reps with regards to Part V requests. There was no Senate as the date fell outside term time. I attended Exec on the 3rd and 17th of March. Partook in general exec duties such as writing a website bio and disco duty.

AprilSenate was cancelled due to the high number of apologies received by Lucy. Natasha received the reports submitted to be reviewed. I met with Natasha to discuss the usefulness of Senate as feedback from Year Reps included lots of despondency and some members refusing to attend. We decided that use of the new website may improve responses if they can fit report submission around their studies more easily. If this was to be utilised we could reduce the number of meetings so that students may be more inclined to attend when there was a meeting scheduled. Attended Exec on the 14th and 28th of April to keep abreast of developments and I maintained communication with year reps discussing the cancellation of Summer Ball, but no ideas were put forward to replace it.

MaySenate was on the 19th of May at which there was fairly good attendance (considering the final years had finished/were mid exams). No issues were brought up by Top 4 or Year Reps. I asked those present about their opinion on Senate. Most said it was good to keep in touch with the SU and they liked to hear about what other cohorts were doing and issues they were facing. They voted in favour of reducing the frequency of Senate to every other month if there was another medium for communications. Queries were raised about the lack of agenda points and consideration should be taken in the future over making sure issues are brought to Senate for discussion. I highlighted upcoming Exec events especially AGM and elections. I also attended Exec meetings on the 12 th and 26th of May. On the 26th I took to exec 2 constitutional changes: firstly to reduce the frequency of Senate, and secondly to alter the role of Senate and Council Elects. Elections propaganda has been sent to the Year Reps to distribute amongst their cohorts.

June and JulyI will take forward my recommended changes to the constitution to Council and AGM. I feel these changes will give the elect positions (representation officers) more input and power to improve Senate and Council in a way that can develop communications with the student body. I will also assist in the advertising of elections and ensure Year Reps have all the appropriate information in the run up to voting. I will continue to attend all Exec and Senate meetings, in addition to maintaining communications with Year Reps. I will assist in the organisation of a handover Senate meeting.

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ST. GEORGE’S STUDENTS’ UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 15/06/15PART 6: FINANICAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM

PART 7: APPROVAL OF THE LIST OF AFFILIATIONS OF THE UNION

PART 7 is contained within PAPER A

PART 8: AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF SGSU

PART 8 is contained within PAPER B

PART 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Opportunity to raise any other business not previously covered on the agenda

PART 10: RATIFICATION & CLOSURE

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· web viewkirsten shoemaker stated that it comes mainly from word of mouth therefore a survey...

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