Improving environmental performance...

One of the things I am doing at the moment is improving our environmental performance, off the back of our Silver Award for Sound Impact. Obviously, this has to be maintained, and there are always we can improve.

At the moment I am looking at operational things - such as making sure that useable crockery and cutlery are used in the new cafe, along with free range ingredients where possible, as these are just as important as anything massively visual that we may choose to do.

When I was at the NUSSL dinner other unions won awards or were highly commended for being innovative in their work. Reading won an award for doing a "Reading in Bloom" competition - students were encouraged to plant flowers in their gardens to make their environment nicer, and Loughborough won an award for the E+E section of their website, found at http://www.lufbra.net/eande/. And UEA got commended for their food labelling scheme - where they labelled food based on food miles.

Although I'm getting on with the operation stuff, do you have any ideas on innovative things we can do to raise awareness about the environment? This can be about the local environment or the wider world.

If you do, let me know on h.lazell@guild.bham.ac.uk

Guild Council Review

This is a really hard blog post for me to write as it is something that I have been trying to achieve for the last year - but sadly Guild Council will not be changing in the new academic year.
There are several reasons for this but it is mainly because not enough time has been given to the project as the scale of the work was not understood by the organisation when it was undertaken. It became apparent last night at the meeting of the Guild Council review group that the models produced as a result of the review day required far more than the straightforward discussion that was anticipated.
I feel as though this is a real failure for students because the current system is woefully inadequate and outdated - in fact Guild Council has not been chnaged since 1975.
I will be handing this over to my successor, Tom Guise, who I hope will have far more support and success than I did.

One last gem...

...from the alternative prospectus....

"The university have 2,000 computers and the vast majority of them have word processing software"

What did the rest of them have on them then?!

The alternative prospectus...

Myself and a friend are doing some Friday afternoon research, and have just found the Guild's alternative prospectus - this was produced by the Guild, by students, about the University, in 98-99.

There are lots of interesting things to note!

1. Ten years ago - a single room in a self catered flat (e.g. Maple Bank/Elgar/Pritchatts/Tennis Courts/Hunter/QHC/Beeches) cost £1,750-£1,850 per year, and with an ensuite it would have been £2,450.

2. In a catered Hall (in what used to be Shackelto/Mason) - you'd pay £2,050-£2,600 for a single room, and an ensuite would have been £2,940.

3. Shackleton used to be called Lake Hall and Widrington Hall - they were effectively two wings round a hub - and each Hall was single gender. Imagine that!

4. Selly Oak rents averaged £33-£38 a week.

5. Maple Bank was a quite place to live.

6. Carnival raised £41,000, and we used to have two newspapers.

7. If you can't work beyond midnight, you shouldn't even bother applying to do Law (according to the writers!)

8. Chem Eng used to have a 20p per frame pool table.

9. Polsis - the nice thing is you don't have to be overtly political and no one will brainwash you.

10. Theology is on the top floor of the arts building to be closer to God (again, according to the writers!).

11. The Russian Circle society organised regular vodka parties.

12. Medical Sciences is a degree for failed Medics - but most people have chosen the course to research Aids, Cancer and other major diseases.

13. The medical stopped using real bodies in anatomy so the squeamish can relax!

14. Med Bar was running back then!

Of course everything I write is from the alternative prospectus, not my own opinion!

Hope you enjoyed it :)

A quick "what I've been up to" blog

1.Attended a few university meetings. I went to my last meeting of the College of Medical and Dental Sciences Quality and Enhancement committee, where we discussed feedback and assement - so hopefully students in this college will be getting better feedback on their work.

2. I have been working on Guild Council review with several members of staff. The models are going to be discussed by the review group next week and they will make a recommendation - this will then come to next Guild Council.

3. I had a tour of the Muirhead Tower with the other Sabbs - it is still being refurbished but is nearly ready. There is increased workspace provision for postgraduates but not much more for undergraduates it seems - and there will be a Starbucks on the ground floor.

4. I have been working with the VPW and LGBTQ Officer on getting students registered to vote. We got a lot of students in the Grad Ball queue last Friday as well as delivering forms to houses in Selly Oak on Tuesday. We also had a stall open outside Spar so students could register.

5. Took part in student staff interviews - we had a very large number of students apply for part time work here, which reflects the increasing needs that students have for part time work.

6. Building on the success of our Sound Impact Silver, I have been looking at ways to improve our environmental performance - a big bugbear of mine is that we don't have enough recycling on campus and in the Guild.

7. Attended the Guild's Great Debate that was organised the President, Jen Larbie, and other officers and staff. The panel included Wes Streeting, President of the NUS and David Eastwood, the new VC of the University. The debate had was interesting, and its great that we have promoted the views of students to the university.

8. I've been writing my handover for my successor, Tom. If anyone thinks there is anything that should be included, let me know!

Interested in a free EU elections event?

Hello all,
Do you want to know more about the EU and how it affects you?
Do you want to meet some of the candidates that you could be voting for in the upcoming European elections on June 4th?
Do you want support and more ideas for getting people to register to vote and to vote on June 4th?

If so, on Saturday June 9th the Electoral Commission are running a free event in Birmingham for anyone interested in the above issues. It starts at 11am and finishes at 4.30pm.

The agenda is available here: http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=150

If you are interested in going please could you let me know ASAP on h.lazell@guild.bham.ac.uk - I have five places registered.