Wow...Week 10

So Week 10 is here. What have I been up to for the last....age I suppose?

I've finally gotten round to completing last July's report on Volunteering from the UK Universities. It's available in the documents section of my page on the ULSU website.

Grant authorities are working off a unified scheme for the first time since the 1960s and there should be one national body for grants by 2012/13. This has been as a result of pressure from students' unions nationally as well as the University in our case. A number of governors of the University, as well as SAA and Don have been really supportive in this and I would like to thank them for it.

I had my hair dyed for charity (see right) and I've raised €370 doing this for Charity Week. It raised a few eyebrows and even Don commented
"and his hair is back to normal" when I received my Class Reps Certificate for the year at Council this week.


I started writing this on Wednesday morning and it's now Thursday evening. I keep getting up to go to meetings, lunch or to talk to someone who's dropped in. It's getting to the time of the year where meeting drop off an there's more time to focus on the more important policy and development issues that are part of the job.

Currently on my way to Exec. Looks like a short meeting, but who knows what can happen. The Alcohol Policy (UL) is on the agenda, but following a meeting of the Alcohol Working Group yesterday this is kind of a moot point as the Working Group is going to examine the Policy, its goals and its implementation at the next meeting. This will include a debate around whether an Alcohol Policy is actually necessary (I believe it is) and whether UL's Alcohol Policy is fulfilling its aims (I believe it isn't). A copy of the Alcohol Policy is also available in the documents section on my page.

I had the President's Volunteer Award Working Group this afternoon too. Floated the idea that the SU might take on the management of student volunteering so that there is one central point where students can come to get a few hours volunteering or get a full long term committed volunteering opportunity regardless of ability. This is now going to be recognised on students' transcripts, but there is still nobody on the campus with a full-time responsibility the providing students with an opportunity to volunteer.

Financial Aid is coming close to its end for the year and to date over €71,000 in financial assistance has been provided to just undergraduate students through loans, bursaries and childcare assistance since September. The postgraduate figure will probably bring this closer to €90,000. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Chaplaincy in helping to administer this. I have moved this online dureing my tenure and I hope that has sped the process up for people receiving money.

The Student Assistance Fund trial has been partially successful and partially unsuccessful. We have gotten the money to students earlier than previously, but not as early as we expected. Thanks to the Access Office for assisting in this, but I am not wholly convinced of retaining it within the Students' Union for the 2011/12 Academic Year as it has significantly slowed the progress I could make on other issues, even with a running start, so I'm not sure how it would be for Tara trying to negotiate time for that as well as everything else.

Next Week is I-Grade Week, but also Organ Donor Awareness Week. Watch out for the lads on Tuesday knocking around with the pins and keyrings.

For now I think I've bored you enough, but any questions email me on SUWelfare@ul.ie

D

And the time flew by like a train in the night

It's well over a week since I did the last update, and that time just flew.

Well all of us have been to Belfast visiting the SU there. It's an absolutely mammoth building and we picked up a few ideas there as well as realising we see a whole lot of students in comparison...we stopped into DCUSU, TCDSU and UCDSU on the way back to grab a look. Trinity's SU President Cónán O'Broin is the younger brother of former ULSU President Eoin O'Brion who served 2 terms from 2002-2004.

I'm still getting feedback from landlords on the group scheme we're getting together, many bringing good ideas as well as expressing interest. I've met a good number of suppliers on their behalf and it's looking godd for the year from those who have responded.

Myself, Aoife F and Paul Lee have been liaising with Aidan Healy on the President's Award, which is still undergoing consultation in the University. Gaisce is one model being discussed that will see students get formal recognition for volunteer work. I'm working with KBS to see if they will be able to facilitate students volunteering to give grinds to Leaving Certs. This system is already in place in for Science and has great scope for expansion.

There are some operation reviews around my Office ongoing, and I'll let you know where that goes.

Myself and Aoife Ní met Tracey from ITD who explained the new email system to us (which you will need to adopt as your own by the end of September.)

An ongoing process is finding a 4x4 for Clubs and Societies, which I was working on on the Clubs and Socs Exec over the last 2 years, hopefully that will be complete soon, and a review of vehicle operations should give us some new rules to govern the fleet usage.

What else....the Accommodation Leaflet is in motion and there's a bit of the regular case work around Childcare Bursary and Hardship Loan as well as other stuff.