Apologies and many blogs to make up for it...

Ok, firstly I have been atrociously abysmal at blogging and there are no excuses, I have been busy but I should have found the time! Anyway I will blog now a few times to try and make up for the awfulness.

Firstly RA training was held at the end of last term over a weekend in Cleobury Mortimer near Kidderminster. The RAs received training on their individual remits, representation, managing differences and event planning while also doing team building sessions like bridge building and blindfolded assault courses. All the sabbs attended and many staff too as the team delivered a great training weekend ending with a massive role play session called Fibchester designed to put the skills they learned into action. Thanks to all those involved in the delivery and the RAs that were elected in the by-elections were also trained today.

The RA by-elections went well and there are now full committees everywhere but in Pritchatts Park and Victoria Hall where by-elections will now be held. For the first time we had a recognition event for the by-election, which I think is a massive step forward; the night went well apart from my calamitous reading out of the results!

Many of the steps that were asked to be taken from the internal audit surrounding RAs are in the process of being completed and I will update you on these in the near future.

Once again, sorry...

Again I must begin this blog with another apology - I have been hopeless at updating it for the past couple of months. I will offer one excuse that many of my support staff have left recently including the RA coordinator at a very critical time. So my last month has been spent readying the institution for RA Elections, Results and Training, most of which has now occurred successfully or is prepared and ready to go! Its an excuse but I shouldn't have any I need to blog and I promise I will now get better at it - Guild Council, you are not the only ones not getting updated, my Mum is out of the loop recently too! Now for the update on my recent projects...

The Housing Fair - This was incredibly well attended - more so than any in recent years without definitive numbers. The impact of the campaign remains to be seen though. In the new year we will be trying to assess whether doing it early had any impact on when students get their houses. The research we did on the day suggested that the message of choice came through just not necessarily the patience side of the message. If it was not successful we will review when we hold it next year and possibly push it back further.

The SHAC - This has continued to move forward behind the scenes with work on the model that will be chased. This will happen ready to launch once Welcome Week next year rolls around (once I'm long gone!). I don't want to present anything to you in its current form but I will show you what it looks like from every angle once we are further along in the process than we are now as there are further kinks to iron out yet. The presentation I give to you will be very thorough and show you exactly what the SHAC will look like so I want to hang fire on showing you just yet.

RA Elections and Results Night - RA elections went well on the whole especially without an RA coordinator, largely thanks to some fantastic work by the RAs. We nearly hit our target of 250 position nominations but fell short by ten and we will now only have 12 open positions to re-open in the by-elections, significantly less than previous years. Turnout was also positive with most halls exceeding 50%. Their first Resexec was on Monday night and many have engaged with the system already before the training. The training is completely planned, ready to execute this weekend and almost the whole cohort of RAs are attending. RA Results Night went according to plan and most of the winning candidates attended with a good time being had by all. The RA elections also gave me a great opportunity to go out and talk to students about their issues as I door-knocked every hall in a week promoting the elections but also talking to students about general issues they were having. I heard some stories from students living in halls which will give me much ammunition when negotiating at the University around halls fees.

Vale Fireworks - This was a massive success after the RAs agreed to cover the extra cost of the pontoon on the lake. I think it made for an even more impressive spectacle than last year and as always the Vale was packed with people - students and members of the local community - perhaps more so than in previous years. However I would say that the event needs to look more like a Guild event as the university takes much of the credit for the event, though Geoff Pringle did kindly offer to cover some of the extra cost incurred out of the HAS events budget.

Halls of Residence Fees - As well as RAs and the SHAC, this has taken up most of my time in the past few months. I have sat on various university committees lobbying for a fairer set of prices. At this time we have a better range of prices with more affordable accommodation and some on the Vale, but we will continue to lobby for change on this and have a commitment to a working group from the university to try and find any savings that can be made. The group met today for the first time and we will continue to push for more savings while keeping you updated as things may move quickly and change fast in the next month or so, you may see something at the first Guild Council of next term around the issue.

Other - I have also been doing various other things in the last month including:
*Representing students at appeals and sat on a University Fitness to Practice
*Spent a whole day setting up fences for Vale Fireworks!
*Consulted students with the other Sabbs about HE Funding
*Along with the other Sabbs, had a visit from Lee Sanders, the new Registrar and Secretary
*Sat on the Nitebus working group
*Set up the Freshers Fest Review Group and had two meetings to discuss issues and also having discussions about other RA processes
*Helped the Arts and Law Careers and Employability Reps to set up a Christmas social for the Student Reps in that department. This was because I sit on the Arts and Law Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee.
*Spoke about HMO Policy
*Had dinner at the Hub (seeing what students have to eat)
*Interviewed and hired a new RA Co-ordinator who starts in the new year
*Had a meeting with Lesley Stewart at HAS and John Ripley, national boss at Victoria Halls to discuss current student issues at the Birmingham site, especially after the Redbrick front page

Once again my apologies about the lack of blogging and the inaccessibility of this blog with it being ridiculously long, thanks for reading if you could manage it and I promise the blogs will get more frequent again. Hope everyone is well - Merry Christmas!!!

Sorry and my pre Guild Council Blog

Firstly, my apologies for the appalling infrequency of my blogs for the last month; it has been a particularly busy time and I have not made the time to blog. So here is a catch up on everything I have been doing recently.

Strategic Plan - The Guild is in the process of developing its strategic plan and at the start of September we had the first of many meetings to decide on the themes of the plan one of which is our impact in the Community! There will be more discussions surrounding the plan before it is taken for consultation with you, the students. It is quite an operational plan and allows each officer’s manifestos each year to feed into the fabric of the Guild and get certain important aims embedded in the Guild's culture.

Welcome Weekend and Welcome Week - I was heavily involved in the planning of Welcome Week and I was around Welcome Weekend for the move-in days. The move-in weekend went relatively well aside from traffic issues because of Mason but overall the Welcome Crew seemed well motivated and helped out as much as possible. There were no major problems only smaller problems that were all solved relatively quickly thanks to a great effort on the part of HAS. Welcome Week itself was long, tiring and difficult but a massive success. The Officer Team spoke to loads of new students and our purple Welcome Crew were fantastic. There were some problems but nothing that couldn't be solved and although I ended the week exhausted I was also delighted we had such a great week!

Start of term - The first weeks of term were again busy, I went to my first Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee for the College of Arts and Law. It was an interesting experience listening to lecturers at ground level talk about the quality of Student Reps and of their degree programmes. I also sat on the appointments panel again for the vacant external trustee positions. I also attended accommodation management group and talked about the progress of the Community Warden Scheme, the Student Mentor Scheme and Residence Associations while also discussing Welcome Weekend and the start of term from Hospitality and Accommodation Services' point of view.

Halls of Residence Fees - Also in the week of the start of term my campaign to reduce halls of residence fees took a new turn. I was given a meeting with Gill Ball Acting Registrar and Secretary and Director of Finance at the university following the release of the Guild's report on Accommodation pricing policies of our institution. She was particularly positive about the report and mentioned that it highlighted some areas for improvement and a need to provide more affordable accommodation for students. The proposals we suggested will now be taken further before the Residence fees are set for the next year, I will keep you updated but at the moment we are not reacting to anything until a definitive response to the report becomes apparent.

The SHAC - I have continued to study whether the SHAC is a feasible and it is becoming very apparent that it is. We visited Cardiff Students' Union who have a fully functioning letting agent and it works well though it was more commercial than I would like ours to be. I have now submitted a motion to this Guild Council and subject to approval I will continue to push on with the research and will work through a number of models before presenting a final model to Guild Council sometime in the future. It is an exciting project though and one that could end up having massive benefits for students at Birmingham.

Housing Campaign - The Housing Fair will now be held on 25th November. For many years the housing campaign and subsequent fair had been held after Christmas with little or no effect on the rumour that students must find a house before Christmas. This rumour could not be further from the truth, students do not need to get their house for sometime as there is a massive surplus of houses in Selly Oak; you could wait until July and still find a decent house for the next year. The Housing Fair will be a celebration of choice, that students have the choice to get know better the people they want to live with and they should take advantage of that choice; getting a house in November doesn’t help anyone except unscrupulous Letting Agents and Landlords. The Housing Fair will show you the houses and landlords on offer but DO NOT sign up to a house then, look around what is available and wait until after Christmas to go back and get the house. You have the power, letting agents and landlords need you to let their houses, wait until you are ready.

Vale Fireworks – For those who heard rumours about the Vale Fireworks, they will now go ahead as planned and as spectacular as always at the Vale funded by your Residence Associations so many thanks to them for putting up the extra money and many thanks to our Venues department who have worked very hard to make sure it happens.

Thanks for reading and see you at Guild Council!

Manchester City!!!

I very nearly forgot to endulge myself with a blog about my beloved Manchester City I know it has nothing to do with the Guild but I live and die with the football club I have supported since I was a baby and their fortunes often dictate my mood. I am obviously ecstatic at the moment after the Abu Dhabi takeover and world domination awaits! I believe my colleague Mark Smith recently mentioned this in his blog so Mark, if we do lose Robinho to Chelsea in January I'm not worried as I'm sure when Arsenal fall out of the Champions League after the group phase Cesc Fabregas will come knocking on our Sheikh's door and join a real football club! In the meantime let me share a recent opinion expressed by a Manchester City fan on one of our local websites which should permeate the mind of our VPEA Tom Marley every time he visits a petrol station...

'Anyway, be of good cheer, as every time a Rag (United fan) fills up his petrol tank...he adds to our transfer budget. I would like to thank all the Rags for contributing to the Messi-Kaka fund (and I'm not talking about the contents of Fergies shorts when he finally figures out what is happening). Just think about it Rags: at the pump, when you see the little numbers whirl around before your sozzled cockerney eyes, that's our bank balance going up up up and I thank you for your contribution.'

And I will add my thanks to every united fan who fills up their car at the pump, 'We've got Robinho!' Sorry for the wavering from Guild updates - it won't happen too often!

The SHAC and the return of QHC

Just to update you on what I've been doing since the two weeks of training courses in August. I have met with the University several times to once again remind them that we are putting together a piece of research detailing why we as a Guild believe that halls of residence rents should be reduced and the report will be finished very soon. I have also thrashed out what the one stop shop for housing and community (I mentioned this in an earlier blog about my plans for the year ahead) will look like. We are still in the discussion stages, have set up a task group and will visit similar services at Cardiff and Swansea Union after Welcome Week.

It will be called the SHAC (Student Housing Advice Centre) and will have three elements to it. There will be a business element, meaning a letting agent which will be trustworthy, charge no fees to tenants and will, initially, only advertise accredited landlords. It will also include tenancy feedback at the end of contracts and random spot-checks on houses with bad behaviour or bad practice on the part of landlords being punished by suspension from advertising in the SHAC. This provides a clear deterrent against unacceptable behaviour from landlords but also encourages good practice. The SHAC will have a service element, with a specialist housing advisor to go with the existing housing clinic services, such as contract checking. It will be a place where students can go before and throughout their tenancy for advice about their rights and how to deal with their landlords. Finally the SHAC will have an element of Community and will be the physical base of the community wardens. It will provide advice on how to live in a thriving local community and give the opportunity for students to get involved in their community through showcasing our many volunteering projects. The SHAC will become the first port of call for students looking to rent a house and will, in time, drive up the quality of houses in Selly Oak, while empowering students to fight for their rights as tenants.

It looks as though Queens Hospital Close will be a halls of residence again this year, although it is now owned by Liberty Living, the university has rented 200 nominated bed spaces for Birmingham freshers again for this year, Queens is a wonderful hall and many freshers though initially disappointed with their allocation will love their time at QHC. I also visited Mason Hall this week to be shown round the site which will of course be open in three weeks time for Freshers moving in, the structure is stunning and despite some quirky features; it is a top quality halls of residence (a picture of a room at the new Mason is shown below). Tonight I go to the OSCARS with Jen, I wish it was the real thing but it is actually a University awards night at Shackleton so that should be fun and tomorrow we have our staff summer social. I can't wait for everyone to get back and the mayhem of Welcome Week to start - three weeks is too long!

Action Through Advocacy - The Apathy Escalator

On the 19th August for the second time in less than a month I visited Hertfordshire University for an NUS training course, this one called Action Through Advocacy. It had a different atmosphere and different people from around the country than Active Political Leadership and I had a wonderful group again, it seems I have been very lucky. Dainty David (in-joke, sorry) took us on a roller coaster ride through the apathy staircase or as our group created from just some paper the apathy escalator (not environmentally friendly, sorry Pippa). It was extremely useful in helping me plan my campaigns for the year and providing an excellent framework, balanced with the fun of the evening activities which ended up with me and four others from our group driving around Hatfield for half an hour looking for the police station! It was a good week cut short by my return to Birmingham via a tour of London (I got lost driving home on Thursday night) to sit on the appointments panel for the new trustee board on Friday morning. Photo of the Apathy Escalator to come...

'The Snooty Local Councillor'

It's a rainy afternoon in Brum just like it was in Leeds for the rest of last week at the recent training course I attended run by UNIPOL and NUS. I can safely say this was the most useful training course I've been on so far and it was extremely informative. UNIPOL knows the student housing market inside out and provided a wealth of information on current trends in the student housing sector, legal issues, regulation, community issues, accreditation and students unions' relationship with the institution. I gathered many statistics and gained shared experience around housing issues that will be particularly relevant in the months to come. We even had a mock Community Forum when I was able to be the snooty Local Councillor that didn't like Students' Unions, which was nice.

Also, on Monday I attended a very productive meeting about the Landlord Accreditation Scheme when a complaints procedure was finally nailed down and will make the scheme a lot more robust when it comes to dealing with landlords who are not adhering to it's principles. It will also help when my idea of the one-stop shop for housing and community takes shape. This morning we're off to Action through Advocacy NUS Training for my third multiple day training course and I'm returning to the de Haviland campus at Hertfordshire Uni, which I think may be a slightly snooty name for a campus but never mind, see you soon!