Minutes Executive Committee

Minutes Executive Committee 26 th November 2013 Venue: 5A.120

Attendees Chair Becky Fisher VP Education James Potter VP services and Comms Becky Newbury VP International Dmitry Christie VP Southend/Loughton Max Slipaczek ( via facetime) Ethics and Environmental Officer Sian Watson VP Welfare Chantel Le Carpentier Charity & Fundraising Officer Emily McDonagh Mature students Officer George Johnson Campaigns Officer Vacant Women’s Officer Lora El-Sayed LGBT officer Jorden Cohen Equality and Diversity Officer Beth Astley-Seroughi Participation & Involvement officer Georgios Venizelos BME Officer Femi Adeyemi-Ejeye Governance Clerk Michelle Harris Disabled Students officer Neil Bamber Chief Executive Officer Craig Stephens

Apologies Sarah Smith – VP Activities

Minutes Actions  Bus Pass campaign – CL has updated GJ and next step is to meet with Charlotte Humphries in Estates  CL has talked to advice centre about perceptions and the hardship loans is being reviewed by hard copies of forms have been requested.

Agenda 1. Neil Bamber welcomed to the committee as the new Disabled students Officer

2. NUSSL  The SU is looking at the possibility of coming out of NUSSL which is a buying consortium run by the NUS. The idea behind it is that it makes purchasing, and invoicing easier, buying in bulk should also provide substantial discounts but we do not seem to be seeing the proof of this. However it is believed coming out of it would give us more options and better negotiating powers.

3. Ongoing – University Unions and strike  3rd Dec another strike is planned, everything will be the same as the previous one and the SU plans to have the same things in place to support them 4. Mature Students – The future  There are currently approx 4500 mature students at Essex University, spread over the three campuses. The majority are based at Colchester and Southend. This year only 13 have joined the sports federation. And the Mature Student Society has 40 members. The feedback given to GJ is that they feel isolated and that the Students union does not seem to offer events that they would wish to participate in or have representation that would understand their issues.  Following the last conversation GJ is happy to concede that the Mature Students should not be compared with other liberation groups but is comparable with International students. GJ has submitted a motion that the SU sets up a Mature Students Association and has a fulltime member of the SABB team to look after their issues etc. Over a third of the current student base at Essex University is not engaged with and does not feel a part of the Student Union and this would help to address this.  JP – felt that most of the mature students are post grads and that as we have 135 post grad representatives we are doing quite a bit  However as this was mainly focused on education it was felt that this did not entirely address the issue  GJ we need to put in place structures and processes to support these students better. There have been both mature student and post grad associations previously but both had fallen apart because there was no fulltime support for them.  The question was asked if paying a part-time officer was a possibility as the commitment was too much for most mature or part-time students on top of working and studying and they would get more people willing to be involved if that was the case? Action: Chair to investigate  Chair – SABBs role is to represent all students and there are no issues that a mature student couldn’t bring to a SABB and that wouldn’t or couldn’t be dealt with. Not sure what a mature student VP would do full time. No Mature Student has or would be turned away.  Concerns were also raised as to why would mature students get a SABB officer and the other liberation groups don’t , looks as though they are taking priority over other such as Women who make up 50% of the campus but only have a part-time officer at the moment.  Request for more information and research to be done with Mature students to find out what they feel the barriers are and what the SU could do to be more inclusive or reach out to them? Action: Chair  GJ the perception is that the current SABBS do not represent mature or part time students, and will not understand their issues it may not be a correct perception but it exists according to the research done by GJ.  It was agreed at the last meeting that more would be done to support these students and look at ways to engage them. The issue seems to be one of engagement not representation so can we not focus at looking at ways to change engagement, using the current representation structure?  Chair agreed that if these issues were brought to them they could try to help more  BN has run two post grad mixers this year, both of which were well attended and were mainly mature students so believes that as long as the events are pitched correctly they will attend.  Chair – agreed that the next steps were for GJ to have a meeting with GJ and CS to see what can be done to try and engage these students – FAE offer support with the post grad community and to give some thought to this and come back to the group with some proposals 5. AOB  Chair – well done to Lorna for the successful women’s event on Monday  Alex has now submitted his formal resignation following the SRF meeting  GJ asked for consideration and respect to be shown by all