Recap: Big Union Conference 2017
This year's MDXSU Big Union Conference took place on Thursday 30th March.
The event - including the final Student Leaders' Conference of the year and our annual AGM - gave Middlesex students the opportunity to scrutinise our work and finances over the past year, attend free workshops and plan campaigns for the coming year.
The Big Union Conference 2017 was held in the Grove Atrium alongside this week's Liberation Station interactive exhibition, and was chaired by your Vice President Art & Design and Media & Performing Arts, Joe Cox.
AGM - finances and strategy
Our strategic themes are to provide life changing opportunities, develop diverse student leaders, build communities of students. You can read our strategy in full here.
Our gross income this year was £1,210,790, with a total expenditure (on events, the MDXSU Advice service, facilities, POW! media, staff wages etc) totalling £1,157,136, leaving us with a surplus of £53,654.
Officer Accountability Reports
We then heard reports from your four elected, full-time Student Officers on what they've been working on and the progress they have made on their manifesto promises. They spoke about what they've been working on over the past term, and took questions from students. If you couldn't make the event, you can watch video reports from your President and Vice Presidents online here, or contact them using the email address below.
Simba Lkaderi, MDXSU President:
- NUS Cards: Working with NUS and the university to negotiate free NUS Extra cards for all Middlesex students.
- Student Charter: gathering student feedback to create a student charter.
- Course costs audit
- Watch Simba's full video report online here, or email him at s.lkaderi@mdx.ac.uk
Katie Dragomirova, Vice President Business and Law:
- Business & Law Careers Fair: This took place on March 6th and 7th, with over 30 employers and organisations attending to meet and network with MDX students.
- Funding for the Hear Me Out campaign: Worked with Citizens UK and the university to secure an incredible £50,000 HEFCE grant to tackle sexual harassment and hate crime on campus. Click here to find out more.
- Working with Academic Societies: It has been an absolute pleasure working with our academic societies and hope you guys are even stronger and bigger next year. I’ve had a wonderful year working with you all amazing students,
- Watch Katie's full video report online here, or email her at e.dragomirova@mdx.ac.uk
Orla Hillary, Vice President Health & Education and Science & Technology:
- Free dyslexia support granted: The dyslexia support for international students has been promised from the university and hopefully from September 2017 that will be in place and accessible to everyone.
- Gender neutral toilets in the Grove: School Voice Leader Steph Stevens and I have been working on the gender neutral campaign with some university staff and amazingly the Grove has taken the first step in becoming gender neutral!
- Two graduation ceremonies a yea: This Winter we’ll hopefully have the first winter graduation for placement and Postgraduate students who finish their studies in the autumn.
- Watch Orla's full video report, including a summary of her work throughout her two terms as your Vice President, online here, or email her at o.hillary@mdx.ac.uk
Joe Cox, Vice President Art & Design and Media & Performing Arts:
- Estranged Students: About a month ago I was approached by the National Union of Students about MDXSU becoming a pilot union for a pilot scheme looking at how to help estranged students on campus. I agreed and have signed us up for this, and work will begin soon.
- Catering (coffee prices and W+T Opening hours): About two months ago our on-campus food provider, Chartwells, informed us that they were going to raise the price of coffee on campus, despite promising a price freeze at the beginning of the year. After meeting with members of the university executive we got Chartwells to agree to not raise the price of coffee, and honour their promise of a price freeze. As well as this, I got Chartwells to agree to extend the opening hours of Wings and Things, the only hot Halal food on campus, so that Muslim students have a better chance of getting a hot dinner. Obviously this isn’t anywhere near good enough, but it’s a step in the right direction.
- Collections for refugees: Over the last two months I worked with Robbiie Young, the Vice President Society and Citizenship at NUS to be one of several Sus in the country collecting clothes for refugees in Calais. Students donated a huge amount of clothes through our Grove Swap Shop, and these have now been collected by Robbiie and taken to Calais to be distributed.
- Board of Studies Review: My Board of Studies review is continuing, and has now entered the Pilot phase, where we have selected several courses from across the university to try out different new schemes. After this has finished, we will collect the results and write them up into a new system, which will be in place for September 2017!
- Creative Careers Week: Recently MDXSU hosted a ‘creative careers week’ for the first time, which saw a range of employers coming in for a careers fair, a range of talks from industry proffessionals and performance opportunities for Performing Arts students. While it was on a small scale, I was really happy about how successful the week was and I am really excited to see it grow over the coming years.
- Watch Joe's full video report online here, or email him at j.l.cox@mdx.ac.uk
Motions
Conference then divided into several workshop sessions, including a POW! Media workshop, Student groups conference, My Leader Identity workshop and a Student Voice Leaders' session, where students voted on proposals - or 'motions' - presented by Student Voice Leaders to improve the student experience at Middlesex.
Motions which received a majority vote in favour passed and will now become MDXSU policy, mandating your elected Student Officers to work on executing the idea. You can view the full motions online here.
Motion 1: Extend the Academic Year
Submitted by Vera Azevedo, seconded by Katie Dragomirova
Motion does not pass
Motion 2: Online Job Seeker Bulletin Board
Submitted by Erica Ramos, seconded by Katie Dragomirova
Motion passes
Motion 3: Introduce an industry mentoring programme for creativer students
Submitted by Amy Perrin, seconded by Katie Dragomirova
Motion passes
Campaign planning
The Big Union Conference 2017 ended with campaign planning with next year's recently-elected, full-time Student Officer team - Ben, Erica, Raquel and Joe. Students split into groups to discuss ideas for the below:
- President, Ben Edwards: increasing social space on campus
- VP Business and Law, Erica Ramos: improving free menstrual care and sexual health provisions
- Vice President Health & Education and Science & Technology, Raquel Marques: mental health support
- VP AD & MPA, Joe Cox: removing hidden course costs
Thank you to those who attended our annual Big Union Conference.
If you are interested in a leadership role with your Students' Union - whether as a Student Voice Leader, elected Society or Liberation Leader, or another elected role, please see the relevant pages on our website or get in touch with us at studentvoice@mdx.ac.uk
