Council Wrapped Up

Thank you to everyone who attended the first Council of the year! A total of 55 students attended to debate and pass Ideas.

A big well done goes out to James Cordell for his first meeting as Union Chairperson.

The meeting gave everyone lots of opportunities to weigh in on the discussion topics, and hopefully learn a bit more about how the SU can support students to campaign for change!

Deputy Chair

Congratulations to Rhiannon Perrett! Our current RAG Officer was elected to the role of Deputy Chair during the meeting and will support the rest of the meetings for the year.

Ideas

We passed 6 Ideas into SU Policy - what happens now?

The Final Straw (Matthew Poulton) - We will lobby on campus and off campus bars and cafés to reduce the use of straws, often used for minutes they can often take 200 years to decompose.

We want a President (Bruce Gardiner) - From the 2018/19 Academic Year the role title of the current Union Development Officer will revert to President.

You've heard of Elf on a Shelf, but have you heard of Zones are small, so lets open them to all! (Bruce Wight) - Zones will now be open to all students. We will keep a list of previous memberships in the paperwork for zones to measure group attendance.

TEFinitely Not (Emma Beenham) - Ensuring the Union consults on TEF and lobbies for a Welsh Govt alternative if one arises as well as improvements specifically linked to welsh medium education.

Shine Bright like a diamond (Emma Beenham) - Ensuring the Union supports the Diamond Review of HE financial support in Wales and continues to work with NUS Wales to lobby on amendments to the recommendations to further increase its impact.

Online Connected Campus (Bruce Wight) - After initial productive meetings with the University, we will lobby for Free WiFi across all campuses, starting on the Penglais Campus and targeting typical blackspots. If successful its hoped like some other University towns by working with the County Council we can extend it into the town.

You can read all of our current policies here.

What’s next?

Zones

After just passing the policy removing the restrictions to Zones memberships, we would like to warmly invite all students to the next round of zones!

Zones are the primary spaces for Full Time Officers to report on their activities to students who are interested or involved, and provide those students with the chance to discuss issues and ideas specific to them.

So come along to the relevant Zone if you:

• Want to know what your officers have been up to
• Want to get feedback, experiences or suggestions from other students on a particular topic
• Would like to seek support from other students for an event or project
• Would like to network with other students involved!

You can submit a topic to be discussed here.

AGM

During an Annual General Meeting ANY student can attend and vote.

That means if you have a big idea for improving the Aber Student Experience, and would like all students to have a say and vote on the Idea then the AGM is the place for you.

You can submit Ideas for AGM here up until Monday, 20^th November, 12pm.

During the AGM we will also:

• Receive the report of the Trustees on AUSU’s activities since the previous AGM
• Receive the accounts of AUSU for the previous financial year
• Approve the appointment of the auditors
• Approve the list of affiliations of AUSU
• Give you the opportunity to ask questions to the Trustees

If you have any questions, would like support with Ideas or have any feedback then please don’t hesitate to contact Chris Parry, Student Voice Coordinator on crp12@aber.ac.uk.