The first meeting

So today was my first Union Council meeting at Sheffield, and if I had to sum it up in one word, that’d be “long”.

We spent most of the meeting discussing the objectives for Union and the sabbatical officers over the next year, which did turn into an extended “officers questions” session.

The few key points I think were raised here was feedback about the council elections – particularly that there was a lack of an e-mail sent out afterwards informing people who won the elections – and with the women’s health issues objective of the Women’s Officer. Parts of this include sexual health matters, and as Alex Swatton put it in the discussion “it takes two to tango”, so I was glad to clarify that the things the Women’s Officer was doing with regards to sexual health (particularly the DIY chlamydia tests) were open to both men and women (and everyone in between).

Many of the other points raised were clarifications, e.g., in the case of the Activities Officer’s “Show off the great things students do” objective to check it included external media as well as internal. A great number of concerns arose with regards to ACS (Accommodation & Campus Services) policy with student housing, as well as the pressure of private landlords trying to get students to sort out their houses early (an issue I was very aware of and contributed to at York). I also wanted to raise a few points with the Finance Officer, but he unfortunately couldn’t attend so that was delayed to the following week.

The Maths and Statistics councillor also raised an issue about teaching space, and I contributed with my experience from COM6451 rooms being overcrowded. The Education Officer will be following up this issue with the department and feeding back next council meeting (in roughly 2 weeks).

As I’m a postgraduate student, I also contributed to a discussion about postgraduate involvement in the Union, giving my two cents. The PGT (Postgraduate Taught) councillor and the Education Officer were following that one up with some ideas to come to the next meeting with.

We also dealt with a number of procedural items, including how best to scrutinise the officer performance (it was decided that reports submitted to the council was the best solution) and ratification of the Union Officers job contract (which was deferred following consultation of HR to ensure that employment law wasn’t broken).

As the meeting over ran greatly (by about an hour), a number of items were moved from the agenda to the following meeting (such as review of committee minutes), leaving the only other thing dealt with a number of elections to various committees, such as the USport board and the Constitutional Committee (which I was elected onto) as well as the election of Chair and Vice-chair of council.

So, phew! That was it – for 2 weeks at least. As always – get in touch with me if you want me to raise an issue at Council, or you’re disappointed with me.