Working with your Students’ Union and Elected Officers

1. Working with your Students’ Union and Elected Officers Nick Smith HE Union Development Officer NASES Annual Conference 2008

2. What we’ll cover • Why work with Officers? • The different roles and pressures officers must manage • Opportunities and barriers to joint working • Your plans for the year ahead

3. Why work with officers? • Peer led projects get a better result • Officers have immense optimism and enthusiasm (especially at the start) • Projects often move quicker • Institutions are for students • Officers have possibly the widest and deepest regular contacts of anyone in the Institution

4. Officer Roles Students’ Union officers deal with a huge variety of workload. They have four types of role (hats) and specific issues within each of those. • Trustee role – responsible for legal and financial security of the charity (the Union) and strategic direction. • Representative role – the voice of students and interpreter of Union policy laid out in Council etc. • Activist – extending and defending the right of students (fees, dodgy landlords, rights at work)

5. Portfolio role The portfolio role is that officer’s position. For NASES this will often be a Welfare officer. • Campus Security • Mental health • Sexual health • Physical health • Community relations • Accommodation • Rights at work • Financial issues • Exam stress • Supporting Welfare volunteers • Disciplinary issues • Case work • Equal opportunities • Fresher inductions • Post-graduate representation • International students … one Welfare Officer, several University departments

6. Workload Grid – an example … this can be complicated

7. Political pressures • Administration of projects • Regional and national activities • The constant unexpected events • Non-portfolio manifesto pledges • Institution lobbying • Learning (quickly!) Officer Pressures As well as a wide and complex workload, officers face other pressures The short message… officers are thinly spread in their roles. They have to be everywhere at once. They have to work with different areas of institution in different ways... it’s not always easy.

8. Opportunities How to work with Union Officers • Find out their aims and think how it correlates with department plans - Manifestos • Be as flexible as possible – officer hours and locations may not be Institution ones. • Consider which ‘hat’ you require them under – and what level of involvement is needed. • Ask them for their input on how to take the project further

9. Barriers Capacity – it’s a busy time Relationships elsewhere in the Institution They’re only around for a short while Who are the Officers anyway?

10. New Officer year Talk to officers early and often • Ask about their projects • Ask how you can support them • Tell them about your plans for the year ahead – get them interested • Identify students that need specific support • Follow up in a few months • Invite them for coffee

11. Joint Projects Some examples of joint projects • Leeds – work on student rights (job shop) combined with particular drive on Women at work (women’s officer) • Reading – Union involvement in development of Careers Management Skills site and accreditation scheme • Oxford Brookes – using Union to promote their ‘Brookes Award’ to Course Reps, Society Committees etc.

12. Your areas

13. NUS NUS is a federation of Students’ Unions with around 7 Million members we are the largest student organisation in the world • Student Rights at work (with TUC) – session tomorrow • Supporting diverse communities in work through our Liberation groups • Structured mechanism for accrediting volunteering • Work with 3rd Sector organisations – particularly Trusteeship • Champion employability in Students’ Unions

14. Any Questions?