1 University of Melbourne Student Union Meeting of the Students' Council Student Office Bearer Annual Reports 10:00Am, Wednesd

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

University of Melbourne Student Union Meeting of the Students’ Council Student Office Bearer Annual Reports 10:00am, Wednesday, the 21st of November, 2018 Meeting 19(18) Location: Training Room 2, Third Floor, Union House

Student Office Bearer Annual Reports President Submitted General Secretary Submitted Activities Submitted Clubs & Societies Submitted Creative Arts Submitted Disabilities Submitted Education (Academic Affairs) Submitted Education (Public Affairs) Submitted Environment Submitted Indigenous Not submitted Media Submitted People of Colour Submitted Queer Submitted Welfare Submitted Women’s Submitted Burnley Submitted Victorian College of the Arts Not submitted

All Office Bearer Reports are presented as they were received, with only formatting changes. Late reports are not considered valid.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

President Desiree Cai

Key activities/Evaluation of activities throughout the year

Student Precinct Boy it really has been a year of the student precinct! My work regarding the student precinct has involved a number of different types of meetings- Student Precinct Steering Committee, regular Student Leaders meetings, and a number of regular and ad-hoc user group meetings. All in all this year the project has gone through concept design, schematic design, and pending some financial decisions, the next stage will be detailed design. As of the writing of this report, the projected completion date of the Precinct is somewhere around 2022.

There were a number of highlights and key issues that emerged throughout my involvement in the Student Precinct Project. • The business case for the project was finalised near the beginning of my term. This signalled the approval of the student precinct to go forward as a university project with funding • Early Enabling works commenced at the end of 2018 • The Architect, Project Managers, Quantity Surveyors and Builders for the Early Enabling works (knocking buildings down) were tendered and hired at the beginning of the year. • Concept design, the initial design phase with architects after the business case started in May. Before the design stage had commenced, some outlying issues for UMSU had emerged from the business case, bus as the design started many of these issues were able to be solved (or partially solved) to fit the uses of UMSU and other users of the precinct. • After concept design was finalised and approved by the Steering Committee in May, the project moved into the Schematic Design phase. Which increased the detail of the design. During this phase, many many user group meetings were held to determine UMSU’s needs in the precinct. • All of UMSU presentations about the progress in the design of the Precinct were made both in the Concept design and Schematic design phase. These seemed to be very useful for UMSU staff and students to get a snapshot of how the project was progressing, and to ask questions of the project team. • A lot of people- both staff and student reps have been involved in various points in consultation for the project. I facilitated some meetings of the precinct with these people within UMSU, including things like a group for autonomous spaces, and for the requirements of the media department.

Many aspects of the precinct and assumptions about the operational governance of the precinct have also tied into some of the work around SSAF and SSAF negotiations that kicked off in the second half of the year.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

The most recent update to the project (as of November 19) is that the Project team has considered a number of value management proposals (proposals to lower the cost of the project) due to quite a large cost overrun at the end of schematic design. The Steering Committee approved the removal of Union Hall as the measure to reduce costs for the project, which is the removal of an important indoor flat-floor event space. However, the project has committed to work closely with UMSU on a model of governance for the precinct which prioritises UMSU’s functioning needs so other spaces that can serve the same function, such as Frank Tate and the Guild Theatre may be utilised effectively as a replacement for Union Hall.

All in all, my interaction with the precinct team has been quite successful. UMSU’s voice and the voices of students have been elevated, and we are now considered one of the first points of necessary consultation with the project. I’ve also learned a lot of building project jargon which is fun. UMSU’s relationship and level of interaction with the project has increased massively, especially as the design stage has progressed, which will be good for seeing positive outcomes when we eventually move to the precinct (whenever that may be).

Me and the Student Precinct Steering Committee at the November meeting

Supporting the Cadmus campaign Academic Integrity Working Group (AIWG) was set up in direct response to issues we raised in relation to CADMUS in other forums including Academic Board. We’ve had a few meetings of the AIWG, but its something that has fallen off the radar a bit as the year progressed. Part of the reason for this is that the trials of CADMUS stopped in Semester 1, and ongoing trials have been relatively slow. Other things discussed in the AIWG included stuff about fraudulent medical certificates, and a general discussion on academic integrity issues.

Overall, the approach at the beginning of the year, leveraging the student feedback we had from the CADMUS campaign survey, and pushing the issue to Academic Board was quite successful.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

At this point it seems the university has stalled on CADMUS discussion and slowed trialling a bit, but it’s still an important issue to look out for next year.

Supporting the campaign against sexual violence on campus The landscape of the issue of sexual violence on campus has changed a fair bit since the beginning of our terms. We started the year on very unstable footing, with a pretty bad relationship with the university, particularly in regards to this specific issue. Since we’ve talked to the university, and especially through the work of the massive campaign against sexual violence on campus, there has been significant progress on the issue of sexual assault on campus, and the way the university and UMSU work together on it.

There have been many key moments within the campaign this year, most notably points including the release of the red zone report into college hazing and the massive rally against sexual violence on August 1st. Generally some of these moments have seen success for the campaign and UMSU, however there could have been more work done in getting more media attention and increased student awareness and support in the lead up to and aftermath of these moments.

University Meetings- Respect Student Advisory Group (RSAG) The respect student advisory group was a regular monthly meeting set up as a student consultative group that would help inform the respect taskforce. While UMSU only has one representative (Molly as one of the Women’s Officers) on the Respect Taskforce where decisions are made, the student Advisory Group was intended to be a way to elevate student voices on the issue.

In reality, this group has not been very effective at providing student input into the respect taskforce, and has been used more like a focus group about various university measures, or a place to bring items that the university would like to avoid bringing to taskforce. From my understanding, the regular meetings of the RSAG will not continue next year, however, the group may be convened as an ad hoc student input/focus group in the future.

The big rally! I have to commend the work of the Women’s officers this year in running the key event that was the big rally against sexual violence on campus on the 1st of August. It was a successful event, with 300-400 students in attendance, and coordinated with similar actions across the country, thanks to the NUS Women’s Department. Aside from the students in attendance, communications for the rally was widespread, and there was visibility and support for the campaign from a large portion of the student body. All in all, the event was a success, and in future campaigns more forward planning with speakers and logistics would have been good.

In the aftermath of the rally, the university has taken the voice of UMSU student representatives in the space of responding to sexual assault on campus more seriously. We started to have regular fortnightly meetings with Celia Scott, who is the leading advisor on respect work in Chancellery.

Advisor- responding to sexual assault position in Advocacy & Legal

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Near the end of the year, I’ve worked with UMSU management, and have been in discussions with the university with the Women’s officers to get a proposal for a new advisor position within UMSU Advocacy and Legal approved and funded through the university. The position proposed would help guide students through the reporting process at the university, and would be a great initiative to collaborate with the university on- in order to improve the student experience of the reporting process.

The SSAF grant put in by UMSU Advocacy and Legal was initially rejected, but on subsequent follow-up, the university is happy to support the initiative, pending agreement with the university on a protocol agreement and shared understanding of how the role would operate. This is a work in progress, progressing very slowly, but hopefully there will be a positive outcome before the start of next semester.

Support for general campaigns NTEU Strike The NTEU went on strike earlier in the year after a campaign around their Enterprise Negotiations. I released a statement of support with the NTEU and UMSU has provided solidarity with the NTEU in a number of ways, including the Education Department organising lecture bashing and leafletting in the lead up to the strike- big props to Conor for leading that work.

The NTEU industrial action happened on the 9th of May, coinciding with the big Change the Rules rally. I spoke in support of the NTEU strike at their action at 9am on campus, before we joined the NTEU contingent to the big rally.

Hanging out with Steve, President of the NTEU supporting their industrial action

Palm Sunday UMSU Contingent I published a statement of support for the Palm Sunday Walk for Justice for Refugees and encouraged students to join the UMSU contingent to the rally in March. It was a good show of solidarity from UMSU to have so many students attend with us.

Counselling and Psychological Services This year I’ve worked closely with the welfare and disabilities officers on a campaign relating to the accessibility and issues around Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) provided

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

at the university. I attended a number of meetings with senior university staff in CAPS in support of the Welfare department.

This didn’t really get off the ground to the extent that would have been preferred, however there was some engagement from students in the survey. The issue of a lack of accessibility and funding to CAPS is still prevalent, so I would suggest future OBs continue to meet with the university and highlight the importance of a well-funded CAPS.

Harm Reduction Initiative/Policy The UMSU Harm Reduction policy and program has come a long way in the last year. Big props to Daniel for organising working group meetings and drafting the policy, and Michael from the Welfare Department for pushing it forward, especially with the implementation of the program in such a fast time-frame so we could have at least one workshop done before the end of the year. I mostly played a support role, helping push the policy through UMSU management, and corresponding with the university on our program to assuage them about any issues/risks in the program.

The first educational workshop of the harm reduction safer partying initiative happened on the 14th of November. Attendance was good, and I have put out a statement, and provided comment to a small amount of media after the program was initiated. While the process to get here was slow, I’m pleased that we managed to implement the program this year, and I’m pleased with the media that seems to be happening around this issue- and that it has been framed quite positively (rather than being a negative story).

Other Education Campaigns This year I’ve focused on education campaigns as a priority to support, as a student union I believe this should be one of the most important focuses (also noting that access to education depends on a range of intersectional factors).

Burnley Library I supported the education officers and worked with the Burnley department in going to the Burnley campus to raise awareness for students about the potential limiting of library opening hours. After gathering petitions from Burnley students and also meeting with the Head of University Services and Head of Academic services and raising the issue, the planned cut of hours did not happen, so we can call that a win.

Stop 1 Stop 1 is going to be an ongoing issue that is not easy to fix. Throughout the year, myself along with the education academic officers have continued to pester the university in forums including the academic services executive meetings and elected reps meetings about improving the quality and access to Stop 1. There have been incremental steps taken to make small improvements to Stop 1, but it’s been slow and Stop 1 still has a lot of issues. We’ve been good at keeping up pressure on the university to address Stop 1 as an area of priority this year, and this should be continued.

Free Tram Zone

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Near the end of the year, incoming education office-bearers have pushed into an exciting campaign to extend the free tram zone up to the university. While there was not enough time before the state election to get a big campaign in time for that, I’ve set up meetings with the university, and they are willing to support and collaborate on a campaign to extend the Free Tram Zone which has been very positive. Going into next year, UMSU will be building a ‘coalition of the willing’- essentially a coalition of interested parties who will stand together on supporting the extend the free tram zone campaign.

Thus far, the campaign has had a very strong start, and I’m keen to see how it progresses into next year.

Elected Reps meeting with university Throughout the year, I have coordinated student representatives and advocated for student issues through the elected reps meeting. This meeting, which occurred every 6 weeks (around 7 times through the year), was a chance for student representatives from both UMSU and the GSA to talk to Chancellery, update them on important projects going on in our organisations, have discussions on pertinent issues at the university, and raise issues both for the university and for the opportunity to collaborate. This year we’ve used the forum to hold the university to account, raise a number of student issues to the university and have discussion on them.

Throughout the year, issues that we have raised to elected reps include the Stop 1 issue and other numerous education issues including the Melbourne Model Evolution, FlexAP changes to courses, CADMUS, student card and transcript fees, Burnley cuts and issues in the Federal education funding sphere. We’ve also had discussions around the new Fisherman’s Bend campus, the functioning of CAPS and issues for gender diverse students with university administration. It has been great working with other student representatives in UMSU to raise these issues.

We’ve also talked to the university about the Renew Our UMSU project and updated them on important ongoing initiatives within UMSU.

Elected reps is a good forum for bringing up random issues that come up at the university, and has been a positive forum to push change have discussions with the university, and present our student voice to them. There is definitely scope to expand the things that we bring to the elected reps meeting and get more UMSU representatives involved in the forum, and also explore areas for collaboration more within the regular meetings.

Academic Services Executive Team This year, there have been meetings set up with the Academic Services Executive Team (ASET) every 2 months. The meeting is a platform mostly for information sharing and seeing the ways that the student facing sides of the university can work together better with UMSU to ensure students are getting the resources and information they need to. Part of the work in this group will be ensuring that both parties are up to date with what programs and services we provide for students so we can adequately refer students (both ways) to the appropriate services that exist.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

This forum has not been as useful as it could be this year, partly because this direct discussion with Academic Services hasn’t happened for a few years, and because there is a lack of clarity of what the forum is designed to do (both from UMSU and the ASET). I’d suggest doing some work on determining what the forum could operate as, and presenting that clearly in the agenda of what UMSU brings to these meetings SSAF negotiations From May this year, Justin and I have been talking with the university about SSAF, including negotiating the funding agreement for the next 3 years and discussions on SSAF reporting procedures and categories. We put in a submission about the SSAF allocation model in July, and have had continuing discussions with the university on the proposed model. There were a number of issues with the first proposed preferred SSAF allocation model- primarily the issue of instituting collaborating grant funding blocks. These concerns were relayed back to Simon Napthine and Elizabeth Capp- who had worked on the proposed models, and these concerns were also escalated to the Provost. These concerns were also discussed with the GSA. These concerns were addressed, and in our final meeting with the university, a final SSAF model with incremental increases for each SSAF recipient organisation was agreed on. Key issues around funding the transition of UMSU away from MUSUL were also addressed. As of the writing of this report, final confirmation on when the new SSAF model would start has not been received, however overall the process has been fairly good, and all of our key concerns have been addressed.

Media There were a number of opportunities for media this year. Alongside releases of statements through President’s News, I’ve provided comment for media stories throughout the year. Media is a pretty good tool we have, which can be used to get outcomes for campaigns that UMSU is running. When looking at using media, especially with news outlets, for campaigns, it was important to be tactical and see it as one thing in a range of tools to use in getting a successful outcome. I think media could have been used a bit more this year, but the effective use for campaigns UMSU wants to promote depends on timing among many other factors.

Some media contact I’ve had this year includes: • Comment on the university’s mandatory consent modules in the Age in February (8/2/18) • Comment to an SBS radio package about consent modules in May • Comment on the issue of fraudulent medical certificates for special consideration and extensions, made with the help of Phoebe, Manager of Advocacy & Legal, in the Age in July (26/7/18)

Meeting the Vice Chancellor (old and new!) Daniel and I met the previous Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis and the Chancellery Leadership in a meeting on the 19th of April. Glyn was not very engaged with the student organisations, and with his successor Duncan coming in, it would be positive to get more engagement between the vice-chancellor and UMSU.

The new Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell started in October this year. Daniel, the education academic officers, and myself were able to meet him in the October Elected Reps meetings.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

He had only been in the role for a few weeks at that point, so our questions about the level of engagement we would have with the Vice-Chancellor remained unanswered, but it was positive to have a first meeting and engage with him.

Relationships with national organisations I’ve had discussions with and maintained relationships with National Organisations throughout my term as President.

NUS Throughout this year, I’ve continued to build on the relationship between UMSU and NUS, getting support and providing support on national student campaigns.

President’s Summit in January was the first major event/activity with NUS. Both Daniel and myself attended, and it was a very useful conference that had workshops on a range of relevant topics including media, how to lobby government, sessions with the NTEU about higher education issues, and the opportunity to have input into NUS campaigns for the year. President’s Summit was incredibly helpful in helping me link up with other student unions throughout the country, as well as NUS. I’d encourage future Presidents and General Secretaries to attend.

NUS was invited to attend Student’s Council earlier this year to talk about the organisation and campaigns for the year. I think it was a useful thing to do to improve links with NUS and awareness of their activities.

UMSU has supported the NUS in a number of campaigns this year. I’ve had the opportunity to push and support this collaboration a number of times in the year. • National Day of Action in support of the National Education Campaign on the 21st of March. Was great to support the Education Department in running a speak out and bringing a good contingent from Melbourne University. • Build a better budget- UMSU helped launch the NUS campaign against the Federal budget on May 16th. The campaign was launched at the University of Melbourne. • The bury the bill campaign fought the passing of the Higher Education (Student Loan Sustainability) bill. I helped collaborate with the NUS on this initiative and Student’s Council was able to help fund some research into the impact of the Loan Limit that was proposed in an early version of the legislation.

National Youth Commission The National Youth Commission (NYC) into Youth Employment and Transitions is an independent community inquiry with a focus on school retention, early school leaving, the transition issues from education to work, vocational training, youth employment and unemployment. Their goal is to consult a range of stakeholders on a grassroots community basis to create a reform agenda that can be taken to government to improve the livelihoods of young people. Earlier in the year, their representatives approached me to investigate ways that we could work together and that UMSU could support the initiative. In my meeting with them, one of the ways for UMSU to support the Commission that was discussed was the potential for a partnership agreement between UMSU and the NYC. The Commission has partnered with a

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

range of groups and NFPs, including other student organisations and universities across the country. As well as pursuing a partnership with UMSU, the NYC is looking to be supported by the University of Melbourne. Our partnership agreement includes supporting them through: • Formally endorsing the NYC • Assisting in promoting the NYC particularly ways in which students can participate. • Working with the NYC to educate students on the issues being addressed by the NYC. • Co creating and hosting forums for students on issues being addressed by the NYC

Council approved signing a memorandum of understanding with NYC. Since the agreement has been signed, there has been little activity so far, but I believe the inquiry will start to kick off into next year, and there will be plenty of opportunities for collaboration then.

UATSIS Earlier in the year, I had been in talks with the Union of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students (UATSIS) about UMSU affiliating to the new organisation. Some advice was also provided about running their first national conference. While unfortunately some extenuating circumstances meant we were not able to affiliate this year, it is something I’d encourage for the next year and future years.

G08 Advocacy Group There’s been a lot happening this year on the national student G08 level. A first MoU to integrate student voices with the G08 leadership has been drafted, and there was a conference in July at University of New South Wales for the purposes of the G08 students and leaders collaborating together.

Throughout the year, from President’s summit in January, the G08 Student leaders have linked up regularly to have a voice and set up a structure for student input to the G08 leadership. Together with the Presidents of UNSW SRC, USYD SRC, ANU Student Association, Monash Student Association, University of Queensland Union and University of Western Australia Guild, I think we have been fairly effective in advocating and seeing our voices heard by the G08, and the conference that was started this year will continue to happen next year.

While there are some kinks to be worked out in how the student group interacts and affects discussion in the G08 group, the work this year has been effective in setting up good groundwork for future student leaders.

Governance Review/Renew Our UMSU The UMSU Governance Review has been a massive project this year, and a very exciting one to have been a part of. Throughout this year I’ve taken part in finalising a Terms of Reference for the project, the appointment of a consultant for the review, helped define the scope of the review, helped form communications for the project and get those communications out there to the student body. I’ve helped in navigating and communicating consultation opportunities and interviews in the early stages of the project, helped plan and run the Renew our UMSU forum, and also provided advice in the development of the online consultation forum.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

I believe the governance review and the renew our UMSU project has been quite successful. Of course, we will have to wait for the next year and an SGM to determine a final outcome on the process, and the actual renewal of governance, but in terms of this year there has been a lot of great consultation, and soon there will be a report reflecting all the work and ideas that have come out of the process.

Induction Induction for the incoming office bearers occurred from the 4th-6th of December. We had governance training with OBs and Councillors on the 4th. The more extensive governance session that we had this year was an improvement from last year, but there can be more done to make sure more Councillors and OBs attend in the future. We also held the first students council after governance training on the same day. In terms of OB support, before the bugeting process started, Daniel and I sat down with all the new office-bearers and discussed their plans for the year and ways to support them, which was a good way to start the year.

Budget The budget process went fairly smoothly at the beginning of this year, although there are always issues with the budget being the first thing that OBs do before their terms, and the lack of experience to be able to budget properly. I think more could have been done to support OBs in the budgeting process- both in teaching the mechanics of how a budget works, but also in setting expectations of how much money would be needed for certain activities, and what were feasible initiatives for the term in the department. While there was this difficulty, I think Daniel and I were fairly good at communicating to OBs about the budget process and providing support through answering questions and explaining procedures and expectations when issues arose.

The budget memorandum was approved and passed through Student’s Council in time for the new financial year so that was good.

One of the issues that has consistently come up every year is student representative departments underspending their departments, and it seems to be not much different this year. This was reflected in the budget memorandum, and we tried to institute a mid-year budget review as a stop-gap measure but this didn’t really pan out, or really happen at all in the way we thought it would. However this challenge was to be expected, as this year was the first where we had a financial advisors give us advice.

Summerfest The year started off to a bang with Summerfest (the two week orientation event) happening from the 20th of February to the 2nd of March. The week was pretty successful, with many students getting the chance to engage with UMSU and see what we do- from our student-run departments to the clubs and societies. The UMSU ‘adventure’ guide was also published in time for O-week, which was one of the first pieces of work for the term.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

One of the new initiatives that I was able to help instigate for this year’s Summerfest (with the Host Program directors and Daniel our General Secretary) was the UMSU Welfare Angels program. It was a volunteering program that had students trained in Mental Health First Aid and a number of other courses so that students throughout the week of orientation could have a touchpoint for any issues that came up and ask for help. In future years, this program could be planned better in advance, and perhaps taken up by the Welfare Department or a volunteering program.

The Bar We opened the Ida Bar this year! The process has included consulting student representatives and coming up with a name for the bar, hiring a bar manager, setting up operational requirements, branding and a fit out of the bar. Related to the bar, a lot of work on alcohol compliance, and the relationships between clubs, departments, the bar and responsible service or alcohol have been navigated by UMSU staff and management this year.

I was a part of the regular Bar working group which met regularly earlier this year. The working group was an effective forum to keep up with the work that was happening to set up the bar as operational. This working group has continued to meet up ad hoc throughout the year as appropriate. The next challenge for bar operations in the upcoming year, which wasn’t quite dealt with in the first year of operation, is having food service at the bar. I participated in hiring the new bar manager who will be starting in December, and who will be a great help with the food aspect. The next phase of bar operations should be very exciting, now that the main hurdle of getting it set up and operational has been complete.

Regular OB Meetings Daniel and I held fortnightly OB meetings, organised through the OB Facebook page to discuss important all of UMSU matters with OBs and encourage interdepartmental collaboration.

These meetings were quite effective when they were held and people attended. One of the challenges of regular OB meetings was that it’s hard to find a time for all OBs to attend. For the most part, we seemed to get at least 1 of each OB department to these meetings so that was good. Daniel and I scheduled the OB meetings around Council meetings too, and this was effective in improving the efficiency of the OB meetings as the things that came up in Council would not have to be brought up again unless necessary.

Collaboration with UMSU International Throughout this year I’ve continued to build on the relationship to try bring UMSU international closer to UMSU, and work together on campaigns and projects. In March, I attended one of the UMSU International Central Committee Meetings (CCM) to introduce myself, explain our representational and governance structure to the committee, and extend the invitation to collaborate and work together. This happened twice- once with the old committee and once with the new UMSU International term.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Throughout the year, I’ve also helped link up departments with the UMSU International Exec to help foster collaboration. This was especially the case with Syndicate, and getting UMSU International onboard with the initiative and collective, however there were some barriers to effective collaboration. One of the big limitations to collaborating fully is that the priorities and areas for collaboration that we may want to pursue may not align with UMSU International. Some of the difficulty is due to the fact that the planning cycle of UMSU International starts after their election, which is in the middle of the year rather than the end.

The UMSU International President and I (both John and Jonas) have worked together quite closely on the issue of the Student Precinct, especially as they sit on the Steering Committee with me.

Collaboration with GSA I met up with the GSA general secretary and president in the beginning of the year in an attempt to try and institute more collaboration between our organisations for the year. I’ve planned to meet with the GSA before key university meetings that we both attend- including Academic Board, Student Precinct meetings and Elected Reps. I’ve also facilitated meetings to share common concerns in the SSAF negotiation process this year. We have also discussed some education campaigns and found ways to collaborate on those, even in small ways.

There are plenty of opportunities to collaborate with the GSA on issues for students in the higher education sphere as well as on-campus issues, and I think these should continue to be pursued. If both student organisations are able to provide a united front on key student issues, it will make us more effective. While there were up and downs in our relationship with the GSA, where we did collaborate, it has been fairly useful and worth the effort. In many instances where the GSA and UMSU could have collaborated, I believe there has been a lack of forward planning to do so, and this can be improved by UMSU representatives actively reaching out to the GSA wherever appropriate (and the GSA reaching out to us too).

Staff Recruitment This year I’ve had the opportunity to be involved as the student representative in the recruitment process for several staff. These include a number of intern positions, casuals for the bar and library, the communications officer and the new bar manager. I think it’s fantastic that UMSU integrates student representatives in these processes, and it’s been great to have been that student rep at various times this year.

Metro Tunnel project Earlier in the year, I was involved in consultation on the progress and mitigation measures around the construction of the Metro Tunnel. Metro Tunnel Interface Project- the part of the university that deals with the stakeholder relationship and updates of the project. Discussion around the metro tunnel and the regular meeting have dropped off since the beginning of the year, but I suspect they will happen again going into next year (after the State Election). I have continued to receive email updates from the University in relation to the progress and the disruptions from the project.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Recommendation 1 That the President continues to work with Welfare and Disabilities officers on a campaign and advocacy around Counselling and Psychological Services.

Recommendation 2 Have media training earlier in the year (ideally before Summerfest). My first media request came before I was media trained- which made it a bit more stressful.

Recommendation 3 Continue to keep an eye on the CADMUS situation at university and the ongoing trials of the program.

Recommendation 4 Work out more concretely the purpose of the regularly scheduled meetings with the Academic Services Executive Team, and outcomes that you want from that forum.

Recommendation 5 Organise for incoming Office-bearers to meet with the Vice-Chancellor- offer a tour of Union House or something similar!

Recommendation 6 Organise affiliation to UATSIS for 2019 in collaboration with Indigenous OBs.

Recommendation 7 Continue to liase with other G08 Presidents about the G08 Advocacy group. President’s summit is a good place to kick off discussions about this group.

Recommendation 8 Keep an eye out on the issue of operational governance of the student precinct in particular.

Recommendation 9 Discuss how (or if) the mid-year budget review process will happen/be different in the next year compared to 2018.

Recommendation 10 Continue the UMSU Welfare Angels program, but work out where it could be placed (as a volunteering initiative, through the welfare department?)

Recommendation 11 Continue to plan to run campaigns together with UMSU International, attend UMSU International Central Committee Meetings- at least once at the beginning of the term to bridge the divide and explain the processes within UMSU. Also encourage the UMSU International President to participate in UMSU Student’s Council- and explain how UMSU International works to the UMSU Council.

Recommendation 12

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Have a blast 

General Secretary Daniel Beratis

In no particular order:

Travel and Conferences Policy A policy was approved by Students’ Council early in the year which governs expenditure on travel and conferences for students using UMSU resources. Since that point, the policy has been used in relation to several events, including the NUS Education Conference, the National Young Writers’ Festival and the G08 Student Leaders’ Conference. Evaluation: This policy has helped to make the provision of resources for students to participate in conferences of interest more transparent and accessible. However, the policy existing does not mean that it is automatically followed, and renewed effort each year must be made to ensure continued compliance with the policy.

Conflicts of Interest Policy A policy and related amendments to the Standing Orders was approved by Students’ Council mid-year which governs the disclosure of conflicts of interest by elected members to the bodies holding responsibility over them. Since that point, I have received disclosures as they have been made, and provision for disclosures and declarations has been made in the agendas of various committees and meetings of UMSU. Evaluation: This policy is a step towards ensuring UMSU’s probity, and I am glad to see it in effect. Currently, the culture around disclosures is not yet firmly established due to unfamiliarity, but with time, I expect that this will pass.

Regulation Amendments In addition to the amendments of the Standing Orders as above, I have also prepared several amendments to the Electoral Regulations for recommending to the Electoral Tribunal throughout the year, and facilitated the passage of Clubs and Societies Regulations through Council after the hard work of the Clubs and Societies Department. These amendments were based broadly on the recommendations of the Returning Officer. Evaluation: I’m happy that the majority of recommendations have been approved by Council—I hope that the Council to which this report is made approves further amendments as put with the papers.

Summerfest and Winterfest My involvement with Summerfest was not as strong as other departments, due to the relatively behind-the-scenes scope of the Secretariat, but I was still happy to be involved and to see the plans of Departments spring into action. Similarly, UMSU decided to move indoors for Winterfest, and I was happy to be involved with the mid-year event. A Students’ Council was also scheduled for the end of Summerfest, due to Councillor and Office Bearer availability.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation: Summerfest and Winterfest were both excellent and successful, but I would recommend that Students’ Council be scheduled away from Summerfest, as people only have so much energy at any one time.

Working Groups Various working groups were held on an ad hoc basis throughout the year, centring on items such as harm reduction, ethical sponsorship and regulation. These working groups have resulted in various outcomes throughout the year, including amendments to regulation, a small part of the harm reduction program being aligned, and various regulations and constitutional amendments being proposed. Evaluation: Working groups, with their undefined membership, are difficult to maintain without a strong push, and I would recommend that schedules be established as far ahead as possible and the scope of working groups be specifically defined such as to help direct the work of the group as much as possible.

Students’ Council Students’ Council has met its constitutional obligations with this meeting in November. Nineteen meetings of Council have occurred, with minimal inquorate meetings. There have been several resignations and removals, as is standard for Students’ Council, but the work of Council has not been unduly impeded by these interruptions. Council has also dealt with substantial and significant issues over the course of the year, and has held several discussions of importance for the organisation now and into the future. Evaluation: Students’ Council has been a successful body—but constant effort is required to maintain that, and I recommend that the work of developing the culture that made this year’s Council successful needs to be ongoing.

Here’s a cool thing where red means didn’t attend, green means did attend, and yellow means didn’t attend but it was unscheduled so it didn’t matter. I don’t know how to format things but I think it’s kinda readable.

Students Council Blake Atmaja Students Council Noni Bridger Kayley Students Council Cuzzubbo Students Council Hannah Buchan Students Council Jacob Sacher Georgia Students Council Walton-Briggs Students Council Catriona Smith Elizabeth Students Council Tembo Students Council Joshua Bruni Stephanie Students Council Zhang

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Students Council Jessica Miller Students Council James Power Students Council Melinda Suter Anneke Students Council Demanuele Students Council Terence Taylor Students of Colour Rep Gurpreet Singh Queer Rep Katie Doherty Disability Rep Dana Riley Serena Rae Indigenous Rep Thompson International Rep Horace Wong Graduate Rep Cameron Doig

President Desiree Cai Daniel General Secretary Beratis Ed Ac Alice Smith Ed Ac Toby Silcock Conor Ed Pub Clements Ed Pub VACANT Cecilia Welfare Widjojo Michael Welfare Aguilera Activities Officer Alex Fielden Jordan Activities Officer Tochner C and S Officer Nellie Seale Matthew C and S Officer Simkiss Freya Creative Arts McGrath Ashleigh Creative Arts Morris VCA Lily Ekins Jesse Paris- Media Officer Jourdan

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Esther Le Media Officer Couteur Ashleigh Media Officer Barraclough Monique Media Officer O'Rafferty Disabilities Officer Jacinta Dowe Disabilities Officer Hien Ngyuen Alexandra Indigenous Officer Hohoi Indigenous Officer VACANT Callum Environment Officer Simpson Environment Officer Lucy Turton Queer Officer Elinor Mills Amelia Queer Officer Reeves James Burnley Barclay People of Colour Officer Reem Faiq Hiruni People of Colour Officer Walimunige Molly Womens Willmott Kareena Womens Dhaliwal

Induction and Budgeting The induction and budgeting process this year ran relatively smoothly. I was glad to see an increased focus on the roles and responsibilities of Council in particular, but I think that more can be done in this area to impress upon and to educate Councillors and office bearers of their responsibilities. I’m also glad that the budgeting process ran so smoothly—it ensured that enough money was available for UMSU’s various projects, without any one area being particularly neglected. Evaluation: Induction can always be improved and developed further, and I would recommend as a matter of urgency that induction be focused upon.

Student Initiative Grants Student Initiative Grants—which make available for student events and initiatives funding that would otherwise not be accessible—have seen an increase in activity this year. According to current records, 20 applications were received, and $16,600 in grants have been disbursed to recipients that might not have otherwise been put towards student

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

activity. Part of this success is due to the approved transfer of funds from Whole of Union to the Student Initiative Grant line, which allowed funding to increase above $15,000. Evaluation: SIGs are really great. The program should be increased next year (given the substantial uptake in grant funding), and advertised more broadly.

General Meetings Three general meetings have been held this year.

The first general meeting was the annual general meeting, at which the financial audit and documents were approved by the membership. This is a regular occurrence as per our obligations under the Act, but I’m glad it went smoothly.

The second general meeting was to appoint a new auditor. The then-current auditor’s appointment expired, necessitating a process to appoint a new auditor. Submissions were welcomed from multiple providers, including the current auditor, and after consideration it was resolved to appoint Accru as the auditors for the next period. This appointment, after being notified to the current auditor and membership for the required period of time, was ratified at the general meeting.

The third and final general meeting was to consider resolutions for amending the constitution. Amendments had been proposed at prior working groups and were adopted by Council for recommending to a general meeting, and the amendments were carried at the general meeting in line with the Act. Amendments included the updating of references to the Act, the removal of MUSUL after its winding-up, and alteration of the arrangements surrounding the Southbank Campus Coordinator and Department.

A fourth general meeting has been directed by Council concerning the adoption of amendments giving strength to affirmative action requirements in the Media Department, but due to the time of year this general meeting cannot occur before Semester 1, 2019.

A related general meeting regarding the Renew Our UMSU project is expected by mid-year, 2019. Evaluation: The general meetings have gone well! The process for calling and giving notice of a general meeting, however, is convoluted, and planning is most certainly required well in advance to ensure a general meeting’s success.

Plain Language Documents One focus in the latter half of the year has been the constructing of plain language documents to make the governing documents of UMSU more accessible for the ordinary reader. Often, these documents require precise and pseudo-legal language to have the greatest effect, but this language can in turn reduce readability, comprehension and understanding amongst members, for whom these documents are designed for. Currently, three PLDs exist—one for the Standing Orders, Clubs and Societies Regulations and Constitution, respectively—and it is hoped that these explainer documents can enunciate the powers and structures of UMSU more clearly and make those structures more accessible than these documents otherwise would.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation: These documents may not be used often, but they in my view are invaluable to the operation of UMSU as a whole. If we want to be accessible, we must be accessible—this is almost tautological, but it is something we need to remember if we are to make progress. These documents must form a part of that.

Renew Our UMSU UMSU’s constitution and governing documents have not been reviewed since they were first implemented in the mid-2000s, and this year a whole-of-organisation effort has been underway to conduct a review into our governance system. I have assisted throughout this process, including being interviewed for the review and co-moderating an in-person forum at which propositions for change were discussed. This process is expected to conclude by mid- 2019 with a new constitution and related documents, which will be hopefully adopted at a general meeting.

Throughout the review process, a number of opinions—some more widely shared than others, and some I agree with as well as some I disagree with—have been voiced on how UMSU operates. Whatever the outcome of the review, I’m glad that the opportunity has existed to have those opinions and thoughts aired, and I’m glad that opportunities to do so have been provided through interview processes, in-person forums and online discussions. I look forward to receiving the final report, no matter its contents. Evaluation: The process has been long, but it is undeniably good that we have taken the opportunity to undergo that process.

CEOAPC The President and I have, in conjunction with the CEOAPC, taken steps to implement performance management for the CEO. This is something that has become necessary over the past few years due to the winding up of MUSUL and other circumstances, and I am glad that some steps have been taken to implement this as a regular occurrence. Evaluation: Performance management is not a natural skill for recently-elected office bearers, but it is something that is necessary for UMSU now and into the future.

The Ida Bar The Ida Bar was opened for Semester 1 this year, and was officially launched in Semester 2. I sat on the Bar Working Group and it was pleasing to see the bar come into operation so quickly and in time for students to have an experience of a student-led bar. This, in conjunction with a variety of other alcohol-related changes (including UMSU assuming the liquor licenses, for which I sat first steps training as a licensee), has led at times to requiring change in how UMSU operates and runs its events, but I believe that we’ve had a good start in implementing what has needed to be done. Evaluation: The bar’s first year has been eventful, and I believe that with a new bar manager and further development in the future, it can continue to grow and become a core aspect of student life.

Operations Sub-committee The Operations Sub-committee is the only sub-committee of Council. While the constitution ascribes multiple responsibilities and powers to the sub-committee, one power is used far more regularly than any other: delegated spending authority for any committee that chooses

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

to grant it. It has become standard practice for committees to delegate authority for expenditure, and for committees to subsequently pass money through the sub-committee when a committee cannot meet for reasons of unavailability and logistics. This has led to many programs and services being able to run when they may not have been able to otherwise, but it also means that oversight is reduced, especially when funding is sourced from general lines such as Whole of Union instead of particular committees. Evaluation: The sub-committee is important, but it should not be shy to exercise the full range of powers provided for, or to act as more than a rubber stamp for various expenditure requests.

Assistance I assisted other office bearers, processes and staff in a variety of ways throughout the year in situations which may not require their own write-up, but which nevertheless should be noted. These situations include: • Minuting various Committee meetings; • Running IGMs for new clubs on behalf of Clubs and Societies; • Establishing (in conjunction with Volunteering and the President) the UMSU Welfare Angels for Summerfest; • Sitting as the UMSU representative on the New Student Precinct Student Experience Advisory Group throughout the late-design and schematic design phases; • Acting as student representative on various recruitment panels, including recruitment for Arts Project Officer and Financial Counsellor; and • Acting as student representative on various misconduct panels in conjunction with the University. Evaluation: One difficulty for the General Secretary is that much of their role is fundamentally different from other office bearers in that they have a great responsibility in regards the logistics and back-end processes of UMSU, rather than of service delivery or advocacy. It’s vital that this not become the whole job, however, and as such this participation in other events and situations is vital.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Recommendation 1 Future Secretaries should aim to, as far as is practicable, plan the year as early as possible. This includes meeting dates of working groups, meetings of Council, and other meetings as appropriate. This role is demanding, and such planning would allow for unpredictable events to intervene in work without as much disruption as might otherwise occur.

Recommendation 2 Future Secretaries should take it upon themselves to educate themselves and other Office Bearers and Councillors on their obligations under the governing documents of UMSU as much as possible and should be constantly searching for new ways to ensure that those obligations are known. Unintended breaches of regulation and policy occurred this year and a broader understanding of the documents would have saved time and energy in resolving them.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Recommendation 3 Future Secretaries should endeavour to use the resources available to them at all times. Chief amongst these is the CEOAPC—performance management is one of the most alien aspects of the role, and the CEOAPC (when used correctly) can assist in clarifying the process. However, staff generally are an invaluable resource, and future office bearers of any kind should not be afraid to utilise them and seek their advice.

Recommendation 4 Have fun and be yourself!

Activities Alex Fielden and Jordan Tochner

Key activities throughout the year

Sleepover

This event was super, incredibly, ridiculously difficult to organise and run which is probably clearest in the fact that our handover is 10 pages. We ran about 120 hours worth of STUFF throughout the night which is absolutely wild and from an attendee perspective it was a massive success. We sold around 500-550 tickets and got super positive reviews back from the night, especially in terms of first years from then on being at least vaguely aware of the different UMSU departments. We think this event is important as the only full Whole of UMSU event which involves direct influence from all other departments and is an amazing introduction to the union and the space it inhabits. We’d like to give a special shout out again to the Queer Department for being amazing DJ’s and cookie makers, Enviro and Creative Arts for running that haunted house for a ridiculous amount of time and then still going on to run other events, and Clubs and Women’s for doing some really good lookin out and welfaring throughout the night. We know it was a massive struggle and we all hated that event by the end but all the little kiddies loved it and that’s what matters. HOWEVER, there were a lot of things that could have been done better especially in terms of welfare, but mostly in terms of making sure that this event isn’t run as Activities with all the other departments spending an hour or two helping and then going on to get drunk. This is an event which takes a LOT of money from the Whole of Union budget and therefore needs to be more collaborative in future as it is far too much pressure to put on one department. We have THOUGHTS but they can stay in our handover. SoUP

SoUP is a staple on the Activities calendar and is one of the few events we have which is specifically designed to engage first years. However, with decreasing first year engagement in general, we saw a slight drop in numbers this year. We think the mistake we made was in assuming attendance would stay steady for an event that has been the same for the past 10 or so years. In terms of budget, it is one of the cheapest events we run and so we decided to put money into adding St Patrick’s Day rather than expanding SoUP which, in hindsight, was a

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

fair decision but means next year the event is probably due for a shake up. Equally, we learnt a lot about marketing from this event as our trifecta tickets worked really well for the new events but fell a bit flat for SoUP which we didn’t push as hard. The handover for this event isn’t as long as Sleepover’s but is still many pages of suggestions for next year

Trivia 1

We may have pushed ourselves a bit hard with this one. 4 events by week 4 may not have been the best idea and attendance definitely reflected this. The popularity of trivia has been decreasing in recent years and, while we love these events and definitely don’t want to get rid of them, there will need to be some changes made to get them back up to the levels they used to be at. We think trivias are especially important to keep on the calendar as they ensure a focus on community, rather than on alcohol, and provide an alternative to constant parties.

St Patrick’s Day

Our new baby!!! We are incredibly proud of how this event run and also (as is becoming a theme), have a lot of thoughts on how to improve it for next year in our handover.

Marketing was a big focus for this one as we made sure to have the event out and selling tickets by O-Week. We do acknowledge that our focus on this is probably a big reason we saw a drop in SoUP numbers, but it was worth it to see our new event attract about 500 people (note: the first Oktoberfest got about 200). Our idea behind it was to create an Oktoberfest for Semester 1 with this being reflected in the slogan we put on the posters which was… Oktoberfest for Semester 1. We think this created a good intersection between the oldies who attend Oktoberfest for its cult status, and the first years who historically engage the best in the first half of first semester.

And it worked!!!! The theme was a success, the inclusive food/drinks is always loved by the everyone and we were happy with the low price as it can be increased in future years once the event has established itself. One of our favourite moments of this whole year was when we shut the music off at the end of the night and our crowd refused to leave and instead all started singing to make their own music to dance to. It was a really wonderful night for us and we hope the event continues in future years and reaches the same levels as Oktoberfest.

Trivia 2

This Trivia ran better than the first one, however it was the first trivia ever to be held in the new Ida bar. In hindsight, we can see why this hasn’t been done before, it didn’t work that well. The space in the Ida is not set up for Trivia, AV had problems positioning speakers and walls separated tables, teams and people. Attendance was better, but the Ida should only be used for small Trivias of around 8 tables (10 being a max).

Union House House Party: Winter Wonderland

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

This event was a disaster in all honesty and we have recommended it is not run again next year. We tried to improve on last year’s event but alas, it did not work.

In terms of budget and expenditure, we made a series of fatal mistakes and ended up spending WAY to much money on an event that only catered to about 150 people. Having to be bailed out by council was not our finest moment. We will be making sure the new OB’s have a much firmer grasp on how budgets work than we did. Equally, marketing did not work as the Winter Wonderland event just got absorbed into Winterfest and by the time Week 1 came around, everyone was exhausted by it. There isn’t much to say about it as it was just generally not successful for a large number of reasons and our recommendations reflect this.

Trivia 3

This Trivia went smoother but again, was held in the Ida which is always a bit uncomfortable for everyone. There were a series of reasons for this we have put in our handover but don’t really need to be discussed here. Ultimately, the event went as planned and we’d like to thank Jacob for being an amazing MC and making sure the night ran really well.

Not Commerce Ball

GAH. What an event. The night itself ran fine, just a pub night in the Ida with pizza. However, the real trouble for this event came from our marketing. We have recommended this event is not run again in future years and have worked with the Clubs and Societies department to make sure that all parties walked out of this reasonably happy. We definitely learnt a lesson on how intimidating our department and UMSU in general can look from the outside and the need to work with, not against, clubs (our main support and volunteer base). However, we repeat, this event should not be run again and care should be taken in future to ensure that we toe the line between teasing and mocking.

Trivia 4

This event was our largest Trivia of the year and went off without a hitch. Attendance was very very strong, with approximately 200-250 people in attendance. Again, this Trivia was held in the Grand Buffet Hall, and while this space was being used for exams at the time and came with added expense, it is well worth putting resources into this event.

Oktoberfest

Our final event of the year!!! We were really, really pleased with how this event ran. There were a few minor hitches, but overall it was the same Oktoberfest everyone knows and loves and attendance reflected this.

Our only issues with this event were: ● The alcohol. Poor communication between Communications and The Ida meant alcohol wasn’t organised until 3 days before the event and the only beer purchased was Heineken. Especially considering the changes that have been made with the bar and Entertainment, this was really disappointing for us (especially because it became

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

a massive meme and we hate Heinekenfest) and meant we, again, exceeded budget and had to go back to council ● This event was the first time we applied advice given to us by UMSU legal about how to remove individuals we feel are causing an unsafe space at our events. This meant reaction by event staff was extremely slow and the individual was not removed for a significant amount of time. However, hopefully this will mean a smoother reaction time in future. Equally, we were appalled at securities ability to handle the situation and believe, after time and time again proving to be fairly incompetent, this security company is not adequate for Activities events.

Overall, we’re really happy with how this event run and look forward to actually enjoying it ourselves next year.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Sleepover

● Despite opposition from current office bearers, do run this event again, it’s important ● However, make sure that when you are organising it you are placing significant responsibility on other office bearers. The expectation should be that events are being run pretty much all night and that when events aren’t being run, OB’s are expected to welfare and help others. Obviously, we don’t expect people to stay 100% sober or not take breaks but watching this year OB’s either run no events or run 1 or 2 and then get drunk was extremely disheartening ● Take care of your Clubs, communication and respect is important. They’re doing us a pretty big favour ● Read our gosh darn handover. I wrote that the day after Sleepover and it has FEELINGS SoUP

● If you want to leave this event as it has always been, that’s fine, but its probably due for a revamp ● A young, hip DJ could be a good addition, we tossed up more decorations with AV or better marketing are all options ● Read the handover

Trivia 1

● Don’t do this event here. It too hard ● Market about a billion times better and make sure you’re not engaging oldies from clubs but the first years too ● Make sure committee are pulling their weight with writing rounds ● Read the handover

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

St Patrick’s Day

● Run it again!!!! It was so much fun and we are very proud of it ● There are so many things you can do with it, the world’s ya oyster. Go crazy ● Just make sure you’re not spending all your energy on this event. It is a big one but (assuming you do it in a similar place on the calendar) it is later in the semester and so Sleepover and SoUP should be priorities ● Read your handover

Trivia 2

● Don’t run trivias in the Ida unless you are REALLY struggling ● Again, marketing is key ● Handover

Union House House Party: Winter Wonderland

● HAHAHAHHAHA DITCH IT ● We’ve already started speaking to you about replacements for it, literally any idea is better than running it again ● Your handover is pretty much a rehash of what I’ve just said but read it anyway

Trivia 3

● Get back Jacob ● Stop running trivias in the Ida, work out something new and exciting ● I actually think is the only event I didn’t write a handover for so… I guess this is it

Not Commerce Ball

● Just don’t ● Just don’t but in handover form

Trivia 4

● Yay for Grand Buff trivias when people actually come! Try and make this happen! ● You know who to talk to about that ● If you don’t, it’s in your handover. Read it

Oktoberfest

● Same same same as always ● Maybe change a couple of things up because attendance is dropping a little bit for this one too ● Bring back the marquees :)))))) ● ~handover~

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

General recommendations ● We love you ● Have fun ● Don’t run UHHP ● Read your handovers

Clubs & Societies Nellie Seale and Matthew Simkiss

Key Activities throughout the year

Key activity 1: Semester 1 Orientation During Summerfest, the Clubs and Societies department participated in one whole union event, and ran its own independent orientation event. A departmental stall on the Tuesday, as part of the Union expo, where all departments had a stall around south lawn, as well as the Clubs Expo, where individual clubs had their own stalls throughout the marquees on south lawn over two days. No other activities were run during Summerfest by the Clubs department however this was a designated promotional period for the clubs, who had the opportunity to have their events listed on the UMSU calendar and apply for a higher and more efficient level of funding under promotional grants. The last event that C&S was involved in during orientation was the Union House Sleepover, where several clubs ran small activities, and the Office Bearers assisted with other activities within the event. The final element that was part of orientation for C&S was the creation of the Clubs Guide, which serves and introductory guide to the department, and contains a listing of all clubs currently affiliated, including a brief description, their logo, and how to contact them.

Key activity 2: Clubs Carnival Clubs Carnival is one of the biggest events for the department in the year and was run much to same effect as the Clubs Expo at the start of the year. All clubs were invited to participate, and was marketed as a Carnival type event more than a group of stalls where the main goal for clubs was to sign up members. 30 clubs were selected on the basis of their timeliness of the submission of their applications, and the creativeness of their ideas.

Key activity 3: Semester 2 Orientation Winterfest is run to a very similar degree as Summerfest for C&S. The main difference is that the Clubs Expo is run over one day instead of two, and that instead of being on South Lawn it was held inside Union House. The whole of union event remained the same as it was for the start of the year.

Key activity 4: Awards Night This was the third year that the C&S Awards Night has been run. The event is a cocktail-style party, and clubs were invited to send up to five executives or other committee members who had been involved during the course of 2017 or 2018. The Ida provided drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and food was catered. Awards were presented to clubs for a variety of

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

things, including high membership and event attendance, consistency of grant applications, and creativity in events.

Key activity 5: Membership Compliance There are three primary requirements that clubs must comply with in order to maintain their affiliation to UMSU. The first of these is that they must achieve and subsequently maintain a membership of at least 30 current University of Melbourne students. It is the job of the Office Bearers to check and assess the membership lists that they have submitted, and ensure that they are compliant. If a club has not reached the minimum of 30 students, or the lists are missing more than 10% of the data, then they are given notice of non-compliance, it is requested that they correct the error and resubmit, and if this is not completely by a deadline, disciplinary action is taken by the C&S Committee.

Key activity 6: Activity Reporting The secondary requirement that clubs must comply with is that they must actually hold events for their members. The minimum requirement is for two events, attended by ten students. At the end of each semester, compliance is assessed, and this routinely results in a small number of disaffiliations.

Key activity 7: Processing General Meetings This is the third key requirement clubs must complete to remain affiliated. All clubs must hold and report an Annual General Meeting every calendar year. AGMs are used to ratify a club’s constitution, report to the members the proceedings of the club and its financial state, as well as elect a new committee. The C&S department must then review the submission of the general meeting documents, including minutes, attendance lists, copies of reports and financial documents. As every document submitted must comply with its own standard, eg. membership lists must contain the names, student numbers, course information and the signatures of a minimum of 20 members of the club, as this demonstrates that the meeting was quorate, this means that it is very common that there is at least one error within every submission. The processing and eventual signing-off on an AGM or SGM is a lengthy and time consuming one. This is the requirement that results in the highest number of disaffiliations.

Key activity 8: Committee Meetings An important part of the Clubs and Societies department is the running of regular committee meetings, as this is the forum by which the department is able to approve clubs’ funding in the form of grants, with discussion of hundreds of non-standard grants throughout the year. In addition to this, it is the responsibility of the C&S Committee to sanction clubs for breaching the C&S Regulations, as well as to approve the affiliation of new clubs, and assist in the planning of events and direct the department in general.

Key activity 9: Regulation, Policy, and Process Reviews The Clubs and Societies Regulations, as well as the Policy library, and the various official processes that are undertaken by the department, specifically around camps, alcohol and OH&S for events. At the start of the year all of these documents were divided into eight groups, which were then scheduled as eight working groups, which clubs were invited to participate in. The documents were reviewed, changes were suggested, and discussed at the

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

meetings. These changes were then to be discussed and approved by the C&S Committee, and finally submitted to Students Council for approval.

Key activity 10: Updates to Alcohol Procedures Late 2017 it was decided that UMSU could no longer bear the risk and clubs would have to acquire their own liquor licences. To aid in this quick transition in process a guide on how to apply for a liquor licence was written (in consultation with the VCGLR), as well as a FAQ document to answer all questions clubs might have and a practical guide to supplying and serving alcohol document. These were distributed to clubs and they were informed our door was open to answer any questions. A forum to announce this was initially planned however this was cancelled due to aggressive behaviour shown outside of the office by some club executives in relation to the changes. Furthermore general alcohol ordering processes were changed throughout the year as well.

Key activity 11: Camp and General Wellbeing Training There are very specific requirements that clubs must comply with for running a camp, including that there must be a minimum number of students who are designated as leaders, with first aid training, Responsible Service of Alcohol certification if alcohol is being served, and Safe Food Handling qualifications if the club is providing the food. In addition to this, there must be a minimum number of Wellbeing Officers, who are students who have undertaken the Camp Wellbeing Training that is provided by the Safer Communities Program. The training is structured to equip the leaders to deal with potential issues and conflicts that may arise, as well as looking after the students on camp more generally, as camps are a higher risk environment than standard events, and clubs have a duty of care to any attendees of their events. The C&S Department is responsible for coordinating these sessions with SCP, and advertising the sessions to club executives. One of the primary goals of this year was to improve the training by expanding its scope, and altering the presentation of the training in such a way that it would be more sensitive in its delivery. Feedback is collected from every session, and this is used to continue to adapt the training. The hope is that one day this training will be available to a higher number of club executives, and will be applicable to a broader range of events.

Key activity 12: Executive Handbook Wiki Updates The executive wiki serves as an overall guide to every element of the running of clubs and societies. It also functions as a plain English guide to the regulations. The wiki was a recent project, and has been a continuous work in process for the department for the past few years, only launching in 2017. One of the primary goals for this year has been to update and improve the content that is already on there, as well as populate it with content that it is currently missing, as well as making it more accessible to club executives, and more well known among clubs.

Key activity 13: New Club Affiliations Each semester students and groups have the opportunity to apply to affiliate to UMSU as a club. This process involves coming to the office to collect the form, consulting with Fiona and the Office Bearers in the creation of their aims and constitution, initial approval by the C&S Committee, in which their application is assessed against a set of requirements in the regulations. The department must then transact with the group throughout the semester as

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

they complete each step of the process, and then must provide a Returning Officer to each new club to run their Inaugural General Meeting, which comes from the C&S Committee and Office Bearers.

Key activity 14: General Admin, Documentation Updates, and Miscellaneous Tasks The current size of the Clubs and Societies Department means that the scale of the administrative work is beyond a single staff member. There are up to 50 emails per day, but beyond this, there are activities including managing lockers, mailboxes, managing trainings, keeping the clubs website updated as clubs provide new information, passing banner design requests between clubs and the Communications department, as well as assessing compliance with other smaller elements of the regulations including asset compliances, event processes and constitutional changes. The Office Bearers provide advice to clubs on almost every aspect of the running of events and their obligations to the department. Additionally, the Office Bearers assist in grievance and mediation processes when clubs request them, although this is largely conducted by Fiona. Another key activity that the Office Bearers are responsible for is defending C&S Committee disciplinary decisions to the Students’ Council when clubs appeal disaffiliations. This happened on 3 occasions in 2018, with varying results.

Evaluation of activities throughout the year

Evaluation of activity 1: Semester 1 Orientation Club Stall: The stall for the Whole of Union day was very straight forward with not a large amount of planning put into it on our part. We simply had a table with boxes worth of the Clubs Guide, and the majority of the conversations were telling people to come back over the next two days to visit the Clubs Expo to talk to the clubs themselves. The Clubs Guide proved to be extremely beneficial to students who were potentially not aware of the scope of clubs that existed. While there could have been more effort put in to attract students to our stall on this day, it wasn’t was overly necessary given the prominence of the advertising for the Clubs Expo.

Clubs Expo: At the end of 2017, the Orientation Policy for clubs was updated, which was designed to keep the Expo better managed and more accessible to students. The changes were on how clubs were to manage lines away from their stalls, including policy that restricted clubs’ ability to wander around in front of their stalls or throughout the expo as a whole. This assisted greatly with crowd control and ease of navigating the event, and in general made the event more smoothly than in previous years. There was only one club that disobeyed this policy to the extent that they were banned from the Expo for their stall on the following day, as they had representatives roaming all through the stalls, which is expressly prohibited, as it is unfair on other clubs who are trying to engage students, and overall contributes to the event being crowded and overwhelming. There were easily over 1,000 students through each day, which meant that it was a considerably more stressful event to manage for us, even with the assistance of our committee. The planning of the event itself as also stressful, as it involves navigating the clubs’ applications to have a stall, and then designing the layout in conjunction with the Communications department, who assist with the event management.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Promotional Period: The promo period was relatively well handled by the clubs themselves, as the majority of them had little difficulty in adding their events to the calendar. However, there were still a large amount of grants that were rejected or funded at a lower rate due to a failure to comply with any of the requirements specific to promotional period grants. The promo period is a very efficient way to start the year for clubs, as it is easier to get higher funding for events, which tend to be higher risk for clubs, as it is always difficult to predict attendance this early in semester.

Sleepover: The Union House Sleepover was challenging for the clubs who attended it, as the communication between UMSU and the clubs was not clear, as a result of a lack of communication between Activities and the Clubs departments. The event was difficult for clubs to manage generally, and there was little incentive for them to get involved, as it required a very high commitment from committee members, but very low gain for the club itself.

Clubs Guide: The Clubs Guide was a great success this year, as the majority of clubs did not need to update the information that was already on file for them, and those that did submitted it promptly. Comms did the design work and formatted the whole thing for us, and the final product was very well received.

Evaluation of activity 2: Clubs Carnival The Clubs Carnival set up took a very similar form to the Expo days from Summerfest, as a set of marquees on South Lawn. The event was much smaller that the orientation expo however, with the cap for participation set at only 30 clubs. The majority of applications were creative and diverse in nature, as the goal of the event was to create a carnival atmosphere, with activities and fun things designed to entertain, rather than purely attract members. Priority was given to clubs who had affiliated in semester 2 of the previous year, as it ultimately is used as a chance to gain more members. The event was well attended, and was participated in enthusiastically be students and clubs alike. Additionally, as the event was run on a Thursday, the Activities department were kind enough to move their barbeque to South Lawn, which greatly increased the attendance at the event, and also provided a convenient source of food. The biggest issue that was encountered was that several clubs wanted to perform music, and it was not made clear between Comms and C&S of who was responsible for applying for a noise permit. It later transpired that such a thing did not exist, and Fiona has been working with Venue Management to fill some of the loopholes in policy and management.

Evaluation of activity 3: Semester 2 Orientation Whole of union day: This event was considerably easier than semester 1 version, as the event was held in Union Hall, located directly above our office, which meant that the set up was very simple. The day ran much like the Summerfest version, in which we handed out Clubs Guides and told everyone to come back tomorrow to see the actual clubs.

Clubs Expo: The biggest variation on this event compared to previous was the location. This year it was held inside Union House, as opposed to South Lawn, where Summerfest is held, or Concrete Lawns, which has been the traditional home of Winterfest Clubs Expo. Concrete Lawns in particular has resulted in the event being washed out and miserable when it

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

inevitably rains. The change to location prevented this however, and generally resulted in a more festive atmosphere for the event, but was not free from its own new and unforeseeable issues. The event ran across several levels of union house, including North Court, Union Hall and the level 2 meeting rooms. Clubs were grouped by theme and size, with the larger clubs strategically spread out over the building to reduce crowding. This resulted in an increased complexity and level of planning for the event, particularly around organising where power would be provided as well as safety concerns for clubs that had historically long lines that could block off large areas. This also resulted in us needing to ask volunteers from clubs to help us run our stalls across the 3 levels. This was relatively successful, as there were five volunteers from clubs helping on the day. The biggest frustration in planning was having to continuously rework the entire club layout map, as well as reallocating and numbering all the clubs’ stall locations, due to Comms repeatedly adjusting the site map as they changed their minds on where they wanted the extra features and safety concerns arose. The event ran smoothly however with only one club being told off on more than one occasion. The set up was slightly stressful, which was largely due to this being the first time this event was run in Union House. There was also the issue of the majority of committee and one of the Office Bearers being largely unavailable, however that shouldn’t be an issue next year. It is worth noting that the pack down was incredibly quick and much faster than in semester 1, likely due to the location and the clubs being spread over 3 locations.

Evaluation of activity 4: Awards Night This was only the third year that Awards Night has been run, and each year it has reached a new evolution and improved. From the first year, which was more of a trivia night, this year saw the move into the refurbished Ida Bar. This venue was much more suited to our needs and idea for the event, as it allowed it to be more formal. AV set up a small stage for us to present the awards from. We used the same catering company as the last year, which meant that our estimation of quantities was accurate, and that we were assured of the high quality. The attendance was as anticipated, which was around 150 people, with clubs allowed up to 5 committee members. Having a door list instead of tickets also worked much more efficiently than in previous years, as did setting up a specific cloak room. The majority of clubs who received awards were very excited by this, and it was one of the most rewarding parts of the year.

Evaluation of activity 5: Membership Compliance Membership compliance is assessed at the start of the year, and is one of the few events where the deadline for submission is not arbitrary, but rather specifically listed in the regulations. Compliance is not limited to having 30 University of Melbourne students as members, but extends to having complete records of all members. Consequently the key issues that arise are that more than 10% of the data is missing, regardless of what form this takes. The majority of the confusion is around the question for whether a member is under or over 18, as this is often inverted. Assessment of this is a fiddly task, but issues are usually resolved very swiftly by clubs, and there were very, very few clubs who had less than the minimum people required.

Evaluation of activity 6: Activity Reporting

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

This is the other highly rewarding task of the year, as it involves reviewing the events that clubs have run. The biggest challenges of this task were in determining whether events were jointly held with another club, as this is not always clear, and whether photos submitted could be considered sufficient evidence. Clubs struggled with the concept of statutory declarations as an option for providing proof of events in the absence of any other evidence. Compared to membership compliance, this is one of the requirements placed on clubs that results in higher levels of disaffiliation, but is a more accurate representation of whether clubs are fulfilling the purpose that they committed to, and are benefiting members and the wider body of students at the university. Our statistics suggest that just under half of all students are members of a club.

Evaluation of activity 7: Processing General Meetings The results from AGM submissions were mixed this year. There is no set policy for whether the responsibility completing AGMs is the Office Bearers’ or staffs’, as last year the clubs casual staff member Thomas Martinello, completed the majority of the general meeting with the Office Bearers doing none, while the year before the Office Bearers did most of them. This year the annual general meetings and special general meetings were primarily completed by Matthew (160+ with 77 in semester 1 and over 83 in semester 2) and Patrick Clearwater, a casual staff member hired to assist with this (approximately 70 in semester 2). Fiona and Nellie processed a handful each. An internal document setting out the procedure for assessing AGM compliance and appropriate courses of action to take in the event of issues was written by Matthew, as well as a short hand checklist document that was created by Patrick. Additionally, a handover email template was written by Nellie, which was designed to prompt the outgoing committees to properly induct their successors.

Evaluation of activity 8: Committee Meetings This year the clubs and societies department held 25 committee meetings. Of which 4 of them were special meetings and only 1 of them was inquorate. Over 47 hours total was spent in committee meetings with the attendance list for the committee and office bearers listed below. (Note R means they resigned in that meeting and A means they were appointed before the start of that meeting). Committee has made 56 petitions to discipline, over 1,000 motions and processed approximately 1600 grants with the department funding over $214,800 with more payment application batches to go!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 S1 9 10 11 12 S2 13 14 S3 15 16 17 S4 18 19 20 21 Total Ciara 23/25 Chris 23/25 Coco 23/25 Sam 17/25 Sango 13/25 Raph 22/25 Ilan R 2/6 Bruni A 10/16 Matthew 23/25 Nellie 21/25 Figure 1. A list of attendance for committee and office bearers throughout the year. Note meeting 17 was inquorate.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation of activity 9: Regulation, Policy, and Process Reviews Only about half of the working group sessions that were intended to be held were ultimately fulfilled, as this was one of the first projects that was given a very low priority when the department got too busy. Unfortunately a lot of time of the Office Bearers is dedicated to organising the strictly necessary activities that are needed to keep the department running, so the amount of time available for more personal projects and goals is reduced quite rapidly as the year progresses. Some of the working groups were still held, with a series of changes written up in consultation with Fiona. The majority of these were passed by Students’ Council, however there are a few final issues that need to be addressed, considered, formalised and finally presented to the next committee and council for discussion. There are also plans in place to go through some of the more technical regulation sections with Fiona before the end of the term and to have them finished as well. Despite not all sessions having been completed, significant changes to regulations, policy library and processes have been made this year with changes to liquor licences, camps, welfare, orientation policy, clubs online and more.

Evaluation of activity 10: Updates to Alcohol Procedures While this was a decision we as a department supported, there were issues with the implementation. Clubs felt ambushed by the quick turnaround with this being announced 2-3 months before the first orientation camps and thus acted with hostility towards the department and office bearers at times. The harassment to the office bearers elect (during their exam time) around the work they were doing for it before their term even started resulted was rather deflating and somewhat soured the initial excitement of starting. The documents were well received as guides however and despite the initial complaints, almost every club has come back with mainly positive feedback on the experience reporting significantly fewer alcohol related incidents. The alcohol ordering process in general was implemented by Fiona and the new bar manager, however this caused issues with the bar manager forgetting club orders, not having the items on hand they wanted or not being able to provide prices until last minute. These should be looked into for next year to come up with a more accessible and structured process.

Evaluation of activity 11: Camp and General Wellbeing Training 13 camp welfare training sessions were held this year. Initially attendance for the sessions was poor with a large number of people dropping out last minute or not showing up. To counter that a policy was adopted around training attendance which gave committee the power to designate some trainings as resource limited and charge students for not attending. This drastically improved attendance and resulted in people pulling out earlier so they could be replaced. The training was changed about 8 sessions in so this made it difficult to discuss how to improve the training and adapt it more generally as the office bearers have been able to attend a full training together since then due to more pressing matters. There were also some communication issues between the department and safer communities with the department being late to set up some sessions and safer communities not replying to emails promptly, or at all, and even not turning up to a training session. There was also some communication made with CAPS about their assistance in a general welfare training however these was no action taken on this. A code of conduct for behaviour was written and regulation changes endorsed by committee that would allow for the training to eventually be

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

compulsory when it was implemented, however no significant process was made this year relating to implementing the general welfare training itself.

Evaluation of activity 12: Executive wiki updates There was a significant amount work put into the wiki this year, however there is a lot of work still to be done before it reaches a final form. Some of the content has been written but is offline/in various pieces that needs to be pieced together in a coherent manner and some has been planned but no action has occurred for it yet. The wiki is continuing to be more populated with sections, which are now listed as “coming soon” to give clubs an idea of what content to expect and remind us that we still need to do this. An attempt was made to communicate with Comms about potentially moving the wiki onto the UMSU website, however they were unresponsive and by the time they were able to discuss this with Fiona, there was not enough time for use to pursue this further. Ultimately however, wiki progress this year has been a success. Matthew has updated the training page, how to apply for a grant page and resources available to clubs page. He has fully reworked the AGM section and how to how to run an event section (although there are still several blanks) and helped with the glossary. Nellie has developed a glossary, which serves as a partial guide to every key feature of clubs, and generally provides clarity on terms that are specific to the regulations but not common.

Evaluation of activity 13: New Club Affiliations This process generated somewhat controversial issues for the department this year. There was a disappointing attitude of entitlement to affiliation from applicant groups, as opposed to viewing it as a privilege that is granted when it is deemed to have been earned. Several groups were resistant to following the procedure that is set out by C&S, and there was a major conflict between several groups in the first round of applications. Additionally, Fiona was on leave during the period of scheduling IGMs for clubs in semester 2, which caused further issues. Overall the majority of clubs who were affiliated in 2018 have a lot of promise, and will likely be successful. It is becoming more difficult to discern the extent to which new clubs will benefit the student body in ways that the currently existing clubs do not already, however the application form has since been updated to reflect this change in the department as a whole.

Evaluation of activity 14: General Admin and Documentation Updates This was a success because the department is still here and functioning. This required a significant amount of time, effort and energy. Most of our time in semester was spent answering emails or completing the day to day activities of the department. This was exacerbated when Fiona went on leave as our workload would get even larger and there are tasks that only she is capable of doing which clubs get frustrated and upset about when she’s not there (despite them all getting ample warning about it). Nonetheless it was all managed and mostly completed in a timely fashion making it a good year for clubs.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Recommendations relating to activity 1: Semester 1 orientation

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Club stall: Potentially organise something more structured and entertaining to bring people towards the stall, but the process for this is pretty set and doesn’t need any adjustment. Clubs expo: Ensure you are on top of the planning for this early. Sit down in a meeting with both office bearers, Fiona, Comms and possibly Goldie to clearly run through who is in charge of what for the planning and for the running of the event. Check with university grounds the noise restrictions and communicate early with them about clubs which will be having live, loud music that may require approval from the university. There will always be an element or two of this that cannot be done until the last minute because it requires involvement from clubs, comms, AV and the university so be prepared for several very late nights leading up to the expo. Get the layout and risk assessment for it signed of ASAP with comms. Promo period: Consider advertising it earlier or running a training on how to put an event on the calendar. One option could be including the link to the exec wiki page that does a step by step guide of how to put events on the calendar and stressing in the email that events are likely subject to not being fully funded (if at all) if this requirement is not complete. Advertise the calendar earlier and have it a requirement to complete approximately 1-2 weeks before O week so it is possible to print out the calendar of all Summerfest events to distribute during orientation stalls. Sleepover:

Recommendations relating to activity 2: Clubs Carnival The primary issues with Clubs Carnival will easily be resolved with planning the event more in advance than was done this year, and by having an awareness of the issues that were managed poorly this year. The size of the event and the specific focus on creating a fun carnival atmosphere are really important, and we would recommend coordinating with Activities again in future, although it would be preferable to have a club run a barbeque at the event.

Recommendations relating to activity 3: Semester 2 orientation We would highly recommend expo be held in Union House again. While there were hiccups, most of these were due to being short staffed or the event being run for the first time in this manner. Like for semester 1 ensure you are on top of the planning for this early. Sit down in a meeting with both office bearers, Fiona, Comms and possibly Goldie to clearly run through who is in charge of what for the planning and for the running of the event. Probably steer clear of additional “activations” such as fire pits etc. They were somewhat lackluster compared to the rest of the event and resulted in OH&S issues that meant clubs got shuffled around. The event is about showcasing clubs so always come back to that when deciding if you should include something. Lock in the site map with comms early next time and push for it to be the final map so last minute changes and rearranging doesn’t repeatedly happen again (Hint: less changes will happen if there are less activations).

Recommendations relating to activity 4: Clubs award night This event would benefit from a further upscale in size and quality, as well as more advanced planning and advertising to clubs. The limited availability of alcohol combined with the amount of food meant that the event was manageable, however this could be increased to a bar tab rather than drink cards if the event reached a certain size and quality. Advertising the awards that are available at the start of the year would also help in increasing the attendance.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Recommendations relating to activity 5: Checking membership compliance There is little that will change for membership compliance assessment in 2019, as it is an established process, which Fiona will support the Office Bearers through. The only

Recommendations relating to activity 6: Activity Reporting Activity Reporting is also unlikely to change in any significant extent, however there may be some updates to clubs online in the course of 2019 that will affect this. It is a routine task that Fiona will largely oversee.

Recommendations relating to activity 7: Processing General Meetings There is now a more rigid structure for how to complete general meetings but not necessarily for who is to complete them. It is likely that this may fall to the office bearers again and if they are unable to keep up with the task that casual staff members will be hired again to do it. It is important to note that this is a time consuming task as majority of AGMs happen within the space of about 3-4 weeks so the office bearers need to be aware of this and plan accordingly. The second half of semester 2 is not a time to be undertaking projects but literally just focusing on keeping on top of the clubs workload and working together to process the AGMs as they get submitted. The biggest issues with AGMs have been quorum, sponsorships and mismatched treasurer’s reports. To fix the first issue I’d recommend pushing for changes to the clubs online reporting system where there is a box under where they submit the attendance list that must be ticked which says “I have updated the membership list on clubs online” or something to that effect. The second issue can be resolved by changing clubs online such that AGMs can’t be submitted unless all the compulsory documents are attached. The third issue should be reduced by the updated sample treasurer’s report on clubs online as well as by remind clubs in AGM time the wiki has a full guide on how to run and submit documents for a general meeting.

Recommendations relating to activity 8: Committee Meetings We’d recommend maintaining the same structure of alternating office bearer who chairs and minutes the meeting. Writing the minutes is a lot easier if you’re there so it pushes you to attend the meeting however writing the minutes if you’re not there allows you to better grasp what you missed. FIona and your co-OB can fill in extra conversation points if need be. Set a schedule early and write minutes the day of the meeting if possible. Long meetings can take several hours to do with minutes often being over 2000 or 3000 words and 10 plus pages, however they are required in 3 days and FIona can’t do her job properly without them so they are a priority. We’d also suggest someone other then the incoming OBs (recommend a past OB, or previous Gen Sec who has experience with the clubs department) to sit down with clubs committee before the first meeting to discuss their role, responsibilities and courses of action for things such as keeping the office bearers accountable or pushing for more information. This department requires a significant amount of work to just keep it running and it’s not uncommon for disparity in workload between co-OBs or things to get left behind.

Recommendations relating to activity 9: Regulation, policy and process reviews

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

As a general recommendation be aware of the time that you do have and the time you won’t have to complete projects and plan accordingly. The regulations has been reviewed, however still needs more work to fix some areas and update it for clubs online which will be good to do with Fiona. Bring to committee and council the changes that have been completed by the end of the year which haven’t been adopted yet. Focus on the key areas of the regulations which haven’t been reviewed yet if this is a goal for you. Don’t forget that corresponding forms and procedures are important to review too. Camps should have a further review session after the second year of liquor licences to improve the new process which should be done in consultation with the new bar manager when they begin work.

Recommendations relating to activity 10: Updates to Alcohol Procedures If decisions like this are made in the future I’d recommend either further consultation with clubs OR pushing the desciosions back to a more convenient time for clubs. The policy needs to be reviewed again after 2019 orientation camps to determine how effective they are. Further work needs to go into how clubs order alcohol both for camps and in general with the process having changed multiple change. The alcohol ordering process needs to be adjusted to come up with a more accessible and structured process that allows clubs to know what they can order or how far in advance they need to place special orders as well as having the prices up front before they pay as this will affect what they buy. If possible the price list could be given in a file that’s explicitly stated as being confidential which is provided to clubs on request.

Recommendations relating to activity 11: Camp and General Wellbeing Training Put Camp training in your calendars so you do not forget about them. It is your job to set up these as well as roster people into these at least a week beforehand as per the training policy. Print off the documents and combine them the day before to save you time on the day. It is a good idea to stay for the start to collect the attendance list and introduce safer communities to try and build a rapport between you. It is a good idea to put one office bearer in charge of rostering for the training as it usually requires checking daily and is not very time intensive but needs to be done carefully to not miss anything.

Recommendations relating to activity 12: Executive Handbook Wiki Updates There are several pages on the wiki that merely state “coming soon” which should be a focus as they are all important sections that will be greatly beneficial to clubs. The wiki should be added to the list of things to review and check any time a policy, regulation or process has been changed in the department to ensure it is up to date. Matthew has already started the process of interlinking the wiki so that all information is only there once and when something changes only needs to be adjusted once with effective links between sections across the wiki. This should be put off temporarily however until the wiki is moved as the linking will need to be redone if the platform changes. Currently the wiki can only be accessed at uni or via uni wireless with a VPN which is a large barrier for accessibility that needs to be fixed by either moving it onto the UMSU website with Comm’s permission or moving it onto a 3rd party platform. We’d suggest making this (and then creating the new content) a priority.

Recommendations relating to activity 13: New Club Affiliations The updates to the form will improve this process, the main issue to be aware of is in the way the committee assesses the validity of applications.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Recommendations relating to activity 14: General Admin and Documentation Updates Be warned that majority of your time will be spent dedicated to maintaining the day to day functions of the office and having to communicate with over 200 clubs and around 1,000 executive members leaves little time for your own projects. Dedicate the time you have in the summer and winter breaks to focusing on your projects under the pretext that you will have little time during semester. However these day to day tasks are important and help inform you on what needs improving in the department so don’t neglect them. At the start of your term try answering as many emails as possible and asking Fiona as many questions as necessary. It’ll make things a lot easier if you already know the answer when you get the same email content 60 times, especially when there are no staff around to support you when they take leave or a sick. Read the handover documents thoroughly and if you come across a situation which isn’t in there but will likely come up again then add it to the handover straight away so it is a reference for you later as well as future office bearers. Fiona and past OBs have a strong understanding of the work that the department requires so talk to them about what the expectations of the office are and what the different workloads will be for each task. It’s a good idea to immediately set boundaries, potentially allocate some tasks to specific people and discuss how you will manage times of intense workloads such as AGM processing in semester 2. While it is not the purview of this report to consider it, we would suggest the need for additional staff to help manage the general admin component of this department.

Creative Arts Freya McGrath and Ashleigh Morris

Key activities throughout the year Key Activity 1 – Summerfest & Winterfest Activities 1. Carnival Day - Creative Arts Stall 2. Whole of Union Sleepover a. Environmental Haunted House b. Craft and Chill Space in the Arts Lab c. Dance Workshop: Diva Dance 3. Botanic Drawing event at Burnley Campus 4. ARTY PARTY in collaboration with Union House Theatre

5. Carnival Day - Creative Arts Stall 6. Knitting Workshop – Get Your Knit Together! 7. Winter Warmer Dance Workshop 8. Arty Party 2.0 – Old and Fancy

Key Activity 2 – Visual Art Classes 1. Botanic Drawing (See also Summerfest & Interdepartmental collaborations) 2. Screen Printing Workshop with Susan Hewitt 3. Knitting Workshop (See also Winterfest & Interdepartmental collaborations)

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Key Activity 3 – Pot Luck Open Mic Nights Four Pot Luck Open Mic Night events held across the year.

Key Activity 4 – TOTT-Shops (Tricks of the Trade Workshops) A series of professional development workshops for emerging artists. 1. How to Write a Grant App 2. Happy Healthy Art-Making

Key Activity 5 – Talking Out of Your Arts (Post-show Q&As) 1. Plastic Shakespeare – Melbourne University Shakespeare Company 2. Everything is Fine – Four Letter Word 3. Things We Should Talk About – Union House Theatre Company 4. Hedda Gabler - Four Letter Word 5. IDA the Musical - Union House Theatre Company

Key Activity 6 – TASTINGS 18 1. Professional Development period – 11 professional mentorships 2. TASTINGS Takeover – 10 Visual Artists 3. TASTINGS Showcase – 11 Key Creatives

Key Activity 7 – Student Representation 1. University of Melbourne Theatre Board 2. Union House Theatre Awards Committee 3. George Paton Gallery Selection Panel 4. Arts and Entertainment Student Advisory Group 5. George Paton Gallery Student Precinct Working Group

Key Activity 8 – Interdepartmental Collaborations 1. Whole of Union Sleepover – Environmental Disaster Haunted House in Collaboration with the Environment Department 2. Botanic Drawing in collaboration with Burnley Campus 3. ARTY PARTY in collaboration with Union House Theatre 4. Radical Education Week – Radical Performance Roundtable & Commissioning of Radical Performance Art Piece, in collaboration with the Environment Department 5. Crafts, Queer & Beer event in collaboration with the Queer Department 6. Knitting Workshop: “Get Your Knit Together” in collaboration with the Disabilities Department 7. Stress Less Week event: Princess Painting Party in collaboration with Welfare Department and the Women’s Department 8. Above Water: Creative Writing Anthology in collaboration with the Media Department

Key Activity 9 – MUDFEST Preparation 1. Review of organisational structure based on 2017 recommendations 2. Application for SSAF grant of $60,000

Key Activity 10 – Grants

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Grant Round One Antonia Yip $450 Danielle Fusco $300 Hayden Allen - VCA $450 MCA group - VCA $500 Sean McDowell $350 Zamara Robinson - VCA $450

Grant Round Two Adelaide Grieg $400 Callum Ross $400 Eitan Ritz - VCA $400 Mudcrabs $250 Michael Sandford $400

Grant Round Three Amelia Seyward $400 Lisa Mansfield $500

Grant Round Four Bon Mott $500 Alice Watson - VCA $500 Priya Pavri $500 Stepanka Cervinkova $500

Grant Round Five Emily White & Liv Bell $500 Thalia Livingstone - VCA $500 Po-Han Kung $500

UMSU Creative Arts Award Sarah Bostock and Sophie $1000 Chauhan

Evaluation of activities throughout the year Evaluation of Activity 1 – Summerfest & Winterfest Activities For the Whole of Union Sleepover, the Creative Arts Department ran an ongoing Craft and Chill space in the Arts Lab, the Environmental Disaster Haunted House in collaboration with the Environment Department and a Diva Dance Session run by Creative Arts Officer, Freya McGrath. The Environmental Disaster Haunted House was a great success in terms of attendance, with participants lining up all night. The Diva Dance Session taught participants some snazzy diva dance moves.

We had fantastic engagement with the students at Burnley campus during the Botanic Drawing class. We had over 30 participants on the day (the majority from Burnley) and some beautiful botanic drawings were produced.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Images 1 and 2: Photographs from Botanic Drawing event at Burnley Campus.

Summerfest ended with the infamous ARTY PARTY, in collaboration with Union House Theatre, which had a fantastic turn out. There were plenty of fresh faces at the event – lots of first years who were excited to get involved in the Creative Arts Department and Union House Theatre. We ended the night with the dance routine learnt from Freya’s Diva Dance session at the Whole of Union Sleepover event.

On reflection of Summerfest, we tried to keep our Winterfest activities to a minimum. For Carnival Day we ran the Creative Arts Stall and then facilitated a Knitting Workshop – “Get Your Knit Together!” in collaboration with the Disabilities Department. Freya presented a Winter Warmer Dance Workshop in collaboration with Union House Theatre and we topped it all off with Arty Party 2.0 – Old and Fancy, which again had a great turnout. Evaluation of Activity 2 – Visual Art Classes Across the year we presented three visual art classes including our Botanic Drawing Class, a Knitting Workshop (see Summerfest activities / Interdepartmental activities) and a Screen Printing Workshop with Susan Hewitt. At the beginning of the year we planned on facilitating six visual art classes, however this was not manageable due to our workloads in Semester 2. To make up for this, we also provided opportunities for students to engage in arts and crafts activities at many of our events including the arts collective, PLOM and interdepartmental collaborations. We also awarded 11 of our total 20 arts grants to Visual Art projects.

Evaluation of Activity 3 – Pot Luck Open Mic Nights Over 2018, we hosted four Pot Luck Open Mic Nights (two per semester). These open mic nights provided a safe and supportive environment for emerging performers and new students to perform. PLOM quickly developed an encouraging community of performers and audience members and remains one of the only open access performance opportunities on campus. “What a great event” – Alston Chu, 2018 “Better than Wordplay” – Media Department, 2018

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Images 1 and 2: Performer Catriona Smith and audience at PLOM #2

Evaluation of Activity 4 – TOTT-Shops (Tricks of the Trade Workshops) This year the Creative Arts Department launched a new series of professional development workshops for emerging artists called TOTT-Shops (Tricks of the Trade Workshops). These workshops focused on upskilling and providing professional development opportunities for the creative community at University and beyond. We presented a workshop on writing strong Grant Applications with producer Josh Wright; and a Happy, Healthy Art-Making session on safe-practice in the arts with Tracy Margieson from the Arts Well-being Collective. Attendance for both events was very high and students had fantastic, positive feedback after each session.

Evaluation of Activity 5 - TOOYA (Talking Out of Your Arts) Talking Out of Your Arts is a post-show Q&A event designed as an opportunity for students to speak to their work and in turn open a dialogue between community and artists on how we respond to the works we attend. These sessions facilitated critical discussion about the artwork and provided in depth insight into the artistic processes behind these works. Attendance was generally very high on TOOYA nights and the students who requested the TOOYA events always found the sessions extremely valuable. Evaluation of Activity 6 – TASTINGS TASTINGS 18 supported the development of eleven original works, presented in the Guild theatre from August 22-25th. Over 330 people attended the shows across the four nights of the season, selling out each night. The eclectic program included a variety of performance styles and explored a very diverse range of themes. The production involved over 60 artists/cast members and production team members – with a large portion of the team as newcomers to student theatre. All the artists involved were also first time TASTINGS presenters. Over 60% have plans to develop their pieces further in the future; some within university and others aiming for the Butterfly Club or Melbourne Fringe festival 2019. In 2018 we also introduced a TASTINGS Takeover event in which 10 student visual artists presented work around the Guild Foyer. There was great variation in the medium of the works including short film, drawings, collage, video art and embroidery.

We budgeted $13,500 for TASTINGS development, Takeover and Showcase – comprised of $8500 allocated in the UMSU Creative Arts budget, $4000 in support from the Melbourne

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

University Theatre Board and $500 in Front of House Sales. In the end we made $1475 in ticket sales. In terms of sales, we sold 339 tickets, including 24 complimentary tickets and 315 sales.

As part of the TASTINGS development period, each artist was paired with an industry professional mentor to help guide their creative development. We received a great deal of positive feedback regarding the mentorship from the artists: “Having a mentor was incredibly valuable and was definitely a fundamental part of getting our show together.” Tastings Artist

“Fantastic, having him there gave me little deadlines to work to and his feedback constructive. It was very valuable, I feel I've learnt a lot off of Jonathan. He was very generous with his time, particularly in post-production assistance.” James Cameron

“Our mentorship was fantastic. Dan not only taught us about theatre making, he also validated our practice and has fuelled our creative aspirations.” Luke Macaronas

“It was easily the most important part of the process for me - I could not have staged any of it without Jean, she was there for absolutely every aspect of the project, she helped me with ordering the scenes, with choosing the right lighting, and was just in general the most supportive person ever.” Cindy Jiang

Feedback from the Artists: “Being involved in Tastings made me realise how much I should have been doing this since first year. What a joyful experience  ” Tastings Artist 2018

“Coming into this project I always expected to meet and work with incredibly talented, likeminded people with stories to tell, but somehow you exceeded that by being completely gorgeous people too! So I also wanted to say thank you to all of you, artists, cast and prod team, Freya and Ash, for making this one of the best experiences ever!” Tastings Artist 2018

Excerpts from Reviews: “The seven-course dinner that was Tastings ’18 Group A brought together seemingly heavy subject matters, usually hidden by the mundanity of the everyday, and emphasised their immense weight. Five stand-alone performances stripped away their existential layers and provided us with a fleeting but intimate glimpse of bare emotion and experience. All seven performances in Tastings reflected different ends of the social and cultural spectrum – making it relatable whilst unveiling perspectives that we or the people around us deal with on daily basis.”- Sakina Aliakbar, The Dialog

“It’s hard to come away from a show like this feeling anything other than inspired and creatively full – and my experience was no exception. The originality of the works on offer at Tastings 18 was admirable, but what struck me most about the evening was the vulnerability and honesty on display. The works cut to the heart of what it means to be young adults navigating a changing and often harsh world. They did it with beauty, strength and imagination. The work I saw at Tastings will stay will me long after I finish this review, and I think I’m better for that.” – Caitlin Wilson, The Dialog

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation of Activity 7 - Student Representation Theatre Board: The Creative Arts Officers provided student perspectives, recommendations and nominated people for student and diversity positions. We assisted in the Terms of Reference working group which was developed this year to reconsider the scope of the Board. One of the recommendations from the Terms of Reference Working Group was to invite the VCA student representative to sit on the Theatre Board, to further connect in with that campus.

Union House Theatre Awards Committee: As part of the Awards Committee, the Creative Arts Officers attended shows presented as part of the Union House Theatre Semester 1 and 2 programs, and assessed them based on artistic, technical and community-building merit. The awards night was a fantastic event presented by Union House Theatre, and many TASTINGS artists received nominations and awards for their work.

Image 1: Sarah Bostock and Sophie Chauhan accepting the UMSU Creative Arts Award 2018.

George Paton Gallery Selection Panel: In Semesters 1 and 2, Arts Programs invited us to sit on the Selection Panel for the George Paton Gallery. This was a great privilege to be able to see the scope and talent of Visual Artists at our University.

Arts and Entertainment Student Advisory Group: We provided student perspectives and representation at the Arts and Entertainment Student Advisory Group twice across the year. These SAGs gave us valuable insight into the different arts departments of the Union including GPG, UHT and the Rowden White Library and allowed us to commence discussions on Mudfest.

George Paton Gallery Student Precinct Working Group: We attended this group at the request of Susan Hewitt to provide our perspective and advise on the needs of the visual art community at this campus. It was a very productive conversation and we would advise that Creative Arts be included in future discussions of this nature in the future.

Evaluation of Activity 8 – Interdepartmental Collaborations This year the Creative Arts Department collaborated with seven different departments through interdepartmental activities and events including the Environment Department, Burnley 45

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Campus, Queer Department, Disabilities Department, Women’s Department, Welfare Department and the Media Department. In addition to collaborations with student representatives, we also collaborated with other UMSU staff and departments including Union House Theatre and the George Paton Gallery.

Some of these collaborations were more successful than others. We highly recommended continuing the Botanic Drawing workshop – this was a great way to engage with Burnley Campus. If the Creative Arts Department are to collaborate with the Activities department on the Whole of Union Sleepover again, we would recommend not taking on so many events & prioritising self-care. The Environmental Disaster Haunted House was a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with the Environment Department but we would recommend organising a smaller scale event in future years.

Image 1: Radical Art-Making Session at Radical Education Week w/ Environment Department. Image 2: Crafts, Queer and Beer event in collaboration with the Queer Department

The other collaborations throughout Semester 1 were all thoroughly enjoyable and a great opportunity for bonding with other Office Bearers while expanding audience reach. Some highlights include our collaboration with the Environment Department for Radical Education Week, where we commissioned a live “radical performance”, conducted a Roundtable discussion, and hosted a Radical Art-Making craft session. Crafts Queer and Beer was also a really fun event for students – with a great turnout, but in future we recommend allocating more money for this event. Stress Less Week event: Princess Painting Party in collaboration with the Women’s Department and the Knitting Workshop: “Get Your Knit Together”, presented in collaboration with the Disabilities Department, were also very chill events, which engaged a wide range of students.

In Semester two we Above Water: Creative Writing Anthology in collaboration with the Media Department. For this we read hundreds of submissions and decided upon final works to go in the anthology. We also organised the Above Water Launch Party in the Rowden White Library.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

In future we would recommend doing more collaborations with VCA. This year we planned to go down to VCA during O-week, but our committee were unavailable to help run the stall & we were busy running the Carnival Day Stall at Parkville. We still provided financial support for over six VCA projects through our Creative Arts Grants – making up 30 per cent of our total 20 arts grants. $2800 of total $8750 (32%).

Evaluation of Activity 9 As part of our preparation process for the 2019 MUDFEST SSAF application we reviewed the recommendations provided by the 2017 Creative Arts Office Bearers. We also met with UHT Artistic Directors & Susan Hewitt to discuss the festival structure and organisational structure. After this process we developed our application with changes to some of the systems of the festival, and requested more funding to accommodate these changes which included new paid positions. We were successful in securing $60,000 in SSAF funding to go towards MUDFEST 2019.

Evaluation of Activity 10 – Arts Grants & UMSU Creative Arts Award 2018 Over the course of 2018, the UMSU Creative Arts Department spent $8,750 out of allocated $10,000 (87.5%) in supporting student-led creative projects. We allocated most of the remaining funds to the UMSU Creative Arts Award at the Union House Theatre Awards Night – a grant of $1000 to go towards the production of a new work, increasing our total grant expenditure to $9750 (97.5% of our budgeted allocation).

We had a total of 22 applications and supported 20 student artists/groups to produce creative works over five grant rounds. We supported a range of creative disciplines and mediums which are broken down below: Arts Grant Projects 11 - Visual Art exhibitions 4 – Theatre/Performance productions 2 – Workshops 1 – Dance project 1 – Mental Health First Aid Training for Equity Officers 1 – Visual Art zine

This does not include the 18 grants awarded to TASTINGS Artists (an additional $1800). Visual Arts Performing Arts Workshops Other

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Recommendation 1 Engagement with other campuses. Keep going with Botanic Drawing – it is a very effective collaboration with the Burnley campus. In the upcoming Mudfest year we recommend that the Creative Arts and VCA Office Bearers collaborate to develop various planned events around the festival that reach out to the Southbank campus in a more significant way.

Recommendation 2 In Orientation weeks we recommend that the Creative Arts OBs focus on quality over quantity of events to avoid burnout.

Recommendation 3 Consider what professional development opportunities would best serve the community. There has been increased interest in professional development opportunities in the last few years in particular.

Recommendation 4 Ensure that TOOYA is thoroughly advertised at the beginning of each semester and that the heads of the theatre companies are aware they can request this service from the department.

Recommendation 5 Make time and space for interdepartmental events. They can be really valuable for both departments and are a great way to expand the departments respective communities. We would particularly advise collaborating with the following departments who link quite naturally with the Creative Arts; Environments, Queer, Women’s, POC, Media, Disabilities, UHT, GPG.

Recommendation 6 Space out events in order to maximise advertising potential and not get lost in a sea of events.

Recommendation 7 Set and make visible Office Bearer working hours.

Disabilities Jacinta Dowe and Hien Nguyen

Key activities throughout the year

Key Activity 1 For Summerfest we ran Student Equity and Disability Services Workshop for students to learn about applying for special consideration, a carnival day Chill Space stall for students to relax on beanbags and listen to ambient music, and a social event called DisabiliTea for students to hang out and eat cupcakes. Key Activity 2

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Organising the new Disabilities Space

Key Activity 3 Australian Network on Disability Promotion and Info Session

Key Activity 4 Sleepover Sleep Space

Key Activity 5 Department Bookmarks

Key Activity 6 Demand Dignity campaign for National Day of Action

Key Activity 7 Introduction of ‘Mental Wellness Collective’, a fortnightly collaboration with Welfare Department. Continuation of Anxiety Support Group (though changed to a fortnightly event) and Disability Collective.

Key Activity 8 For Rad Sex and Consent Weeks we ran three events: Sex and Disabilities, Mental Health and Dating, and Autism and Relationships.

Key Activity 9 Disability Pride from a Non-Capitalist Perspective for Rad Ed Week.

Key Activity 10

Attended multiple meetings with University staff.

Key Activity 11 Disability Pride Event

Key Activity 13 CAPS Campaign with Welfare

Key Activity 14 Auslan Classes Level 1 & 2

Key Activity 15 #SuckItAbleism event

Key Activity 16 Attended NUS Disability Conference

Key Activity 17

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Spoon Week ‘Defiant Lives’ film screening

Key Activity 18 New Student Precinct engagement (throughout the year)

Key Activity 19

Ran two Invisible Illness Week events – Visibility: Understanding Invisible Illnesses, and Shining a Light on Invisible Illnesses

Key Activity 20 Development of a VCA Disability Support survey

Key Activity 21 End of year event.

Evaluation of activities throughout the year

Evaluation of Activity 1 SEDS Workshop was incredibly useful to those in attendance. We had a speaker from SEDS come and give a presentation, and where able to talk a few students through the process of applying. This also marked the beginning of year long collaboration with SEDS, where we were able to consistently help students with their applications and contact SEDS directly to sort through and provide specific feedback from students, leading to some changes in their processes.

We believe the event itself would have been better attended if we had chosen to do it on a later day (instead of first day of week one) so that more students would have been around to see it advertised, and if we’d been able to book a location that was more familiar to most students.

Chill Space didn’t receive high levels of engagement, although we were able to chat to a few interested students. It’s likely this is because the Carnival Day environment over all is very crowded and noisy, and therefore not a space that many of our collective members are likely to engage in.

DisabiliTea was a great event, we got to know a few members of our collective and chat about disability-related issues with studying and work. Those in attendance seemed to really enjoy it.

Evaluation of Activity 2

We put a lot of thought into the disability space, researched accessibility and ergonomic furniture to make sure it went above and beyond basic requirements and thought through everything that we could make available to disabled students to make their lives easier. We passed money from our budget to purchase much of this furniture. One issue raised with us by a student was lack of quiet study spaces, so we made sure to include a study space. The

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

space also has a kitchenette, dining area, and sleep space as these are all inclusions we believe will be of great benefit to many disabled students. While it’s not ideal that the space is on the fourth floor, we are happy with the level of privacy support it will afford students in our collective.

Evaluation of Activity 3

Australian Network on Disability Promotion and Info Session went well, the students in attendance were very engaged. After the session ended they continued talking about working with disability until we had to leave. We’ve continued to promote AND’s internship and mentorship programs to students throughout the year.

Evaluation of Activity 4

For UMSU Sleepover we ran a sleep space with blankets, pillows and beanbags. It was unused for most of the night until a lot of people came to sleep at once, we filled both rooms from around 2am to wake up time.

Evaluation of Activity 5

We printed 100 bookmarks with our Department contact and collective information on them. We have placed some in the Book Co-Op across from Food Co-Op and handed them out at various events. There are plenty left to go in the disabilities space for next year.

Evaluation of Activity 6

We ran a photo campaign for Demand Dignity and distributed flyers around campus and union house. Although we greatly appreciated the support of other office bearers, the photo campaign did not draw many students from outside the union. This is likely due to the small number of flyers distributed and the limited time frame to be involved in the campaign, which perhaps would have more accessible to students if we had provided a pdf print or sign template so that students could send in photos from home.

Evaluation of Activity 7

We introduced Mental Wellness Collective as a broader form of Anxiety Support Group, to discuss general experiences of mental illness and neuro-divergence, share coping mechanisms, and provide peer support. This was partially in response to two separate students coming to us to ask questions related to union activities specific to neuro- divergence.

Both Mental Wellness Collective and Anxiety Support Group where both usually attended by about 10-15 students, with the busier weeks in the semester getting around 1-5 attendees. Students were typically very engaged during the session, although few students felt the need to return regularly.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Disability Collective was consistently small, with about 1-5 students in attendance throughout the year. Feedback given to us on this issue generally involved feelings of stigmatisation and not wanting to be associated with ‘Disability’. We responded to this by pinning a post about the term Disability regarding this issue on our Facebook page and by shifting the language of our events to be vaguer and more encompassing, with the intention that this would give students more space to comfortably engage with us. We feel that the collective was valuable for those who attended, as it gave them a safe space to talk about issues and experiences they often cannot talk about anywhere else.

Evaluation of Activity 8

For Rad Sex and Consent Weeks we ran one speaker event, Sex and Disability with Jax Jacki Brown, and two workshop/discussion events: Mental Illness and Dating, and Autism and Relationships.

Autism and Relationships gained some interest from collective members, but none ended up attending. The other two events were both successful and facilitated valuable discussions.

Evaluation of Activity 9

Disability Pride from a Non-Capitalist Perspective was a good event, we had a small group of students who were very engaged in the conversation.

Evaluation of Activity 10

We attended multiple meetings and advisory groups with University staff throughout the year on topics such as Mental Health Support, Special Consideration, and Accessibility. These meetings where productive in providing feedback to the university and gaining insight into the universities’ aims and methods in relation to disability and accessibility.

Evaluation of Activity 11

We ran an event for Disability Pride with guest speaker Jax Jacki Brown, who gave a powerpoint presentation and lead a productive discussion after. This event was fairly well attended and a positive experience for those involved.

Evaluation of Activity 13

The CAPS Campaign with Welfare has enabled us to provide valuable feedback from students who want to see more funding go into CAPS, which has been useful to the national campaign as well as to us. It will be the task of future OB’s to keep this campaign moving.

Evaluation of Activity 14

Auslan Classes Level 1 & 2 where incredibly popular, we filled registration for both classes soon after advertising and received many additional requests from interested students.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation of Activity 15

#SuckItAbleism event was successful, we received positive feedback from a few students in attendance and the presentation lead into an engaged discussion.

Evaluation of Activity 16

NUS Disability Conference was very worthwhile, we were able to engage with many other office bearers and student reps working for disabled students. We also ran another workshop on Disability Pride from a Non-Capitalist perspective during the conference which sparked a large discussion amongst the attendees.

Evaluation of Activity 17 Spoon Week ‘Defiant Lives’ film screening didn’t draw many people but was a very relevant and important film.

Evaluation of Activity 18 New Student Precinct engagement (throughout the year). Through research, student feedback, and our own personal experiences, we were able to provide feedback on accessibility to the new Student Precinct designers throughout the year on topics such as bathrooms, signage, and navigation.

Evaluation of Activity 19

Visibility: Understanding Invisible Illnesses facilitated a cathartic discussion of chronic illness involving personal experiences and sharing tips on management, work, and studying while chronically ill.

Shining a Light on Invisible Illnesses was attended by a small group who were highly engaged with the content. We had a long discussion and received very positive comments afterwards from students who said they found the experience liberating and fantastic to be able to come together and talk about issues they didn’t feel comfortable talking about elsewhere.

Evaluation of Activity 20 The VCA Disability Support survey covers questions regarding the need for Disability support services and a Departmental presence at VCA. This will help future OB’s determine the level of need and what those needs are at VCA, as well as how to appropriately respond.

Evaluation of Activity 21 We ran an end of year picnic called ‘DisabiliTea: End of Year Celebration’ in November with free food on the concrete lawns.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Recommendation 1

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Auslan Classes drew the most interest from students – future OB’s may want to run additional classes to give more students the opportunity to attend.

Recommendation 2

Coms is important for advertising, but it is good for the Department to also be proactive. We suggest getting committee and collective members to invite their friends and sharing the events/activities on Facebook, putting flyers all over campus (not just focusing on union house), consistently updating the Disabilities notice board, using word of mouth, and requesting the presence/cross promotion of other UMSU office bearers where appropriate.

Recommendation 3 Think carefully around when events are scheduled. If you’re running events in weeks when students are more likely to be busy, give yourselves more time to advertise and try to make them appealing to students under stress. Bear in mind that events in Week 1 can’t be advertised as effectively in the weeks leading up to the event.

Education (Academic Affairs) Alice Smith and Toby Silcock

Report prepared by Alice Smith

2018 has been a great year for the Education Academic Department. A lot of what we do can go past unnoticed as if we are doing it well, issues get sorted before it gets to a wider student issue. A large focus of ours this year has been increasing the reach of the department beyond just those involved in our established programs like the Student Representative Network.

We have run a number of campaigns related to on campus issues including saving the Burnley library hours, law lecture recordings, commerce exam hurdles, Cadmus and others. Each campaign involved strong advocacy and public facing campaigns. This year has also seen the expansion of the Student Representative Network, the reintroduction of the Education Collective, the introduction of education stalls and, my favourite part of the year, a trip to Dookie.

Key activities:

Student Representative Network This year we have expanded the SRN, and have even more SRN positions to be filled for 2019. This is a great achievement as student input into decisions that affect students is crucial for ensuring that education is accessible and equitable. This year we continued to have governance training for the new representatives in conjunction with Advocacy, which was also attended by the GSA SRN representatives. The reports from committee members are now going straight to Advocacy as well as us, so they are alerted to issues immediately. We

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

have also continued the monthly-ish meetings and have started catering them to try and get student representatives along.

Applications for SRN 2019 have opened at the time of writing and will be chosen in conjunction with the UMSU Education Academic OB’s for 2019. This year we have chosen not to conduct interviews instead relying on the applications submitted by the applicants. This is a result of our experiences last year, where it was incredibly difficult to partake in the selection of applicants with the previous OBs given we were not in the interviews, and that not being able to interview as a result of going home overseas or interstate places some students at a disadvantage. Interviews are also not part of the current SRN policy for selection of representatives.

We have been in discussions with the Advocacy department this year about how we can even further expand the SRN to mandate positions on Chancellery working groups that relate to students, a current hole in student representation. We hope that work on this matter will continue into next year, as it has been met with some resistance from Chancellery itself. Another focus of this year that unfortunately will not be complete by the end of our term, but I will continue to work on the present to Students’ Council early 2019, is updating the SRN policy. This policy has not been updated since 2013, and is not in line with current practice or what the University expects in terms of timing.

Evaluation: The SRN program should of course continue to exist. Future office bearers should reach out to faculties and Chancellery to seek further roles for students to participate in, and should work for more formalised structures for the appointment of students to working groups. Also, there is much scope to work better with faculty clubs that fill positions the SRN would otherwise fill to offer training (such as SSS and Commerce).

Education Collective This year, we decided to bring back the Education Collective in conjunction with Education Public to have a way for students to bring issues to the Department, meet with other students who are passionate about education issues and feed students. This got some greater engagement with the Department, but there is plenty of scope for it to be expanded in the future. This program replaced the Policy Engagement Program as we wanted to have a collective that had open membership, as the SRN already has application-based entry and having only programs that have membership requirements is not beneficial for engaging with students.

Evaluation: The Education Collective should be continued next year with better advertising from O-Week. It has increased engagement with the Department, but maybe that was just us offering pizza. The Department should aim to have a mix of formalised involvement programs such as the SRN and informal programs like the Education Collective.

Education Stalls The Education Stalls on a Wednesday afternoon was a new initiative this year to allow students to approach the Department and ask questions or raise issues, as well as allowing us to spread information about our campaigns. This was a good method of hearing about

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

student’s issues that we otherwise wouldn’t have been aware of. The branding of the stalls also allowed us to take it to different locations, including as far as the Burnley campus.

Evaluation: The stalls are a good way of letting students learn more about the department, and can be better utilised in the future to promote campaigns and hear issues, and so should be continued next year with better communication.

Summerfest This Summerfest we worked with Education Public to run events over the orientation period. For the Departments day we had stalls at both Parkville and Southbank, allowing us to reach more students than ever before. Out tote bags, which we had designed by an outside designer, proved very successful and we have distributed all of them. We also published our department guide, bookmarks with handy information on them and department pens. We also spread information about Cadmus and made the simple information flyers available to other departments to have on their stands.

Evaluation: Having well designed tote bags gets the punters in, so I would definitely recommend continuing that. I would recommend also having more promotion of the department events separate to the guide, and getting more volunteers. Get somebody to proofread the guide before you send it to the printers.

Winterfest For Winterfest, we distributed the last of our tote bags packed with the items from Summerfest and also Department stress balls, which proved very popular. We had great engagement with new and returning students, despite not being in the Grand Buffet Hall with the majority of departments.

Evaluation: Continue to ensure we have enough materials to cover Summerfest and Winterfest so that we do not have to reorder materials.

LMS Project Over the course of this year I have worked with the team from University IT to ensure there has been adequate student consultation with the selection of a new LMS provider. This process is almost finished, and has been a great project in terms of student engagement with over 5% of the student cohort responding to the survey.

Evaluation: While not specifically a program, the LMS project has been an example of good collaboration between the Department and the University, leading to proper student consultation. In the future efforts should be made to continue the relationships built this year with the IT and Learning Environments to allow us to push for proper student consultation in future major projects.

Burnley One of our major campaigns for the beginning of this year was the protection of the Burney Library. The University proposed cutting the staffed library hours to a few hours a day and limit students to a smaller section of the library that could be accessed via library card for the

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

remaining hours. However, Burnley has a specialist collection that students often need help accessing and these changes were not proposed after student consultation. For the Education Academic part of the campaign, we met with the Head of University Services Paul Duldig and the Academic Registrar Neil Robinson, as well as the Acting Head of Library Services Donna McRostie. After a mix of our lobbying to the University administration and the campaign run on the ground by Education Public and the Burnley Student Association, the cuts were reversed.

Evaluation: This shows a successful way of running a campaign on a satellite campus, but I would warn future Education Academic Affairs OBs to watch out for these cuts again at Burnley and at other satellite campuses, as well as the smaller libraries at Parkville.

Dookie This year for the first time in recent memory I organised a trip to go and visit the students at the Dookie campus. We went in semester 2 in order to reach the largest numbers of students, as in addition to the Diploma of General Studies students some second year Bachelor of Agriculture students spend their second semester up at Dookie. We distributed the last of our tote bags, ran a BBQ for the students and talked to the students about the specific issues that affect them at the Dookie campus.

Evaluation: GO TO OUT SATELLITE CAMPUSES. We represent them too and they deserve to have UMSU engagement and representation.

NDA BBQ To support Education Public Affairs during the National Day of Action, we bought back the NDA BBQ. We fed a lot of hungry students, and attracted students to the area while the pre- rally on campus speak out was occurring.

Evaluation: Continue to support Education Public with the NDAs, and continue to run the BBQs as a method of attracting students. NDA’s are traditionally held on Wednesdays but if the date changes the Education Departments should try to work with Activities to share the BBQs.

Stressless Week During the Semester 1 Stressless Week we ran a screening of Happy Feet that was relatively well attended, and in Semester 2 we ran a chill room with Play Doh and pizza. Both events led to increased student morale which is great.

Evaluation: Both events ran well, but in the future maybe the events could have more of an academic skills focus or have related materials to link it more to the Department.

Advocacy and Us We have been meeting with Advocacy regularly to help plan campaigns, help understand our Academic Board and sub-committee papers and how to best engage with these bodies and understand what issues students are facing which can then inform our campaigns and advocacy. For example, being able to understand the practical issues with special

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

consideration helps inform what fixes we need from the University to make students’ lives better.

Evaluation: Continue to meet with Advocacy on a fortnightly basis.

FlexAP The project formerly know as FAP released its final recommendations at the end of last year and it was definitely a mixed bag. Progress on this project is very slow as it is a very costly reform, but already some recommendations have been dumped or altered after we raised our concerns, and some areas such as more summer/winter subjects are moving ahead rapidly. This project has to some extent been put on the backburner while the Melbourne Model Evolution Project recommendations are new and exciting, but over the next two years once the next budget cycle kicks in I expect to see a greater focus back on FlexAP, and student representatives need to be cautious of the University and what they try to push through.

Evaluation: Keep on top of what is happening with this project at all times. Do not let Gregor Kennedy pull one on us and create cuts for the purposes of “efficiency”. Be prepared for a fight.

Law Lecture Recordings Law has maintained for years that they will refuse to record lectures for access by the general student cohort, with recordings only available in very specific circumstances. After meeting with the Assistant Dean and their continued refusal to make recordings available to everyone, we launched the Law Lecture Recordings petition and campaign. This campaign involved a forum with law students and a lunch to get sign ups on the petition. The advocacy

Lecture recording form This year we introduced a new digital reporting form for unrecorded lectures. This form reached approximately 8,000 students and was well used. This enabled us to present a list of lectures that were being unrecorded against the regulations of the current policy, and show student support for lectures being recorded. We had the most success in presenting this list to Arts, who seemed open to rectifying the ones that are out of sync with the policy. We have also worked with faculties to try and improve the numbers of lecture recordings and the quality of recordings for all students.

Evaluation: Keep running the lecture recording form, it’s a great way of reaching students and makes life better for students.

Academic Integrity Working Group Academic Integrity Working Group (AIWG) was set up in direct response to issues we raised in relation to CADMUS in other forums including Academic Board. We’ve had a few meetings of the AIWG, but its something that has fallen off the radar a bit as the year progressed. Part of the reason for this is that the trials of CADMUS stopped in Semester 1, and ongoing trials have been relatively slow. Other things discussed in the AIWG included stuff about fraudulent medical certificates, and a general discussion on academic integrity issues. Overall, the

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

approach at the beginning of the year, leveraging the student feedback we had from the CADMUS campaign survey, and pushing the issue to Academic Board was quite successful.

At this point it seems the university has stalled on CADMUS discussion and slowed trialling a bit, but it’s still an important issue to look out for next year.

Refugee Scholarship One of the successes of this year was the introduction of a refugee scholarship in collaboration with Chancellery. We first met with Chancellery prior to the release of the Melbourne Model Evolution policy and raised our desire for a scholarship for refugees, as they currently have to pay international student fees. This was then included in the Melbourne Model Evolution project which is a big win for future students.

Evaluation: Keep on top of the Uni about the uptake of the scholarship and how to improve it to better fit the needs of students.

Commerce Hurdles and Hyper-competitive Assessments An argument Education has been making in the context of special consideration and fraudulent medical certificates, in light of Commerce’s decision to introduce compulsory hurdles for all assessments, is the nasty role of high weighted exams, competitive grading, and hurdles in jacking up students’ anxiety and contributing to a sense of competitiveness, hostility, anxiety, and poor equity outcomes in the student population. We’ve been raising the need to investigate the extent of “hyper-competitive assessment design” in a few committees, and we’re having meetings with the chairs of TALQAC and APC about a possible working group or report into this issue to investigate the relationship between assessment design and student stress. Neil Robinson has indicated that Uni Services would be keen to help with the data on that. Anecdotally, they noted a direct relationship between commerce hurdles and applications for Special Consideration. This formed the basis of a small campaign at the tail end of the this year, which should expand next year. Evaluation: Continue this campaign from the beginning of this year.

Melbourne Student Experience Enhancement Project The "Melbourne Student Experience Enhancement Project" ("MSEEP") has had student consultation, including a session with the Elected Reps, and delivered a basic list of recommendations. We are still waiting to see the official working paper about how the student experience will be improved.

Evaluation: Future student reps need to be ready to act on this report when it is released, while it is great the uni finally started listening to us about the student experience it needs to be funded and delivered properly for it to have any effect.

Cadmus Work on Cadmus has been slow this year. The University has swung the focus around to the value of Cadmus as a teaching tool with the progressive release of questions rather than plagiarism. They continue to trial because they know it cannot be used in its current form, so are delaying the introduction of the program. This year we also found that Glyn Davis was a major Cadmus investor, influencing the University’s interest in the program. We are waiting

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

to hear the new Vice Chancellor Duncan Maskell’s position before seeing which way the campaign will go for next year.

Evaluation: keep pushing hard on Cadmus and finding out new information. Don’t let it get rolled out on campus.

Melbourne Model This year the University proposed suite of changes to get more people to coming to UniMelb, and we have been working with the University to make sure these are good for students. Press F for the Bachelor of Health though, because that’s already been cancelled.

Evaluation: Keep making sure this is good for students and not exploitative to staff.

Recommendations Fuck up the uni Get more students involved in the department

Education (Public Affairs) Conor Clements

Key activities throughout the year Orientation week activities—Summerfest and Winterfest Both of the Education Department’s Summerfest and Winterfest stalls were extremely popular this year, in particular our Winterfest stall. We have successfully gotten rid of nearly all of the merch we purchased at the beginning of the year, and I often see students walking around campus with our tote bags.

EVALUATION: These events served as an important beginning for many of the campaigns run by the Education department this year. It is incredibly important that next year’s OBs are organised for this time.

Syndicate Workers’ Rights Collective This program was one of the main ones to be run out of Education Public throughout 2018. The collective has covered a whole range of events, from ordinary collective meetings to showcases of trade unions.

The idea behind the collective itself was to teach students—who are often taken advantage of by their employers in their attempts to support themselves financially as they study— about their rights in the workplace and ensure that they have the knowledge and skills to combat situations where they may be having their wages stolen; namely, joining a trade union and pursuing legal means such as the Young Workers Centre and the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Below is a summary of the events I ran as part of Syndicate.

Launch Events These were run at the beginning of each semester in order to create a base of students who would become involved in the collective events to be run throughout the semester. They were held in the Ida Bar, with food and drinks provided, and at each one were materials related to workers’ rights for students to take with them. This included leftover materials from the Education Department’s Summerfest stall, as well also a bunch of trade union and Young Workers’ Centre materials, and some goodies from activist and artist Sam Wallman (stickers and concertinas).

EVALUATION: These events were some of the best attended by students out of all of the Syndicate events, and were a good starting point for people to continue to stay involved in future events. However, in terms of accessibility, these events could have been improved—though obviously non-alcoholic options were available for those who wanted them.

Collaborations with the University There were a few occasions during the year where the University provided us with resources in order to run events at bigger festival-type activities, such as Employability Matters week. A former UMSU employee who now works at Stop 1 helped us put these events together, so a huge thanks to her is needed. We ran events at each of the University’s Employability Matters weeks. The first, in late semester one, was run in collaboration with Hospo Voice. We hosted them in a theatrette where the Hospo Voice representative spoke about his experiences as a casual worker in hospitality, and the importance of looking out for your colleagues in the workplace. The second was held this semester, and featured industrial relations law expert Sean Cooney and Migrant Workers’ Centre director Matt Kunkel speaking to an audience of mostly international students about what to expect upon graduation and going into the workforce, as well as means of protection in more white-collar industries that perhaps lack the presence of trade unions that other industries feature.

Our other event that we ran was at the beginning of the year. It was essentially a stall run at an event featuring a number of employers at the beginning of semester one, in Wilson Hall and on MacFarland Court.

EVALUATION: Our Hospo Voice event was not particularly well attended, but nonetheless, we were able to have productive discussions on the issues raised by those who came along. Our semester two event was much better attended—it was in a location that was easier to find, and it was advertised more as an event to build individual skills, which we have been told is a better way of ensuring engagement with international students. As for our stall, we were kind of shunted to the back of MacFarland court, which made it hard for students to access us.

Collectives

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

These events were the ones where we had the most difficulty keeping up attendance. In both semesters, despite a pretty strong start, attendance dropped off pretty quickly. Having said this, we had some good support from the Young Workers Centre in particular, which means that the collective meetings were still productive and interesting for those who came along.

EVALUATION: These events were the least successful of the ones run out of the Syndicate program. I was disappointed by the low attendance of these meetings, but there are always going to be times where your events are not well attended.

Events with external organisations As mentioned previously, we ran a collaboration with a number of external organisations this year—mainly trade unions and the Young Workers Centre. These unions included Hospo Voice (as mentioned above) and the Community and Public Sector Union.

The CPSU event was a seminar run by a couple of industrial organisers who had experience in the public service and the process that it puts hopeful applicants through when they apply for a job. The tips they provided for succeeding through this process then transitioned into a record of the achievements of the CPSU, and why they should join upon employment. It also served as an opportunity for the CPSU to announce their student membership, which is free up until the member becomes employed.

EVALUATION: These events were interesting—the students who I spoke to that attended these events all found them beneficial, especially where there was advice given about seeking employment.

Engagements with trade union movement protests This year I made an effort to encourage students to be involved in rallies run by the Australian Council of Trade Unions—namely the Change the Rules in May, and the Australia Needs a Pay Rise rally in October. Both rallies saw pretty good attendance from students, although the latter was advertised to students less, and also occurred during SWOTVAC, which made it harder to get students to come along. In addition, the Change the Rules rally coincided with a campus National Tertiary Education Union strike, which provided extra incentive for students to attend.

EVALUATION: These rallies both served as good ways of getting more students engaged with ideas around workers’ rights and trade unions. I would consider them a success.

Worker’s rights booklet This project has been ongoing and met several roadblocks along the way—at the present time, its production has almost been finalised, and the translations into different languages have been completed. Once the state election has happened, Victorian Trades Hall Council and the Migrant Workers Centre will be able to resume its operations on this project, and we will finally have an up-to-date, accessible resource for students of all backgrounds to have handy so that they can protect their rights at work.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

EVALUATION: As I’ve mentioned, this project has been intermittently worked on throughout my term, and has experienced the classic problem of having the two parties working on it being busy at different times, making progress slower than I would have liked. It will be completed by my successors in Education Public, but I’m glad that it has gotten started this year—after all, international students are among the most exploited of workers.

Know your Unions day This event saw a showcase of around ten trade unions in North Court, all of whom related in some way to a field worked in commonly by students supporting themselves, or to a field that UoM alumni were likely to move into upon graduation. The event was run at the same time as the Activities Department barbecue, so as to guarantee strong attendance. Essentially, the union representatives worked by engaging students in conversation, and encouraging them to find out more about their potential union. Most of the unions there gained members, which was great to see.

EVALUATION: I was not confident that this event would be a success given that it was being run so late in the semester, but it was well attended, and despite the fact that some unions had to pull out last-minute, we still had a cohort representative of the industries likely to have an effect on the lives of Melbourne University students.

FOI into reports to the Fair Work Ombudsman of wage theft within Union House At the beginning of the year, a student named Cameron Doig lodged a Freedom of Information request to the Fair Work Ombudsman regarding any allegations of wage theft perpetrated by businesses within Union House. Though ultimately unsuccessful,

EVALUATION OF SYNDICATE AS A WHOLE: I am confident that the focus on workers’ rights undertaken by the Education Department this year has been beneficial for students at this university. I am also confident that this will remain a focus of subsequent Education officers, as it is ultimately an issue that impacts greatly on the lives of students, and is an excellent way of encouraging engagement between UMSU and Melbourne University students as a whole.

Support for campaigns run out of the National Union of Students Build a Better Budget Campaign Launch In May, UMSU Education hosted the National Union of Students as they launched a campaign in opposition to some of the measures in the recently announced federal budget (as well as some suggestions for improvements), called the Build a Better Budget Campaign. UMSU President Desiree Cai was a speaker at this event, as were NUS president Mark Pace and Federal member for Cooper Ged Kearney. The event was well attended, and was the first in a series of events run by NUS that attacked the federal government’s May budget for a perceived lack of funding for higher education and welfare programs such as Youth Allowance and Newstart, while at the same time subsidising big corporations through tax cuts. Books not Bombs

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Our support for this campaign run by NUS Education has included hosting a launch event at the Ida bar, hosting a number of discussion groups and forums, and sending contingents of students to attend protests. The campaign itself has been designed to encourage universities to divest from arms manufacturing companies, which are perceived to have too close of a relationship with university management across the country.

The events we helped coordinate were all well attended, and featured discussion of the issues at hand—including specific details of Melbourne University’s own financial ties to weapons manufacturers.

Education Conference I was lucky enough to be able to present a workshop at NUS Education Conference during the winter break between semesters on the topic of encouraging students to have more of a voice on issues of workers’ rights, as well as ensuring that more students see themselves not just as students, but as workers. I also attended a workshop run by UMSU’s Education Academic Officer Alice Smith and UMSU President Desiree Cai on the topic of the use of student data in combatting contract cheating and the issues associated with this, such as Cadmus at Melbourne University.

I also helped look after a contingent of Melbourne University students who came along to Education Conference.

Bury the Bill This campaign was run in opposition to a bill that would have legislated a lowering of the HECS/HELP repayment threshold, as well as place a cap on the amount of money that a student can use from the HECS program over the course of their lives. This was mainly carried out through the running of a petition, as well as some small demonstrations outside the offices of key crossbench senators such as Derryn Hinch, whose support would have helped pass the bill. Ultimately, it was a time sensitive campaign, and the bill itself was withdrawn from tabling until well after the campaign had started.

National Day of Action Education Public have been supporting the National Union of Students (NUS) in their National Day of Action protests as well. Their March 21st protest was in response to the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook budget cuts, which will see $2.2 billion cut out of the higher education sector, and there will be another in May in response to the government’s budget, which is predicted to have a number of other cuts to higher education within it. EVALUATION OF INTERATIONS WITH NUS: NUS have played an important role in my term. It would have been useful to have more direct engagement with the NUS Education officer over the course of the year—however, NUS faces a number of difficulties when it comes to resources and engagement of students in general, which makes it difficult to ensure the communication between office bearers at a national and campus level, and to coordinate national campaigns in general. This being the case, I still found that all of the NUS campaigns I participated in this year pertained directly to the interests of university students.

Engagement with campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

This mainly occurred during the lead up to the Melbourne University Branch of the NTEU taking industrial action in response to a number of issues coming out of their enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations that were untenable for the majority of members, including attempts to split the agreement in two for academic and professional staff (thereby reducing the power of the union) and remove guarantees to academic freedom.

Our support came in the form of attending NTEU members’ meetings to ensure we were up to date with information from the negotiating team, meeting with industrial organisers to see what we could do to help, and then helping out with stalls, postering and other advertising materials. We also produced a flyer that had information about the issues being faced by teachers reworded in a way that would ensure it would be relevant to students—namely, the fact that worse conditions for staff would inevitable mean a lower quality of education for students.

EVALUATION: I think that aside from being in the best interests of students, the work carried out this year by the Education department with the NTEU has been important for ensuring that the two unions can stand together in the face of future inevitable attacks on the wellbeing of both groups. Students and teachers sometimes have differing interests, but we have enough in common to ensure that we are able to have each other’s backs.

Weekly Education Stalls These stalls were run every Wednesday throughout the year while classes were on. They proved to be a great way of engaging students with campaigns being run by a range of departments in UMSU.

EVALUATION: Though sometimes tedious to set up (I hate marquees), these stalls proved to be one of the best ways to engage with students on campus who otherwise may not have had any interaction with the advocacy side of the student union at all.

Burnley library campaign I was contacted in March by the Burnley campus representative, James Barclay, around changes to the staffing hours of the Burnley library. These changes would have resulted in the staffed hours of the library being shortened, meaning that students would have had less ability to access some of the unique collections held at Burnley which are otherwise inaccessible to students without staff help.

The campaign was mainly run at Burnley—we designed a petition to oppose these changes, which received great support from the students down there. We also attended a meeting with the university where we outlined our stance on the changes.

Ultimately, the proposed changes have not been implemented at the Burnley library.

EVALUATION: I was impressed with the engagement that this campaign received. Burnley has long been maligned as a campus by the student union, but building effective advocacy there proved

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

possible in large part due to the enthusiasm of the students that these changes would have most affected.

Extend the Free Tram Zone campaign Education Public’s preliminary support for this campaign has primarily come from next year’s incoming Education Public officers. This year, our main exploits have included another petition, which at the time of writing has over 1200 signatures, which calls on the State Government to extend the Free Tram Zone to the Swanston Street stop outside Melbourne University, and the corresponding stop on Royal Parade. At the current time, we are also seeking support from the university on this campaign, as well as other key stakeholders such as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Sally Capp.

EVALUATION: This campaign, though relatively new, has seen good engagement with students, who feel it pertains directly to their interests. Furthermore, it will be used as a springboard for future campaigns such as extending transport concessions to international and graduate students, as well as the potential removing of the need to have a separate transport concessions, instead allowing for students to use their own student cards as proof of concession. I am looking forward to see what happens with this campaign next year.

Dookie visit Finally, in late semester two, the Education OBs visited Dookie campus as part of the first UMSU representatives in over a decade to visit this particular campus. These students face a range of issues that are unique to their experiences, and it is important to see where UMSU’s role is in providing support for them as we would with any other campus.

EVALUATION: Aside from being a fun trip, it’s just important to make sure that students at Dookie are at least aware of UMSU.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Recommendation 1 Ensure that there is a continuing campaign on workers’ rights. This campaign should take advantage of the fact that there are two Education Public officers next year, and make sure that the collective side of the campaign is not neglected. This is one area where I failed this year, but it is one of the best ways to ensure that

Recommendation 2 Don't overcommit to too many campaigns. There are going to be a number of issues that will be encountered by future office bearers, but in order to make a good amount of change, some issues will need to be prioritised above others.

Recommendation 3 Make sure that your committee feels comfortable with asking questions of you. Committee meeting are often tedious when they reach a certain length, but an extended OB report section

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

ensures that your committee members feel as if they understand what the department is up to, then this benefits both them and the department as a whole.

Recommendation 4 Make an effort to engage with non-Parkville campuses. Some of the smaller campuses are in fact some of the best places to engage in advocacy work! They tend to have close community ties which then means that campaigns are much easier to mobilise.

Environment Callum Simpson and Lucy Turton

Key activities throughout the year

Regular and Semi-Regular Events:

Key Activity 1 - Weekly collective meetings We continued our weekly, hour-long Environment Collective meetings throughout Semesters 1 and 2. We added more snacks and tea as a feature, and occasionally held excursions to places like the NGV, ran potluck picnics, and incorporated other Departments’ Collectives (like the People of Colour Department) for special collaborations.

Key Activity 2 - Weekly reading and discussion group (Sem 2 only) The weekly “Radical Reading and Discussion Group” was both an opportunity for regular collective members to think more about current issues or theory, and a chance to inspire some newbies to get involved with the collective. We had lots of engaging, enthusiastic, and inspiring discussions, ranging from topics like the recycling crisis to unions to fracking on sovereign land. We provided snacks and tea, print-outs of the reading (usually a newspaper article of a few pages’ length, sometimes a video or two as well), and sometimes had questions prepared to steer the conversation.

Key Activity 3 - Play With Your Food

Play With Your Food (PWYF) is our fortnightly cooking class, free dinner, social event, and discussion group held in the Melbourne University Food Co-operative. PWYF has been occurring regularly at Melbourne University since 2015. In recent years, the Environment Department has collaborated on hosting PWYF with the Melbourne Activist Catering Collective, a volunteer catering service run by those who are “passionate about good food and... care about making the world a better place” [MACC’s FB Page]. The Catering Collective sources the ingredients, which as PWYF explores more cuisines becomes more varied and niche,

Key Activity 4 - Green Screen (Film Screenings)

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

After advice from last year’s Enviro OBs, we chose to only run a few Enviro film screenings on an ad hoc basis, instead of the fortnightly screenings conducted in previous years. We screened two films as part of our PWYF/Green Screen Summerfest and Winterfest events, ‘Food Co-Op’ and ‘Not Without Us’, and another two, ‘Blue’, about marine conservation, and ‘The Hungry Tide’ about the impacts of climate change on Pacific Island nations.

Key Activity 5 - Community Garden Working Bees and Weekly Events

Working with Community Garden involved: -liaising between Comm Garden and UMSU depts, e.g. for Stress Less week -meeting semi-regularly with facilitators to plan, work on upcoming events and promotion The facilitators decided on events, working bees, etc with their collective of coordinators and then passed on expenditure and promotional material to us for processing/distribution.

We have attached three quarterly reports written by MUCG Facilitators Alan Bechaz and Eleanor Percival from March, June and November as an appendix at the end of this report.

Key Activity 6 - Workshops

As well as the big weeks full of workshops in Enviro Week and Rad Ed Week, we also ran workshops on an ad hoc basis throughout the year. These included Dumpster-Diving, Reusable Wraps, blockading tactics, and ASEN/Students of Sustainability info sessions.

Orientation Week Activities

Key Activity 7 - Environmental Disaster Haunted House (UH Sleepover)

In collaboration with UMSU Creative Arts and for the Whole-of-Union event ‘Union House Sleepover,’ we hosted an Environmental Disaster Haunted House in Graham Cornish A&B. Participants were toured between 4 spaces with different “spooky” ideas; native forest logging, rising sea levels, increasing bushfires, and nuclear weapon detonation, before they were ushered into a wholesome chill space complete with tea, snacks and reading materials from our two departments. The route of the haunted house was constructed with space dividers (thanks Farrago!), curtains, chairs, desks, milk crates and various decorations and knick-knacks, as well as extensive lighting, projections and sound-scapes.

Key Activity 8 - Green Screen meets Play With Your Food (SummerFest)

To help introduce new students to the Environment Collective, including those we spoke to at the Orientation stall, we intended to hold an open, welcoming and wholesome event that spoke to the values of the collective and some of our activities. So, in week 1 of semester, we held an event which was a combination of our two regalar collective events. This first Play With Your Food hosted as usual by the Food Co-op, got attendees cooking and eating together, with cinnamon sugar popcorn for dessert. After dinner we began screening the film ‘Food Co-op’ (by Tom Boothe for Lardux Films) in the Guild Theatre. The film follows ‘a day in the life’ of the volunteer staff and co-op

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

members at the Park Slopes Food Co-op in Brooklyn, New York. By talking to the diverse co- op members, the film shows the practicalities of such a market, the thinking behind the ethical decisions that the co-op makes, the lives and backgrounds of those who contribute, and the difficulties and dilemmas that they face.

Key Activity 9 - Sustainability Walking Tour and Picnic (SummerFest)

Itinerary: future site of UMSU Bike Co-op. Enviro Office; Food Co-operative (where we made bliss balls); Melb Uni Comm Garden (made seed bombs); Raymond Priestley building (site of significant historical and recent protests). Picnic at system garden: food, drink, jenga, sunshine, wholesomeness

Key Activity 10 - Gender-Free Clothing Exchange (WinterFest)

We collaborated with the UMSU Queer Department to host a Gender-Free Clothing Exchange. There were about twenty tables and several racks of clothing, largely sourced from Elinor’s garage, the Enviro and Queer clothes-swaps, and many kind donations. Sensibly, clothing was arranged by type and size, not at all by any gendered norms. We had kind help from half a dozen OBs and student volunteers to set-up the event, which took about 2 hours of work.

Key Activity 11 - Union House Activist History Walking Tour With the assistance of Conor Clements (UMSU Education Public OB) and Julia Harrison (Environment Committee), we scoured the Rowden White Library archives for activist history from Parkville campus and the Union. Particularly enlightening and fascinating was the ‘Beards to Badges’ exhibition

Itinerary: Ida Bar, George Paton Gallery (site of historical battle with police) ; upstairs clubs locker room (site where Timorese refugees were hidden in the 1990’s); Melb Uni Food Co-op (student-run radical alternative to capitalist forms of consumption).

Key Activity 12 - Green Screen Meets Play With Your Food (WinterFest)

We made delicious pesto gnocchi and our own choc-tops, which were YUMM! But messy… Around 30 people attended, a mix of old and new students/Collective with closer to only 5 sticking around for the film.

The movie we screened was ‘Not Without Us’, streamed on Kanopy service. Very intersectional; follows climate activists from across the world as the converge on the Paris Climate talks and explores the successes and failures of the protests and the conference. Held in Joe Nap rooms.

Flagship Events

Key Activity 13 - Radical Education Week

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

This is the second year of running Rad Ed Week, a cross-departmental, inter-campus (so far just at Monash, who ran their Rad Ed Week the week after ours) event that aims to educate students and staff on radical ideas and also think about education in radical ways.

Workshops held were: - Issues facing Indigenous people in education - The ABCs of house squatting - Radical Roundtable: Tokenism and PoC Exclusion from University Academic Curriculums - Queer Political Action Collective - Fossil Free Melb Uni Info Session - Frontline Action on Coal Blockade to Stop Adani Info Session - Radical pride: Disability pride from a non-capitalist perspective - Radical Roundtable: How privilege manifests in tutorials - Women’s activism: the good and the bad of our movement - Trans 101 and Trans 201 - Data retention: The university is watching you - Radical populist theory today - Radical Roundtable: Performance as protest - Ex-right learnings - Workplace blitzing for workers’ rights - Building a broad left: How do we fight the corporate uni? - Myth-busting Antifa - Creative Arts Collective: Radical art-making - Closing party and dinner

Key Activity 14 - Enviro Week: Beyond Climate Change

Enviro Week has been one of the major annual events for our Department for many years. Unfortunately last year the OBs ran out of energy for Enviro Week (understandable) in Semester 2, so we tried to be on top of organising workshops early in the piece.

Workshops held were: - Natural pest management - Enviro Expo - A series of stalls in North Court on Monday featuring campaigns, groups on and off campus, and sustainability-related activities. We held stalls from the Vegan Club, Sustainable Campus, the Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth and FoE Forests, the Pals of Woofers Society, - Weapons, the environment, and the university - Climate Change 101: The Science and the Basics - Climate Change 102: The social intersections and impacts - Circus for environmental and social justice - Custodianship of the anthropocene - Beeswax wraps workshop - Radical kinship in the anthropocene

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

- Climate vs Capitalism: eco-socialism as an alternative - Sustainable period products - Ableism in the environmental movement - The impacts of environmental racism - How universities funnel students into environmentally harmful careers

As well as special editions of our regular events, including Play With Your Food (Decolonising Native Foods) and Enviro Collective Radical Reading Group (focused on the intersectional damages of the fast fashion industry).

Off-Campus Events

Key Activity 15 - Benalla Tree Planting Trip

Over a weekend in first semester, we had a one-night stay in the town of Benalla - staying at the Scout Hall, we assisted the Regent Honeyeater Project, restoring the vegetation in a old dam landscape and providing habitat for endangered species. We had around 8 students come on the trip, comprised of new and old Collective members, and drove up in 2 cars and a van with a couple of fully licensed drivers.

Key Activity 16 - Students of Sustainability

Each year the Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN) holds the Students of Sustainability conference, a five day event that focuses on learning about social and environmental justice activism. In 2018, the gathering was held in Naarm (Melbourne) - the location was Yarra Bend Park and Melbourne Polytechnic Fairfield. The daily events consisted of plenary sessions, workshops, trainings, film screenings, and actions, all catered by our friends at the Melbourne Activist Catering Collective. Over six hundred attendees from across Australia and globally participated, with twenty-one Melbourne Uni students in attendance. The bulk of SoS organisers were Melbourne Uni students and alumni, and we personally coordinated the planning of the program and workshops.

Key Activity 17 - Strategy Sessions

We held our whole of Collective strategy weekend at the start of the year, which focused on both our major campaigns, planning tactics and timelines, and the overall plans for the Enviro Collective this year. The weekend was held at Siteworks in Brunswick, and featured food from A1 nearby, sunny lunches, and plenty of active energisers.

We also held a second strategy session for the Lockout Lockheed campaign, at North Melbourne Library, featuring friends from Whistleblowers Activists Citizens Alliance. We discussed the FOIs process, messaging, and the campaign moving forward beyond this year.

Campaigns

Key Activity 18 - Fossil Free Melbourne Uni Campaign and Sustainability Watch

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

In anticipation of the launch of the Sustainable Investments Framework, we held an action outside the Admin building airing the Uni’s “dirty laundry” (investments in coal, oil, and gas companies), a stunt that was aiming to publicise the SIF, as well as the issues around investments and fossil fuels in general. With our green washing machine, cute soaps crafted by the Collective, and interactive opportunities to write about why students and staff cared about ethical investments on t-shirts hung on a washing line across the Admin building, we had around 10 volunteers helping, and engaged many students and staff members, many of whom had not previously heard about the Uni’s investments.

As well as sitting on the quarterly Sustainability Executive, we instituted regular (quarterly) meetings to catch up with the Chief Financial Officer, Allan Tait (chair of the Sus Exec), Clare Walker, and others in Chancellery involved in sustainability and investments. The Sustainable Investments Framework was finally released in May this year. The SIF is at the stage where Mercer are busily assessing the investments of the VFMC’s portfolio in terms of climate change risk, with a draft report due at the Investments Management Committee in February, which will be taken to Sustainability Executive in March 2019. According to Allan Tait (CFO) and Dan Baird, the VFMC have been pushed by the Uni to do serious internal restructuring in line with an increased focus on environmental and social governance, so there is some serious hope that they will be moving towards a more climate-friendly investments model.

Key Activity 19 - Lockout Lockheed

We held several strategy sessions in both the summer break and Semester 2 for the campaign. We focused this year on collaborating with Disarm Unis, the group of several smaller campaigns throughout the country at different uni campuses, working loosely through ASEN on getting weapons manufacturers off university campuses.

We also collaborated with the Media Department on several (so far unsuccessful) FOI requests looking for more information about the University’s partnerships with Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems.

A highlight of the year was the big direct action during SoS involving students from across Australia shutting down the admin building at Melbourne Uni to protest the continued relationships with weapons manufacturers. We also held three engagement barbecues in the lead up to the mid-year actions, which attracted lots of new students and a crowd of post- grad Engineering students keen to become involved. Our petition grew to about 1000 signatures.

Key Activity 20 - Re-launching the Union House Reusable Crockery Service

Last year it was an ongoing goal to expand the current plate washing service to include mugs and cutlery potentially, in a similar way to the bowls and plates currently being used in this way. We also aimed to increase student use of plate service & increase the number of vendors using it, to make it a more active sustainability push throughout Union House.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

We worked with Fair Food Challenge and Sustainable Campus to design a Mug Library, discussed the plans with Paul Durrant and Building Services (the people who needed to approve and give the go-ahead from the Uni to do it), and as a result Sust Campus rebranded the plate service and bought trial mugs, with the aim to do a full relaunch early in 2019. We are also planning on liaising with Sustainable Campus to do a big launch event, something like a cute high tea in the Union House food court, in order to promote the new service and re- publicise the old plate and bowl services to new students and staff, or people who may have forgotten about them.

Other Activities

Key Activity 21 - Melbourne Uni Bike Co-Op/Ride to Uni Breakfasts/Bike Lock Swaps

Throughout the year, we were hoping to relaunch the Bike Co-op in its new space on the ground floor of Union House, but met roadblocks. You can read more in the Evaluation of Activity 21.

Sustainable Campus, the University’s sustainability department, ran free ‘Ride to Uni’ breakfasts to encourage staff and students to cycle to University. We promoted these events and occasionally assisted. An event we ran at Ride to Uni breakfasts was the two Bike Lock Swaps. These were in collaboration with University Services who wished to distribute new effective bike locks to students to lower bike theft on campus. These swaps were enormously popular and that required a lot of work to stand at the stall and swap the locks.

Key Activity 22 - Fair Trade Steering Committee and Fair Trade Market

We sat on, and regularly attended meetings of, the University’s Fair Trade steering committee, as well as working heavily with student volunteers to enact some of the committee’s aims.

Aims: to make UniMelb’s use of resources more ethical, with particular regard for fair working conditions of supply chain; educate the uni community on its importance.

-University is on track to be 100% Fair Trade in coffee, sugar, chocolate, and tea -We lobbied Uni Procurement for sustainable paper to be used, working progress -student run and organised film screening of World Vision’s Dukale’s Dream - held in Arts West, had a speaker from the Fair Trade association. -student run and organised market - held in North Court - Fair Trade vendors of choc, tea, coffee, jewelry, clothing, and more - many had giveaways and samples for students, conversations between students and the fair trade suppliers

Evaluation of activities throughout the year

Regular and Semi-Regular Events

Evaluation of Activity 1 - Weekly collective meetings

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

One of our biggest challenges this year was thinking through how to make Enviro Collective meetings more engaging, and provide collective members with an incentive for attending. Our regular meetings ranged from just a couple of attendees to about 15 occasionally, with an average most weeks of around 6. This is a bit of an increase on last year, even with the burn-out and energy-sapping effects of SoS, so it seems like some of our efforts have been successful, but more still needs to be done to make Collective meetings an exciting and regular part of everyone’s weekly schedule.

Evaluation of Activity 2- Weekly reading and discussion group (Sem 2 only)

Launching our weekly discussion groups was one of our biggest successes of the year, and a great way to recruit new people to the collective and motivate critical thinking on environmental and social justice issues- hopefully the beginning of an ongoing challenge to status quo thinking for many! Having a breadth of topics to keep people interested was definitely important, and posting the info before each session so everyone could read up and come prepared was definitely helpful.

We would recommend having pre-prepared questions to help guide/facilitate conversation and get it moving if there is a bit of a lull. Also having weeks themed around current affairs, or things that are going on in the Department is good for engagement. We didn’t do it, but perhaps having individual Facebook events week-to-week, as well as the semester’s worth of events for the Reading Group (to show that it’s a regular occurrence) might result in better engagement.

Evaluation of Activity 3- Play With Your Food

PWYF requires about an hour to an hour and-a-half’s prep beforehand. During the actual cooking it pretty much takes care of itself. It’s useful to have a SFH certified OB/collective member supervising students, otherwise MACC have the cooking down-pat.

We struggled with getting enough help to clean up afterwards early on in the semesters. An idea that worked after we re-strategised with MACC before Semester 2 was to encourage people to come and help either before or after dinner -this allowed those who were too late to cook to have a free meal and provided some vollies for cleaning (dishes, wiping benches, sweeping/mopping). We built a strong community of regulars around the event, a number of whom became involved in Enviro Collective & Melb Uni Food Co-op through attending PWYF.

In second semester we re-strategised with MACC to encourage more political engagement during PWYF, and this worked really well. We saw PWYF have a renewed focus as more of a discussion group as well as a fun social activity. This worked well when there was a large enough group, something to engage, the video of Bruce Pascoe talking about de-colonising native foods, followed by a short and interesting discussion worked especially well. Very small groups were more likely to mingle and chat, sometimes acted restless when listening to a speaker. Having a theme for each week mitigated this, as there could be a loose structure or guide to talk through together and frame the evening.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

We found it was usually best to do cooking and then discuss something over the meal in the Co-Op.

Evaluation of Activity 4- Green Screen (Film Screenings)

Film screenings were often requested by Collective members or general student population, but were usually poorly attended when not held in relation to another activity (e.g PWYF). Night-time film screenings do not work very well during colder months, as people head home much earlier.

Purchasing rights from small independent film-makers was often tricky - where possible using a streaming service which has already bought the rights (for instance the University’s Kanopy) works well and is much cheaper. Because Green Screens are generally below 30 in attendance and do not charge this is legally OK, but always good to check in with Comms to make sure.

Evaluation of Activity 5 - Community Garden Working Bees and Weekly Events -Please see attached appendices.-

Evaluation of Activity 6 - Workshops

We didn't have many workshops outside the many we had for Enviro Week and Rad Ed Week, but they were all great successes and very well-attended. Our workshop application system for ongoing workshops to be held throughout the year did not create much excitement, unfortunately. Dumpster Diving and Beeswax Wraps were well-attended, well-run and participants identified them as welcome additions to the Enviro Department schedule.

SO BIG THANKS TO TESSA CAMPISI - collective member, committee and workshop facilitator, who helped us facilitate most of our workshops this year!

Orientation Week Activities

Evaluation of Activity 7 - Environmental Disaster Haunted House (UH Sleepover) AV Melbourne supplied the speakers, projectors and mixing equipment, although we ultimately used a projector from the Arts store and had some difficulty sourcing HDMI adapters (lesson: be prepared! More prepared than you ever think you might need to be. Bring every kind of HDMI adapter you can think of).

Evaluation of Activity 8 - Green Screen meets Play With Your Food (SummerFest)

This was a great event to kick off the year. We had a big crowd (50 students plus) Food Co-op was a bit too small . The tofu burgers were not particularly engaging, but allowed us to feed the crowds quite well. It was a really great opportunity to inform people about co-operative systems, the work the Enviro Department does, and initiatives to get involved in on and off campus.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

30 plus people stuck around to watch the film in the Guild theatre. The Guild theatre was a great space for a film, but needs a small crowd (probably closer to 50) to justify its use. Use of wet-hire from AV and casual staffer from UHT was expensive, but saved a great deal of effort for the OBs on a particularly busy night. The popcorn machine worked out a treat, as did our use of cinnamon sugar for the popcorn seasoning rather than the feral chemical topping provided alongside- it also meant we had dessert!

Evaluation of Activity 9 - Sustainability Walking Tour and Picnic (SummerFest)

We had around a dozen participants across the couple of hours of the picnic and walking tour, with a few more coming just for the picnic itself. Picnic was lovely and wholesome; more collective members met up with us at this stage; System Garden was peaceful (despite building works) and having games from UMSU events provided entertainment. We had several very helpful volunteers who assisted in bringing food, games, and blankets to the Systems Garden.

The hands-on workshops at the Food Co-op and Comm Garden were especially enjoyable, and meant participants could walk away with something they’d made. It was gorgeous weather; a very enjoyable walk overall.

Standing in the Raymond Priestley wind-tunnel with a clipboard of photos from past actions and protests seems to have not engaged the participants much… Maybe finding another way to discuss the campaigns and direct action on campus would be better.

Evaluation of Activity 10 - Gender-Free Clothing Exchange (WinterFest) This event was very successful, and a good example of some of the intersectional collaborations we’ve strived to do throughout the year. It was a lot of work to put together - perhaps limit the amount of clothing collected next time, as there was too much clothing left behind, as not enough clothing was taken.

Lots of students came through the event and left happy to have found fabulous items of clothing. Holding it on level 2 across the Graham Cornish rooms meant we also had a lot of foot traffic from people just passing by who stopped to chat and grab some clothes.

Evaluation Activity 11 - Union House Activist History Walking Tour

Go visit the Rowden White Library archive - it’s such a great resource! The ‘Beards to badges’ exhibition archive is particularly fantastic as it curates some of the most interesting radical tidbits.

SUMMERFEST:

The area in general was very noisy, distracting,probably not the best event for Sleepover! We also couldn’t get into the refugee hideout as a lot of places were closed up for Sleepover (oops, forgot to check it would be open). We had about a dozen attendees, unfortunately it

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

was mostly UMSU OBs, but we still thought it was wonderful to share some of the history with others working in the building.

WINTERFEST:

Very good job on promotions Comms. Gorgeous poster, lots of advertising. We had a small intimate group of about half a dozen, all very interested and most with no involvement with the Collective before this event, so we were happy to have reached new people. We were better prepared than in Summerfest, with more images to show, more historical stories to share, and more interactive Q&A options.

Evaluation Activity 12 - Green Screen Meets Play With Your Food (WinterFest)

Winter turned out to be a bad time to hold a late-night film screening, given the cold weather and dark. Lots of people went home after eating dinner, unfortunately, but we had a cosy little screening with four or five of us.

A lot of food wasn’t eaten - but food was spared being wasted (of course!) by people taking produce and dinner home with them in containers.

‘Not Without Us’ was a really engaging and thoughtful film, presenting the UN climate talks from different perspectives and especially focusing on the disproportionate effects of climate change on First Nations people and people of colour. Definitely worth a watch, and perhaps a re-screen if we can get higher attendance at another time.

Keystone Events

Evaluation Activity 13 - Radical Education Week

Radical Education Week was a massive effort. Unlike previous years, Rad Ed Week was a sole organising project of the environment officers with less volunteers than in 2017. There were many people who committed their time to make Rad Ed what it was, but setting-up, running and packing-down for workshops everyday of the week was too large an effort for too few people. Workshops in the morning, especially Monday morning, we not well attended. Attendance picked up significantly after morning tea and lunch. There were great workshops and activities held by collective members and other departments throughout the week (we’re enormously grateful). Participant took a lot of skills and ideas away from the week, and we hope that Rad Ed Week continues to occur at Melbourne University.

Evaluation Activity 14 - Enviro Week: Beyond Climate Change

Enviro Expo (stalls) was great. It would be worth bringing this back for next year, but really making stall-holders confirm their details and be organised, as we had to do a lot of chasing up of stall-holders on the morning if they had forgotten things or were unprepared in other ways. Reaching out to clubs proved to be really beneficial, as it was a chance for Collective members to engage with different groups we haven’t had much to do with before, as well as being big draw cards for passersby. The Vegan Society cheese stall and the PAWS cupcake

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

day stall were highlights for most people. North Court worked well to grab the attention of passing traffic, which led to some great conversations.

Workshops and seminars were generally not well attended, averaging perhaps five people per workshop. Every workshop was generally informative, fun, and interesting, however. More work on promotion for next year is probably necessary- this was hard with SoS taking up our time so close to Enviro Week, and Comms took a few months to put together the promo material and graphics for us, despite getting onto it early.

Greg Rolles and Margie Beavis were both interesting speakers for our Militarism seminar, but despite advertisement, the seminar did not attract significant numbers.

The closing party was well attended - Arts Hall is a great place to hold events, we munched through the food real quick, so definitely aim to over-cater in the future. ASRC catering is delicious, healthy, filling, flavoursome, and funds a good cause.

Off-Campus Events

Evaluation Activity 15 - Benalla Tree Planting Trip

Everyone who attended had a great weekend. We enjoyed the fresh air and working in the sunshine for the weather was calm and bright. The Regent Honeyeater Project is a very worthy cause and is run by incredibly dedicated and open people, which made the weekend a great chance to meet other environmentally conscious volunteers. The Scout Hall was comfortable enough, as our hosts had laid out mattresses for us, but spare sleeping bags and blankets should be brought in future. (Also, the mattresses were fun to race across the smooth floor of the scout hall/basketball court). The project kindly supplied us with a delicious dinner and a hot breakfast, but we needed to bring more lunch supplies.

A number of people who attended were completely new to the collective and got heavily involved in the next semester, which made the weekend truly worth it. Also, benefited the mental health of attendees at the end of a long semester. The attendance was okay, but could’ve been better for a few people dropped out at the last minute. More attendees would be ideal due to the effort of organising the trip and organising fully-licenced drivers with cars to get us there.

Evaluation Activity 16 - Students of Sustainability

SoS was exhausting, and burnt us out lots, especially because the constant organising for the conference meant we had no break between Semesters. Everyone who attended from Melbourne Uni (who wasn’t involved in organising!) had an amazing time, and many said the conference was deeply inspiring and life-changing for them. So definitely continue to recruit people to SoS each year, and encourage lots of newbies to come along!

Next year it will be in Sydney, so hopefully this means much less effort on our part, mostly just organising tickets (get onto this early) and transport to the conference (also get onto this early). Holding info sessions was a great way to spread the word and give collective members

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

and other interested Melb Uni students the chance to get excited about something bigger and activism beyond campus.

Evaluation Activity 17 - Strategy Sessions

We held our major strategy session of the year a week before Semester, which was good timing as it allowed everyone to get back in the loop and get fired up about the year. Our schedule was well put together, with no sense of rushing through, and plenty of space in the agenda to take time and linger over decisions if we wanted.

The strategy session attendance varied enormously over the weekend, with many people only coming in for one of the two days, or for an afternoon, which made it difficult to catch people up. We also felt that there were perhaps lots of older Collective members who had little capacity in the coming year, compared to the newer/current members who were the ones actually around during the year. This made it difficult to utilise the strategy we developed in praxis.

Siteworks was a perfect location, with great airy rooms, and lovely grass to sit on at lunchtime, as well as being close to public transport, and an overall super rad venue to support.

The Lockout Lockheed strategy session held in September was a productive session. It was ideas-rich. These discussions will feed forward into the promising future of the campaign. Sam Castro’s advice and wisdom was greatly appreciated and useful for guiding discussion.

Campaigns

Evaluation Activity 18 - Fossil Free Melbourne Uni Campaign and Sustainability Watch

FFMU has been very low in number of participants - due to burn out, SOS, and a large amount of heavily involved students graduating and moving on. The fun stunt action toward the start of the year did produce the result we were aiming for - the timely public release of the SIF - as well as contributing to the set-up of quarterly meetings between UMSU and Enviro and the CFO of the University. The great work of FFMU from previous years, as well as the Environment Dept’s former campaign for renewable energy, has continued to show its effect. 2018 has seen the University sign on to power-sharing agreement with electricity from new wind farms in Western Victoria, which will mean the Uni will have net zero carbon emissions by 2019. The University Executive signed onto the Sustainable Investments Framework in December of 2017, which in the last year has caused both the University, through the consultant Mercer, and the Victorian Fund Management Corporation to begin assessing their investment funds in terms of climate change risk.

Evaluation Activity 19 - Lockout Lockheed campaign

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Student Engagement was difficult this year. The best engagement the campaign got was at free BBQs, where students stopped off from some lunch. Credit to Alston and Katie who acquired hundreds of petition signatures from attending the Engineering BBQ. However, BBQs run solely by Lockout Lockheed created a lot of work for the Environment Department and distracted experienced campaigners from talking to students. There were many different flyers produced for this campaign as the information about the issue and strategy changed. This produced difficulty when printing; there were many mistakes. In future a well-designed layout for a flyer could be reused by the campaign as the content of the flyer changes.

The major action of the campaign for 2018 was a massive success. 35 people came to the action during the winter break and assisted as 6 activists locked onto barrels blocking the entrances of the Raymond Priestley administration building for 14 hours. We garnered attention from both student and professional press. We negotiated with the University to have a meeting with the vice-chancellor’s office to discuss the issue of weapons manufacturers on campus. Callum Simpson, Will Ross and Alston Chu attended a meeting with Mark Considine (acting vice-chancellor), Mark Hargreaves (PVC-Research) and Elizabeth Capp (students and equity - for some reason!). We learnt what justifications the University used to convince Academic Board to accept relationships with Lockheed Martin and British Aeronautical Engineering and learnt how much (or little) oversight the University has over what researchers get involved in. This meeting continues to inform our strategy, messaging and ongoing Freedom of Information requests.

Evaluation Activity 20 - Re-launching the Union House Reusable Crockery Service

As something that last year’s OBs had tried to act on, this process has continued to be frustratingly slow this year. However, we are really heartened to see many in Sustainable Campus and Fair Food Challenge take up the project with such enthusiasm, and the appetite that University management in Building Services have shown for the reusable crockery service is most welcome.

Health and safety concerns prevented us from just doing our own mug library, and the involvement of the University meant a lot of paperwork, but the reboot and launch of the mugs is in train to be rolled out in December this year, with some preliminary evaluation to take place mid-December. The Uni has put a solid amount of funding towards the project, so it is likewise encouraging that Sustainable Campus, alongside our efforts this year, has been so easily able to lobby for this change.

We are hopeful that our combined forces will mean that not just the mugs, but all of the reusable crockery in Union House, will be re-launched successfully next year. We would highly recommend doing a launch event early in Semester 1, something we spoke about with Monique from Sustainable Campus.

Other Activities Evaluation Activity 21 - Melbourne Uni Bike Co-Op/Ride to Uni Breakfasts/Bike Lock Swaps

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

We are both exhausted, burnt out, and pissed off about the current situation regarding the Bike Co-Op. We have felt continuously unsupported in this area by UMSU staff, who continue to neglect to act on the Bike Co-Op transition as promised in DECEMBER 2017 after the building the Bike Co-Op was in was knocked down for the student precinct. Despite having the new space allocated, and repeated requests, efforts, and attempts by us to motivate management to do as they promised last December, no action has been taken. This has been an endless source of frustration and grief for us, especially given the many messages we constantly receive from community members requesting the return of the Bike Co-Op’s services (approaching at least 200 throughout our term!!!!). The Bike Co-Op is clearly a significant need for students and staff at the University, and not providing a service we are 100% capable of providing as a Union is simply not good enough. The situation has also wrecked relationships with our bike mechanics, who have been working with the Environment Department for close to five years now. It is also deplorable that the volunteering program proposal written by last year’s Enviro OBs has STILL not been read and actioned by UMSU management.

The frustrating limbo of the Bike Coop was ocassionaly alleviated by the success of our two Bike Lock Swap events, in collaboration with the Uni’s Security team. We handed out lots of bike locks, and many students and staff were really happy to have received a brand new lock, which allowed us to have some wonderful conversations about the Enviro Collective as a whole, and continue to promote sustainable transport and practices across campus.

Evaluation Activity 22 - Fair Trade Steering Committee and Fair Trade Market

FTSC has managed a lot in its approximately three years of existence. This year we secured a big win, with 100% of procurement for kitchens across the University now required to be fair trade or equivalent. FTSC has secured co-operation with high levels of the University’s administration in expanding this commitment to on-campus vendors, for which progress has only just begun this year.

There is appetite for moving onto other ethical practices (sustainability), but for the final fair trade-specific work, the focus now changes to working on vendors on campus. FTSC student volunteers run events to engage the community with Fair Trade, the largest being the annual Market. The evening film screening of Dukale’s Dream had low attendance, largely because promotion happened so late. In future, UMSU could run the promotions and save Sustainable Campus the trouble, and likely reach more students. The Fair Trade market was very well attended with hundreds of staff and students passing through. The use of North Court assured good passing traffic and the incentive of free coffee incentivised attendees to engage with multiple vendors. There were a very good diversity of different vendors and organisations, although some social justice and charity clubs were unable to attend.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Recommendation 1

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Recruit more people to the collective. We lost a lot of collective members due to burnout this year, both in planning for SoS, which took up a lot of people’s time, and the exhaustion post- SoS, which left us with very few engaged remaining members. We feel this has created a cycle, wherein new potential members are less inclined to get involved as they don’t see it as a thriving, busy, fun collective. Liaising with the Co-Op, especially through PWYF, has been a great way to cross-pollinate the Collective and the Co-Op. However, more efforts need to be made to cross-pollinate with other like-minded groups and to be seen and welcoming to new students generally. We would suggest this should be the number 1 strategic focus for next year, as all of our campaigns, events, and collective actions will only be successful if they reach, help, and engage as many people as possible. Plus, we want to radicalise more and more new students next year and grow our wholesome campus activism work!

Recommendation 2 Collaborate AS MUCH AS YOU CAN with other departments and organisations. Some of the best-attended and most successful events held by UMSU Enviro this year were collaborations with other student representative departments. For instance, events held with Creative Arts (Environmental Disaster Haunted House, Radical Art Making) blended the ideas and skills of all the involved OBs and allowed us to communicate to different audiences in new and creative ways. By working with autonomous collectives on joint events we were able to provide an important platform for discussion and learning about important intersectional issues.

We would recommend semi-regularly checking in with other departments (perhaps even formalising this into a schedule) about potential events, strategic directions, and future collaborations or advice on departmental decisions/direction.

Groups such as Fair Food Challenge, the Melbourne University Food Co-op, Australian Students Environment Network, the Melbourne Activist Catering Collective and Sustainable Campus were hugely supportive and provided great opportunities to collaborate on larger events and reach wider audiences. We would suggest catching up with these groups regularly to coordinate events and re-stategise, as we found this incredibly helpful both in terms of operations and in terms of generating new and exciting ideas and projects to work on.

Recommendation 3 Have regular and scheduled meetings (around every quarter is a good amount) with other groups to check-in and assist each other.

This especially goes for the University- we met on an ad hoc basis with Sustainable Campus, probably around 6 or 7 times just with us, and it often proved incredibly helpful for both parties. We also began meeting quarterly with Allan Tait and Clare Walker in Chancellery to have more in-depth meetings outside of the Sustainability Executive, where we could do some quality workshopping of joint ideas, raise concerns and grievances, and get updates about sneaky internal stuff happening at executive level on sustainability.

Recommendation 4 Promote events far in advance if possible, and always be sure to get onto Comms as early as possible. Our events like Rad Ed Week and Enviro Week this year could have done with

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

greater promotion, despite beginning this process a couple of months before the events themselves. We would suggest organising the Comms (i.e. logging the Basecamp jobs) for both of them as early as possible, e.g. January perhaps.

In short, if you have an event you want to do, or workshop to promote, as soon as you are both keen on doing it, log a Basecamp job and get promoting ASAP, even if it is super early!

Another top tip is to use the UMSU-wide newsletter and the Enviro newsletter (which we generally sent out as a monthly update) to promote. Ask Comms to highlight upcoming Enviro events in the weekly UMSU newsletter. We only realised we could ask this relatively late into our term, but it was incredibly useful in terms of reaching new people and creating workshop attendance.

Recommendation 5 More workshops!! All the workshops we ran on an ad hoc basis were incredibly well- attended and offered people a chance to engage with new ideas and learn new skills. An idea would even be to reduce how big Enviro and Rad Ed Weeks are, and instead focus on holding regular workshops on a range of different topics throughout semester. Anything unusual, interesting, and eye-catching seems to be well-attended, and promoting widely (through all of UMSU) and early will ensure this.

Recommendation 6 The office can be very distracting - find another space when you really need to get things done. Suggestions: home, media space, library, cafe, green spaces on campus like Union Lawn or Systems Garden, or anywhere outside of union house.

Indigenous Alexandra Hohoi

No report received.

Media Ashleigh Barraclough, Esther Le Couteur, Monique O’Rafferty and Jesse Paris-Jourdan

Introduction

This report will outline the key activities, expenditure and recommendations of the 2018 UMSU media department. This year saw a significant increase in engagement, a growth in volunteers, and a restructure of the structure of the collective.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

These achievements aligned with the aims and goals set by the Media Officers: 1. To establish a more inclusive and diverse collective and magazine 2. To increase student engagement, involvement and knowledge of the department 3. To maintain the quality and growth of Radio Fodder, Farrago magazine, Above Water and Farrago Video 4. To create and support student media on campus 5. To continue upholding the quality and independence of Farrago 6. To report on campus news and increase accessibility

Key activities throughout the year (including evaluations)

1. APPLICATIONS The media department’s application process is what creates our large base of volunteers. This recruitment process began in October 2017 with the advertisement of positions, and finishes in January after an intensive period of interviews and tests, culminating in training. This year, the media department broke new ground, receiving over 300 individual applications.

This year, we restructured the team to allow for delegation to new coordinator positions, some of which were paid. This was a much-needed move to allow for the continued growth of Radio Fodder, Farrago video and our social media. We also initiated a photography team, which greatly improved our campus content over the course of the year.

In order to advertise these positions we published position descriptions on Facebook, created a new, more accessible list of descriptions page on the Farrago website at farragomagazine.com/join. We also postered the campus, coordinated with the communications department to advertise around Union House, emailed subject coordinators and tutors, lecture bashed, posted on UniMelb channels and handed out flyers with 2017 editions of the magazine.

Successful first round subeditor, campus reporter and graphics contributor applicants were given a test to complete in just over a week. This involved completing a hypothetical version of what the job entails, whether subediting, writing a news piece or doing an illustration. Interviews were then held over December and the new year, and successful applicants were notified in January. In-person training sessions were given for subeditors, campus reporters, social media officers and radio presenters, while there were more informal get-togethers for graphics contributors and the photography and video teams.

2. POSITIONS SUBEDITORS (45 POSITIONS) Split into three teams of 15, subeditors edit all Farrago submissions. They correspond with the writers to ensure published work is well-structured, accurate and free from mistakes.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

They also provide feedback for all rejected pieces in order to workshop student writing. The teams are as follows: ● News subeditors subedit campus articles, including news, explainers, opinion and investigation. ● Non-fiction subeditors subedit features, interviews, columns and general nonfiction. ● Creative subeditors subedit creative pieces, including poems, short fiction, plays and some creative nonfiction.

GRAPHICS CONTRIBUTORS (30 POSITIONS) Graphics contributors made Farrago beautiful, with graphics accompanying a wide range of articles. They were commissioned to interpret pieces, as well as contribute to branding and marketing. This year’s team team had a diverse range of talents, from photography and comics to sculpture and infographics, and included many Southbank students.

CAMPUS REPORTERS (27 POSITIONS) Campus reporters were responsible for writing about the issues that the student body cares about, be they on-campus (such as exposing University wrongdoings) or off-campus (such as cuts to higher education). Our dedicated team sourced scoops for online and print pieces, contributed to monthly reporting meetings, and wrote short, long and investigative pieces for our print mag and website. They also produced multimedia coverage for events such as the Batman by-election and the state election.

COLUMNISTS (14 POSITIONS) Columnists wrote at least eight pieces throughout the year that were tied together with a theme. This year included online columns about student life, an interview series with queer people from the theatre scene, graphics columns, reflective pieces and a creative series about Shakespeare at UniMelb.

SATIRE TEAM (12 POSITIONS, INCLUDING 1 MANAGERIAL) A new initiative, the satire team created our most clickable content, increasing online reach and contributing to a dedicated page in the magazine. They worked collaboratively under the title ‘The Grub’.

VIDEO TEAM (20 POSITIONS, INCLUDING 2 MANAGERIAL) Our video team worked to create short films published on Youtube and social media. This year we focused particularly on growing the campus side of the team, allowing for more accessible and inclusive content. Working collaboratively with the reporting team under Ashleigh, this allowed for live news coverage, a presidential debate, and live-streaming of the rally against sexual violence on campus.

RADIO TEAM (60 SHOWS, BETWEEN 1 AND 4 PRESENTERS PER SHOW, INCLUDING 2 MANAGERS AND A BLOG TEAM) Our radio team refreshed and revamped Radio Fodder to all new heights. With an incredible range of shows, and special events like the ‘Tepid 100’: a precursor to Triple J’s ‘Hottest 100’, Fodder’s presenters were an eclectic and passionate bunch. We continued in publishing online features on the Fodder Blog. All of these endeavours—from training presenters and

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

producers, to coordinating Wednesday Farmers’ Markets—were completely run by our two station managers and legends, Conor Day and Carolyn Huane.

PHOTOGRAPHY TEAM (16 POSITIONS, INCLUDING 2 MANAGERIAL) Our new photography team covered rallies, poster campaigns, and also produced beautiful art. While much was published online, their work was also featured in a special photography spread in edition six.

SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM (12 POSITIONS, INCLUDING 2 MANAGERIAL) Social media officers managed our social accounts, covered events, and posted engaging content online. With two devoted managers and an incredible team, they increased our online reach and engagement.

3. RESTRUCTURING THE MEDIA OFFICE In our budget at the start of the year, although we did not ask for significantly more money than in 2017, the budget did represent a shift in the relative proportions of its budget lines. Specifically, the introduction of the “staffing” budget line signified the first time the media department would offer honoraria to a small number of its contributors. To make this change possible, we shifted money from various budget lines. In particular, we received a reduction in funding to Radio Fodder and Farrago Video to make these honoraria possible.

Arguably the most pressing issue the media office has faced in the past several years is the rapid growth of the media collective. In 2014—just three years ago—Radio Fodder did not exist, nor did a functioning website, a social media presence or any kind of video content produced by the media department. Three years ago, Farrago did not provide feedback to contributions that were not accepted in the magazine, and the subediting process was closed to the writers of the contributions. Now, in addition to the same number of printed magazines on stands across campus, the media department runs a full-time radio station, along with two websites, eight social media channels and anything up to 30 videos a year. In 2014, the media officers had roughly 50–100 volunteers to manage. Today, the number is closer to 400.

This growth is important and desirable. Only in recent years have students involved in the media collective had the ability to gain experience in the types of media that are, in our opinion, likely to be most prevalent when these students are serving out their careers—i.e., experience in the creation of video, audio, social media and internet-based content. The provision of feedback to authors not published in the magazine, and an open, collaborative subediting process increases the value of the magazine to its contributors, who are developing their skills and need honest, engaged feedback above anything else. In addition, this growth increases the value of Farrago to its audience, with associated advancements in the accessibility of content.

However, despite the growth of the media office, there has not been a proportional increase in the number of media officers, or a decrease in the amount of regular printed content the department produces. In 2018, we have opted to experiment with bringing on board a

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

number of volunteer positions with extra responsibilities, each paid a small honorarium. These positions would include a Radio Fodder station manager, Farrago Video manager, social media coordinator and web developer. The amount of money we allocated for these positions is not a living wage. The Radio Fodder station managers and social media coordinators—both positions that require some form of contact with the media officers from Monday to Friday during semester—were paid $1,500 each over the course of the year, the equivalent of $62.50 per week of semester. The video coordinator received $1,000 each, or approximately $41.50 per week of semester. The web developer received $1,000 for specified work on the Radio Fodder website.

4. COLLECTIVE This year, our collective numbers well over 400 members—with 447 people in the Facebook group alone. People involved range from students who occasionally send us work, dedicated contributors, to other OBs and members of our wider community. Having inherited the gigantic level four space for the collective to use for events, meetings, and as a chill out or study space, and completely revamped the Radio Fodder studio, we’ve found that we have had extremely high levels of student engagement. Having physical room for our collective has been an amazing opportunity, but also come with its own difficulties in monitoring and managing it as a safe space.

5. FARRAGO MAGAZINE We produced eight editions of Farrago in 2018, with at least 68 pages per edition. Each was distributed around all UniMelb campuses and made available online both via our website and on issuu.com. We advertised open submissions via social media and university channels. The final numbers below are based largely on cold submissions and successful pitches without commissioned news pieces.

EDITION ONE Submissions: 5 December 2017 – 5 January 2018 31 creative, 5 graphics, 8 nonfic A total of 80 students contributed writing and graphics published in edition one. 5,000 copies printed. Launch: The Ida Bar, Tuesday 20 February

EDITION TWO Submissions: 12 January – 25 January 28 creative, 8 graphics, 12 nonfic A total of 93 students contributed writing and graphics published in edition two. 3,500 copies printed. Launch: The Ida Bar, Wednesday 14 March

EDITION THREE Submissions: 9 February – 2 March

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

30 creative, 10 graphics, 15 nonfic A total of 86 students contributed writing and graphics published in edition three. 3,500 copies printed. Launch: The Ida Bar, Tuesday 24 April

EDITION FOUR Submissions: 5 March – 22 March 45 creative, 7 graphics, 9 nonfic A total of 82 students contributed writing and graphics published in edition four. 3,000 copies printed. Launch: The Ida Bar, Monday 21 May

EDITION FIVE Submissions: 16 April – 31 May 53 creative, 113 graphics (14 artists), 31 nonfic A total of 79 students contributed writing and graphics published in edition five. 3,000 copies printed. Launch: The Ida Bar, Tuesday 17 July

EDITION SIX Submissions: 15 June – 5 July 57 creative, 6 graphics, 26 nonfic A total of 92 students contributed writing and graphics published in edition six. This edition featured a glossy photography section to showcase the work of the photography team. 2,500 copies printed. Launch: The Ida Bar, Tuesday 14 August

EDITION SEVEN Submissions: 13 July – 5 August 50 creative (not incl. Above Water doubles), 32 graphics, 15 nonfic A total of 85 students contributed writing and graphics published in edition seven. This edition featured the UMSU election guide. 2,500 copies printed. Launch: The Ida Bar, Friday 31 August

EDITION EIGHT Submissions: 15 August – 9 September. 77 creative, 32 graphics, 16 nonfic A total of 91 students contributed writing and graphics published in edition eight. With an absolutely unprecedented number of submissions, we decided to extend this edition to 84 pages instead of the usual 68. 2,000 copies printed. Launch: South Lawn, Friday 19 October

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

6. CAMPUS COVERAGE We’ve had a brilliant year in the campus reporting team—we’ve tackled the Batman by- election, UMSU International elections, CAPS, special consideration, clubs, student media, protests, the NTEU, campus violence, GSA drama, campus sustainability, satellite campus cuts, neo-Nazis, UniMelb love letters, NatCon, weapons manufacturing companies, UMSU elections, the state election and a range of other issues pertinent to students.

This year we did something new and brought live video coverage to campus reporting. Most notably, this occurred in our ABC-style Batman by-election live coverage (included periodic results updates, a dog predicting the election, panel analysis and calling the election) and our up-and-coming state election live coverage. We also live-streamed the rally against sexual violence, organised by the UMSU women’s office. Furthermore, we held a presidential debate for the UMSU elections for the first time in many years, which we live-streamed to our Facebook page. We had a solid turnout of hacks in the actual audience, but on the Facebook we got over 2,000 views.

We also kickstarted a new initiative, the campus news briefing. This involved Ashleigh painfully collating all of the campus content into a single, digestible briefing every two weeks and sending it out to the subscribers and posting it on the website. We received a lot of positive feedback on this, and we hope that it has made campus news more accessible.

We were incredibly lucky to have such a dedicated group of reporters this year who were always willing to help out whenever any news came up last minute. Thanks to this, we were able to expand our output of news online and release news in a more timely manner than has been done in the past.

7. ABOVE WATER Now in its 14th year year, the media office published the creative writing and art anthology and competition Above Water with the creative arts office.

We received almost 300 written and graphic submissions. Due to this high quantity of submissions, and their incredible quality, we almost doubled the publication from 68 pages to 128. 21 writers were shortlisted and 14 artists contributed internal artwork. Before shortlisted submissions were sent to the judges, editorial assistant Abigail Fisher blinded everything, and the editorial team of the six office bearers used a marking rubric and points system to ensure submissions were judged in accordance with Above Water’s values. This rubric was inherited from last year’s team, in order to create some cohesion between volumes.

The winners of the shortlist were decided by members of the creative writing community: Jack Callil, Leah Jing McIntosh and last year’s winner Harry McLean. Natalie Fong Chun Min won the written section for her poem ‘how to: birth (a) name’, while graphics winner Rachel Morley was commissioned to do the cover art. The winners were awarded $300 each and runners-ups were awarded $100.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

This year we built on last year’s branding for submissions by commissioning two artworks from Bethany Cherry and Winnie Jiao. As in previous years, the media department was responsible for creating the publication, while the creative arts department coordinated the launch party. A success in dramatic pink and blue lighting, it was held in the Rowden White Library and featured readings from poet WaffleIron Girl and contributors.

In terms of evaluating the success of this year’s edition, we’re particularly proud of how we were able to reach out to a wide range of students, and reflect the University’s diverse and passionate creative writers and artists from all different backgrounds. This year, alongside commissioned artwork and shortlisted fiction, nonfiction and poetry, we had room to publish shortlisted graphics submissions which allowed for it to become a beautiful object in and of itself. Similarly, by reducing printing costs by printing on slightly thinner, glossier stock, we were able to distribute 1,800 copies of the volume across campuses, and reach a wide range of students.

8. RADIO FODDER OPERATIONS Radio Fodder hosted 60 shows in its fourth year. With a collective of 108 students, our two station managers trained presenters and producers in studio hardware and software operation, as well as broadcast technique. Most shows use Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Youtube or iTunes to upload podcasts.

With repeated inquiries as to when applications would open, the student body showed a high level of interest in the campus radio station, while we continued to attract listeners from both within the University and internationally. By revamping the sound, playlist and identity of the radio station, our station managers created a more specific sonic identity and aesthetic for Radio Fodder, focusing on local indie acts and student musicians. This made listening to the station a lot easier and smoother, and meant there were less people tuning out between shows.

We continued to provide music to a number of carnivals, University events and Farmers’ Markets throughout the year—by compromising with last year’s decision to cease all collaboration with the market, we shared often fortnightly or monthly stalls with the Rowden White Library doing the market in our off weeks. This was handled almost entirely by our station managers, and proved to be a great opportunity to raise student awareness for the station, while simultaneously distributing magazines.

STAFFING By introducing the new, official title of station manager to two of our coordinators—Conor Day and Carolyn Huane—the relationship of the media officers to Radio Fodder was completely changed. This was a successful decision, and improved the quality of the radio station while also allowing the editors to focus on their other roles. Moreover, Conor and Carolyn were simply incredible legends, who managed to bring the radio to all new heights.

INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADES

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Having moved studios in late 2017, we put in place the soundproofing purchased in last year’s budget, and worked with Isaac from AV Melbourne to get the new infrastructure up and running. This included his redesign of the console, a new ‘ON AIR’ sign that lights up, a way of having people phone in live and more exciting projects. Moreover, Linus Peng’s website redesign now means we finally have a functional website and streaming service for the station, providing a professional streaming service to match with our studio quality and recording capabilities.

9. FARRAGO VIDEO This year we introduced two video coordinators: Lily Miniken and Ruby Perryman. They were integral to fostering the community, and Lily’s editing skills in particular helped with professional development, while also allowing the team to achieve ambitious goals. We encouraged the video team to work as independently as possible, and promoted collaboration with other filmmakers on campus, many of whom—from the MUDCRABS to the Filmmakers’ Collaborative—rely on our equipment to make their videos.

In 2018 so far we’ve produced 17 videos, and are particularly proud of our campus content which has allowed news to net a wider audience. At the time of submitting this report, we are working on our live coverage of the Victorian state elections, 24 November, which will mark an end to our term and the culmination of everything we’ve learned over the course of the year.

The 2018 videos are as follows: 1. ‘Macca’s Mayhem’ Created by Jack Langan and Monique O’Rafferty Published: 4 December 2017 Facebook: over 2,600 views, 72 reactions, 8 comments and 1 share

2. ‘WATCH: Education in the Batman By-Election’ Created by Jasper MacCuspie, Lily Miniken, Michael Fowler, Maggy Liu and O’Meara Shanahan Published: 12 March 2018 Facebook: 767 views, 33 reactions, 1 comment and 1 share

3. ‘WATCH: Housing and Infrastructure in the Batman By-Election’ Created by Maggy Liu and Lily Miniken Published: 13 March 2018 Facebook: 475 views and 22 reactions

4. ‘Healthcare in the Batman By-Election’ Created by Michael Fowler and Lily Miniken Published: 14 March 2018 Facebook: 462 views, 15 reactions and 1 comment

5. ‘The Environment in the Batman By-Election’

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Created by Jasper MacCuspie, Lily Miniken and Monique O’Rafferty Published: 15 March 2018 Facebook: 514 views, 18 reactions and 1 comment

6. ‘Batman By-Election: Adani’ Created by Jasper MacCuspie, Lily Miniken and Jesse Paris-Jourdan Published: 16 March 2018 Facebook: 423 views and 14 reactions

7. ‘Analysis: Batman By-Election Poll Booth Data’ Created by Ashleigh Barraclough, Lloyd Connolly, Martin Ditmann and Jesse Paris-Jourdan Published: 16 March 2018 Facebook: over 1,600 views, 112 reactions and 12 comments

8. ‘Batman By-Election Candidate Rundown’ Created by Wing Kuang and Lucy Williams Published: 17 March 2018 Facebook: over 1,600 views, 30 reactions, 1 comment and 1 share

9. ‘Farrago’s live Batman by-election coverage’ Created by Ashleigh Barraclough, Esther Le Couteur, Jesse Paris-Jourdan, Martin Ditmann, Lucy Williams, Conor Clements, Callum Simpson, Jasper MacCuspie, Alain Nguyen, Lloyd Connolly, Joshua Bruni, Wing Kuang, Astro (dog) Published: 17 March 2018 Facebook: over 1,400 views, 37 reactions, 15 comments and 1 share. 3,206 people reached and 739 engagements.

10. ‘Farrago Reports: The UMSU Farmers’ Market’ Created by Dilpreet Kaur Taggar and Alain Nguyen Published: 13 April 2018 Facebook: over 2,800 views, 81 reactions, 10 comments and 7 shares

11. ‘Storytime (w/ Louise) – Long Toes’ Created by Justin Villar Published: 15 April 2018 Facebook: over 1,600 views, 96 reactions, 18 comments and 6 shares

12. ‘How to Vote: UMSU International 2018 Elections!’ Created by Wing Kuang and Alain Nguyen Published: 30 April 2018 Facebook: over 2,400 views, 38 reactions, 8 comments and 20 shares

13. ‘Goodbye, Rowdy Table’ Created by Lily Miniken, Dilpreet Kaur Taggar and Linus Tolliday Published: 10 May 2018 Facebook: over 2,000 views, 64 reactions, 9 comments and 5 shares

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

14. ‘Farrago Reports: The Melbourne University Vegan Club’ Created by Dilpreet Kaur Taggar Published: 18 May 2018 Facebook: over 1,500 views, 33 reactions, 6 comments and 5 shares

15. ‘In Conversation with Students One Year On from the AHRC Report’ Created by Wing Kuang, Maggy Liu and Lily Miniken Published: 31 July 2018 Facebook: over 1,900 views, 29 reactions, 2 comments and 3 shares

16. ‘Livestream: Rally Against Sexual Violence’ Created by Ashleigh Barraclough, Wing Kuang, Lily Miniken and Jesse Paris-Jourdan Published: 1 August 2018 Facebook: due to technical difficulties, this video was streamed in three parts. Together, they received over 2,800 views, 106 reactions, 3 comments and 4 shares

17. ‘Livestream: UMSU Presidential Debate’ Created by Ashleigh Barraclough, Alain Nguyen and Jesse Paris-Jourdan Facebook: over 2, 200 views, 42 reactions, 17 comments and 3 shares. 5,147 people reached and 1,154 engagements.

10. UMSU ELECTION GUIDE As is our constitutional duty, we fucking succeeded in pulling this off again. As always, it was extremely stressful and cumbersome, and the duty for making the thing happen fell unfairly on the graphics editor. This year in particular, while photographing candidates went relatively smoothly, due to returning officers having unforeseeable health issues we had to manage gathering and correcting many candidate statements ourselves which was very time- consuming and added to the stress. While the election guide was successful, came out in time, was legible and clearly differentiated from the body of the magazine, it was an unduly rushed and painful process.

11. EVENTS LAUNCH PARTIES Launch parties were held at The Ida Bar in Union House, except for the final edition eight launch which was held on South Lawn as a picnic. Drinks and occasionally finger food were provided by the media office.

Launch parties are a great opportunity for contributors, readers, viewers and listeners of the media offices various productions to celebrate and socialise. Their purpose is largely to foster and enrich our community, and create a casual and accessible space where people can meet, socialise and celebrate their achievements.

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Holding the events within Union House meant every launch was extremely well-attended. Students are notified of the events through Facebook, email, Instagram and Twitter, and launches are by far our most popular and successful regular events. They provide a sense of community and achievement to what can be an overwhelmingly large and disparate collective.

WORDPLAY Wordplay is the spoken word and performance night held by the media office. This year, we held one every two editions, meaning there were ultimately four. The average turnout was 20-30 people, with 10-12 performances, pizza, alcohol and soft drink. While we initially held these in the media space, we moved down to Arts Lab for the second half of the year as it had better ambience and acoustics.

Our purpose with these events is to provide a low-pressure, encouraging and supportive environment where student writers and performers can share their work. In evaluation, our diverse range of performers and works—from comedy acts to poetry to painful diary readings—made for an exciting and fun environment. It was challenging to encourage new members of the collective to participate, and to increase attendance from Southbank students, but ultimately extremely valuable in making a safe, fun environment for students to learn and grow.

NATIONAL YOUNG WRITERS’ FESTIVAL We spent from 26 September to 1 October in Newcastle for the National Young Writers’ Festival. We organised and hosted a student media symposium which attracted speakers from Opus, the student publication at the University of Newcastle, Grapeshot (Macquarie University) and Empire Times (Flinders University). The event consisted of two panel discussions, which split the topics between “the nuts and bolts of student media” and “building a community”. These were followed by a round table in which the audience was invited to ask follow-up questions of the panelists. The event was a success, as it allowed us to share knowledge with other student media outlets across the country.

Overall, the National Young Writers’ Festival was incredible and the students who attended with us were extremely grateful for the opportunity. A few of the program highlights included “Black Comedy”, a discussion about being funny on screen between Nayuka Gorrie and Enoch Mailangi; “Workshop: Sweatshop x NYWF”, an autonomous workshop on personal experience as a foundation for writing with Stephen Pham and Monikka Eliah; “Women in Journalism”, in which Eliza Berlage and Gina Rushton shared experiences of working in the male-dominated journalism industry; and the Young Queer Writers’ Program, which featured young LGBTIQA+ artists and writers.

In order to determine recipients of the travel grant, we ran an application process open to the collective. The incoming media officers in particular found the experience enriching as they were able to bond, meet fellow student editors and attend editing and diversity panels. Everyone expanded their networks, gained knowledge, and by filming and live-tweeting the student media symposium we collected information to share with students unable to attend.

FITZPATRICK AWARDS NIGHT

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

The media office held our annual awards night celebrating the collective and student media at The Provincial Hotel on 12 November. A Google form was open for all students at the University to nominate their favourite pieces, artwork, videos and radio shows from the year, and the nominated shortlist released the weekend before the awards night. It was a successful event, and allowed for us to celebrate an incredible year with the collective, while also acknowledging the students who truly create everything media does at UMSU.

OTHER EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES In order to provide professional development opportunities to the collective, we had an open office policy, held regular proofreadings for each edition of the magazine which were some of our most popular and well-attended events, had get-togethers for each team and just generally ran the space as openly as we could—which meant that there were always students around. In order to celebrate the collective’s achievements, we held a mid-year picnic with snacks, and also headed down to the Burnley campus in semester two. We also encouraged our collective to contribute to and attend the launches of other department’s magazines and helped the queer department initiate their first annual magazine, CAMP.

Radio Fodder was a regular fixture at Wednesday Farmers’ Markets, and we did a number of other events for the University’s Faculty of Arts, UMSU, and the University more generally. We also collaborated with the Media and Communications Student Society and the Melbourne Arts Student Society to help them with their events. We also attended the Union House Sleepover at the start of our terms, and coordinated stalls at both Summerfest, Winterfest, clubs carnival and Open Day.

At the beginning of our term, a team of four reporters attended the National Union of Students’ National Conference in Geelong, and provided the most in-depth coverage of the event in years. Similarly early on, the four editors attended Express Media’s NEWS Conference where we met other student editors from all over the country and attended development sessions.

Lastly, this year we worked to provide more review opportunities and press passes to students. This was an easy way for us to provide development in culture writing and interviewing to students, allow nervous writers an easy-access point to writing for Farrago which then enabled them to feel more confident submitting to the print magazine, and simply made student writers and photographers feel like they were getting something material out of participating in the collective.

12. OTHER INITIATIVES DIGITISING THE FARRAGO ARCHIVE Over the course of the year we facilitated the beginning of the digitisation of the Farrago archive. This is a huge job, and we’re so thankful to the Baillieu collections, the Digitisation staff and Cilla from the Rowden White Library for enabling this important task. Our team of 12 student volunteers were, however, were the people and the elbow grease behind this project. By making these archives publicly accessible online when possible, we’re able to increase Farrago’s legacy, instill our important history and reportage in the public memory,

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

and finally catch up to other Australian student papers of the 20th century with accessible digitised archives: Honi Soit (University of Sydney), Woroni (Australian National University) and Lot’s Wife (Monash University).

GOVERNANCE CHANGES This year, along with the Renew Our UMSU governance review, we initiated two different processes of reviewing UMSU policy with regards to the media office. These are both ongoing, but can be summarised as follows: ● People of Colour in the Media Department: The four of us, as 2018 editors, are white, and had inherited various problems and complaints from previous generations of Farrago editors and members of the media collective. Affirmative Action was proposed as part of a wider process of changes to help with representation in the media office. Through two autonomous working groups, an affirmative action proposal was developed and submitted to students’ council. After a heated discussion, policy for at least one media officer to be a person of colour was passed, as well as other recommendations and foreshadowed motions to increase representation and make the office a safer space. These changes are ongoing. ● Student Newspaper Policy: We inherited a similarly dated “student newspaper policy” that governs the media office. As office bearers we produce many things which aren’t mentioned in the policy, from a magazine and website to a full-time radio station. The only thing we no longer produce is in fact a newspaper. There are a variety of issues with this policy as it stands, and we have held a number of working groups to try and address these problems. Again, changes to the policy are ongoing. ● Renew Our UMSU Governance Review: Lastly, we are in the process of waiting for the new proposals to the constitution. The University raised concerns around our accuracy—despite not having had to issue any corrections this year, and only one that could be noted from 2017. We held a focus group with the four editors and Randall Pearce, and also organised the first, tense meeting between Randall and the People of Colour department. The governance forum reviewed the position of general secretary as publisher of Farrago, and the annual tensions which arise from this. We await the proposed changes with bated breath.

13. SOME STATISTICS This section notes some important figures from across the year. Something to note is that over the course of the year we worked on accessibility and troubleshooting the website that had been redesigned in 2017—much of this came down to Jesse’s back-end playing around. We also took on a student engineer, Linus Peng, to revamp the Radio Fodder website in order to increase the usability and aesthetic interest of the site. The following is accurate as of 13 November.

Copies of Farrago printed: 25,000 Copies of Above Water printed: 1,900

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Number of Radio Fodder programs broadcast: 60

Top Five 2018 Farrago Articles Visited Online: 1. ‘UMSU Election Results Live’ by Ashleigh Barraclough, Conor Day, Alain Nguyen and Annette Syahlan, with data by Daniel Beratis and Patrick Clearwater—10,517 pageviews 2. ‘“Neo-Nazis” Escorted Off Campus on First Day of 2018’ by Ashleigh Barraclough and Monique O’Rafferty—5,915 pageviews 3. ‘Finding Love on Campus’ by Alex Epstein—4,046 pageviews 4. ‘An Exhaustive List of Whom We Shall Kill on the First Day of the Revolution’ by Otis Heffernan-Wooden—3,017 pageviews 5. ‘Profile: Alex Bhathal’ from Farrago vol. 62, no. 15, 1984, collated by Esther Le Couteur—2,399 pageviews While in 2017 Google analytics was disabled, it is interesting to note that the most-visited article of 2016 had only 2,937 views over the whole of their term, marking a significant increase in traffic to the Farrago website. That being said, our most-visited article of the whole year is still 2016’s ‘Anthropological Notes on Summoning a Sex Demon’ by Sam Nelson which gained another 11,484 pageviews over the course of our term.

Top Five Most Popular Farrago Videos (Facebook data): 1. ‘Farrago Reports: The UMSU Farmers’ Market’ by Dilpreet Kaur Taggar and Alain Nguyen—over 2,800 views 2. ‘Macca’s Mayhem’ by Jack Langan and Monique O’Rafferty—over 2,600 views 3. ‘How to Vote: UMSU International 2018 Elections!’ by Wing Kuang and Alain Nguyen—over 2,400 views 4. ‘UMSU Presidential Debate: Livestream’—over 2,200 views 5. ‘Goodbye, Rowdy Table.’ by Lily Miniken, Dilpreet Kaur Taggar and Linus Tolliday— over 2,000 views

SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWINGS Farrago magazine: ● Facebook: 8,015 likes ● Instagram: 2,047 followers ● Twitter: 3,419 followers

Radio Fodder: ● Facebook: 1,097 likes ● Instagram: 416 followers ● Twitter: 421 followers

Above Water ● Facebook: 913 likes ● Instagram: 311 followers

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Mailing list subscribers: 500 (both main and fortnightly Campus News Briefings)

14. EXPENDITURE

Budget line Initial allocation Amount spent Amount left

Printing $96,500.00 $96,499.50 $0.50 Radio Fodder $6,000.00 $5,999.09 $0.91 Farrago Video $6,000.00 $5,999.46 $0.54 Staffing $9,000.00 $9,000.00 $0.00 Above Water $8,300.00 $8,300.00 $0.00 Special projects $733.70 and events $17,500.00 $16,766.30

Total $143,300.00 $142,564.35 $735.65

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Collective and Student Engagement ● We would recommend continuing to hold events on satellite campuses, especially once the Southbank student areas are open again. ● As the collective grows exponentially, so does the difficulty in ensuring that our spaces (both physical and discursive) are safe. We would recommend creating safe events for autonomous groups, particularly having even more dry events like picnics and proofreading, and autonomous events for People of Colour—whether within the media space or online. ● We would also recommend implementing quotas, especially for subeditors, and collecting demographic information on the collective and contributors. The 2019 team has already begun implementing these initiatives.

Events ● Provide more food options at events where alcohol is present eg. Launch Parties ● Hold more events outside the media offices and on different campuses to increase attendance

Coordinators and Staffing ● Delegating roles to coordinators in managerial positions both allowed for the four editors to focus more closely on their respective jobs, and provide further opportunities for students. ● We would encourage not only continuing to have students fill these positions, but budget for higher honorarias in order to recognise the amount of work they put in— particularly the Radio Fodder station managers.

Campus Reporting ● Foster good relationships with sources, including UMSU OBs, University staff and club execs ● Utilise video and audio as much as you possibly can—they’re incredibly important in the digital news age ● Innovate constantly—we need to keep up with the mainstream media but do things differently so that we’re offering something unique ● Begin any big investigations at the start of the year so that reporters have appropriate time ● Provide training to both reporters and news subeditors about news structure, balance, bias, conflict of interest, interviews, etc. ● Think about how Farrago can help foster campus culture and report on issues and events which they genuinely care about

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

● Continue running the physical newsroom to make reporters feel like they are part of a collaborative and exciting environment ● Continue producing the campus news briefing to ensure that campus news is accessible and digestible

Websites ● Continue to regularly update the website and make changes: we’ve worked a lot on backend functionality of the wordpress this year (having a functional search bar etc) but it would be useful to revamp the contributors’ pages so they can be better used as folios. ● Updating the website to match the branding and marketing of each edition was also a really useful way to keep it fresh and in sync with the print edition cycle.

Social Media ● Social media coordinators to hold more regular meetings, ideally once a month, to increase social media managers interaction with themselves and the coordinators and develop a productive feedback system ● The maintenance of a calendar, created by the coordinators and media officers, for better communication of upcoming events and to raise content creation ● Increase social media managers attendance of events and production of shareable content. ● A more indepth training regime at the start of the year to produce post templates and provide more support at the beginning of term.

The Print Magazine ● Increase number of stands across Parkville and wider University of Melbourne campuses with the help of the comms department/ ● Increase distribution of Farrago between the release of different editions.

Above Water ● While extending the magazine was fun this year, it does create a huge workload that simply is not necessary: we’d encourage future years to decide how they want to prioritise their jobs. ● Have a speaker at the launch event and consider budgeting an honorarium for the editorial assistant (and formalising this role). ● We’d recommend having a list of content warnings within the submissions guidelines for writers to content warn their pieces before submitting.

Radio Fodder ● Continue hiring at least one station manager—we recommend paying these people as much as you possibly can due to the huge amount of work they do.

100

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

● Continue to foster expansion and growth by playing at events and looking into streaming apps and other services.

Farrago Video ● Having video managers is incredibly helpful—giving these people as much autonomy as possible allows for them to feel like they have control over Farrago Video. ● If the managers don’t have the skills, consider bringing in external trainers to ensure that equipment is used properly and to allow further professional development (e.g. in video editing). ● We would recommend drafting a formal borrowing procedure or form on the Farrago website and making the schedules for borrowing even more accessible.

UMSU Election Guide Many, if not all, of the fundamental problems with the UMSU Election Guide are out of the media officers’ hands. We would encourage that the returning officers have set deadlines available to the media department for when candidate statements will be made available to them.

People of Colour Reem Faiq and Hiruni Walimunige

Key activities throughout the year

SummerFest and WinterFest We held three events during SummerFest – a Carnival Day stall, a Meet and Greet Picnic and our Week 1 introductory Collective.

We commissioned an artist of Colour to design tote bags and had snacks, as well as copies of the 2017 edition of Myriad and bookmarks, to give away with them at the Carnival Day stall.

Our Meet and Greet Picnic was a casual, tight-knit autonomous event where we got to know Collective members and had catering provided by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

Our Week 1 Collective was catered by the Sorghum Sisters, and attracted 25 people through promotions through our social media channels and conversations with students on Carnival Day.

For WinterFest we had a stall at Carnival Day where we spoke to students and gave out tote bags and bookmarks left from SummeFest and engaged with students.

We also held a Trivia Night with prizes from ACMI, Myer, Readings, and more. The event was catered by A1 Bakery and every attendee received a prize at the end of the day.

101

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

People of Colour Collective The People of Colour Collective gives students of Colour to gather in an autonomous setting to get to know the department and each other. Conversation is usually light, with topical issues sometimes being discussed as a wider group. This year we changed our weekly Collective from 1 hour to 2 hours. We also made a greater effort to provide meals to attendees that were from businesses run by People of Colour, so as to support PoC in the wider community. At our last Collective, we also had a badge-making session.

Film Screenings and Reading Groups This year we introduced new weekly events in the form of film screenings and reading groups, as curated by Reem Faiq. Both events would share a theme, with the film taking place prior to the reading group. Themes included “white denial of Indigenous knowledge”, “The Politics of Hair: on Women of Colour's (specifically black women) beauty techniques, and the discourse surrounding it” and “On white fabrications of PoC narratives, serving to fit how PoC are envisaged and gazed upon”, among many others.

Film screenings would end with a discussion of the film with attended. At the reading groups, the selected academic readings were discussed, as well as its ties with the films.

Some film screening/reading group themes were tied to interdepartmental events like Enviro Week, Stress Less Week and other major weeks like People Seeking Asylum Awareness Week.

Liaising with Safer Communities Reem has been in contact with Safer Communities to discuss how the campus can be made safer for students of Colour. These meetings had started in Semester 1 of this year.

Diversity Week The University-led Diversity Week took place in Week 4 of Semester 1. After meeting with a staff member from the Faulty of Arts, we decided on two speaker events, with one being in collaboration with the Indigenous and Disabilities departments.

The first event was titled “Diversity, Tokenism and White Guilt” and was presented by the academic, Dr. Yassir Morsi. The event attracted around 30 attendees, with many of them being newcomers.

The second event was a talk about “Racism, Health & Wellbeing” held in collaboration with the Indigenous and Disabilities departments. For this talk, we invited Mr Romlie Mokak, the CEO of the Lowitja Institute, and Ms Angeline Ferdinand, a research fellow with the Centre for Health Policy.

Islamic Prayer Spaces Reem Faiq liaised with Muslim students on campus to ascertain what would be needed in the new Islamic Prayer Spaces in Union House, including prayer mats and prayer clothes. After consultation with them, she then worked with UMSU Staff to acquire these needs and source money from Students’ Council.

Collaborative Events with Other Departments

102

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

For Radical Education Week, we held a speaker event with Dr Yassir Morsi on ‘Curriculums of Colour: A Discussion on Academia and Reading Lists’ and provided a recording of the presentation for those who were unable to attend the event. We also held a forum titled “How privilege manifests in tutorials” where students of Colour were able to meet in an autonomous setting and share their classroom experiences. This material was collected and anonymised to be used for staff training opportunities.

We participated in Stress Less Week in both semester 1 and 2. Our semester 1 events were Tune Out with Toons (cartoon screenings), a skin pamper day and a badminton day at MU Sport. For semester 2, we ran a repeat session of the skin pamper day, organised a dodgeball tournament at MU Sport, and held a concert night where professional musicians of Colour were invited to play.

For Enviro Week we held joint non-autonomous Film Screenings and Reading Groups with the Environment Department related to the topic of indigenous resistance and environmental racism. We also hosted a speaker event by Dr Yassir Morsi on the topic of environmental racism.

PASS Tutor Training A contact in the Faculty of Arts reached out to us at the end of semester 1 to organise cultural sensitivity training for incoming PASS program facilitators. It was decided that we, along with several students of Colour chosen to represent varying positionalities, would form a panel to speak on our experiences in the classroom and answer questions.

Material from the “How privilege manifests in tutorials” session during Radical Education Week was used to draw from a wider range of student experiences so that facilitators were given more comprehensive advice.

Anti-racism Workshops and Texts on Racism Seminar Series Anti-racism workshops were held during Semester 1 this year to give students the platform to speak on a topic of their choice relating to Anti-racism more broadly. Students were asked to present on their chosen topic for up to an hour and were paid for their time and labour. The presenters were given the choice of having their presentation open to a non-autonomous audience and have a discussion afterwards. Recordings of the presentation were then shared.

In Semester 2, the workshop series was replaced by a seminar series titled “Texts on Racism” presented by Dr Yassir Morsi. The intention was to replace the workshops from the previous semester with a seminar series presented by an academic in the field of Critical Race Theory that would present on key texts in that field.

Myriad 2018 This year’s edition of Myriad was the magazine’s second. After recruiting a publication team, work began with releasing a callout for submissions. It was decided early on that this issue would differ to its predecessor in size, as well as the type of content that would be published, which was then reflected in the submission guidelines.

103

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Initially, we did not have enough funds for printing, due to the quote we used being outdated, and had to receive the funding from Students’ Council before we could go ahead with printing.

We had planned to close submissions at the end of the semester break, but ultimately extended the deadline to the second week of semester 2 to allow for better promotion. To increase involvement, we promoted the magazine in person at Southbank by handing out copies of the submission guidelines and putting up posters.

After collecting and approving submissions, we went to print with 112 pages. The launch night was held in Week 10 with around 50 people in attendance. Catering for the launch party was provided by Just Grazing Through and copies of the magazine were available for attendees to collect, with some contributors choosing to read out their pieces on the night.

University of Melbourne students were compensated for their contributions with a gift card.

We have distributed the magazine to stands around the University, including Union House, MSD, Law building, The Spot and Arts West.

PoC in the Media Department: A Working Group The Media department approached us in the interest of setting up a working group regarding affirmative action for PoC in the Media department. The working group was considered necessary, given that there had been prior instances of students of Colour having issues within the Media department.

We recruited a Chair and Executive Officer through our autonomous group who then wrote agendas and minutes for the meetings and helped organise them. Two meetings of the working group were held, with around 10 attendees at each meeting. As well as general recommendations for the Media department, the working group came to a decision on what affirmative action measures would be necessary. These measures were ultimately written into a motion to be taken to Students’ Council.

Solidarity Week We held the first Solidarity Week in collaboration with the Indigenous department in Semester 2, Week 6. The aim of the week was to combat racism on a campus situated on stolen Indigenous land and to explore the importance of solidarity. Various events were held throughout the week, including a welcome to country, a reading group collaboration with the Environment department, joint Collectives with the Indigenous department, speaker events and a BBQ.

People Seeking Asylum Awareness Week We changed the name of last year’s “Asylum Seeker Awareness Week” event to “People Seeking Asylum Awareness Week” and held it in Week 12 of Semester 2. As well as having our Film Screening and Reading Group events showcase the work of Behrouz Boochani, we also invited Dr Yassir Morsi to facilitate a discussion with Behrouz Boochani over Skype and Ravi Shanmuganthan attending in person to perform a spoken-word poem.

104

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation of activities throughout the year

Evaluation of SummerFest and WinterFest SummerFest and WinterFest gave us great opportunities to engage with new students and promote our department and its services/events and initiatives. Carnival Day was particularly helpful in the number of students it allowed us to reach. For example, it allowed us to promote Myriad and speak to potential contributors at Winterfest.

Our Summerfest picnic was attended by around 10 people and was a good opportunity to get together with our committee members and other members who were new to the department. Like our Week 1 Collective, which had around 20 attendees, it gave us a good opportunity to support a PoC-owned catering business.

The Trivia night was attended by around 20 people and was a good chance to have a more intimate fun event and give back to those who were involved in our Collective.

Evaluation of People of Colour Collective The PoC Collectives saw a significant growth in attendance this year, from 6 attendees per Collective last year, to up to 20 per Collective this year. We found that holding Collective for 2 hours instead of one, on the same day every week and in the same room simplified things and allowed people to attend at least one hour of Collective (in the event of classes, etc.). The fact that we could also support PoC-owned businesses for our catering was also significant.

Evaluation of Film Screenings and Reading Groups The change to hold Film Screenings and Reading Groups on a more regular basis was very well received by attendees. Attendance was generally decent, and the intimate group setting allowed for thorough discussion between attendees. We were able to accommodate a wide variety of themes and topics, partly due to the fact that students were given opportunities to host these events (and get reimbursed) in the occasion that their positionality was better suited to it.

Evaluation of Liaising with Safer Communities The communication with Safer Communities has been ongoing and the response from them could have been better.

Evaluation of Diversity Week Dr Morsi’s talk proved to be very popular, with attendees engaged throughout the presentation and some approaching him after the presentation to talk. Our second event had decent attendance, though significantly lower than Dr Morsi’s talk. It would also have been better to have more involvement from the other Departments collaborating in the organisation of this event.

Evaluation of Islamic Prayer Spaces The Islamic Prayer Spaces are now in use, and have shown to be a popular among the Muslim students on campus. The addition of Islamic prayer rooms at Union House was also deemed

105

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

necessary since other prayer spaces on campus are quite far away and harder and more unsafe to reach after hours.

Evaluation of Collaborative Events with Other Departments The “How Privilege Manifests in Tutorials” forum was a particular highlight during Radical Education Week as it gave students of Colour the opportunity to voice their in-class experiences, both good and bad, while in an autonomous setting, with the knowledge that their comments would remain anonymous. This session proved to be particularly useful for staff-training purposes.

The Stress Less Week events were almost unanimously liked, with the exception of the dodgeball game which had to be cancelled due to low attendance. We found that students appreciated a chance to relax with these events and that they provided an important break away from study.

Furthermore, collaborative events, like Enivro Week and others, were a great way for us to cross-promote events and reach a wider audience. We hope that they are continued in future years.

Evaluation of PASS Tutor Training The PASS cultural sensitivity training was very positively received by everyone involved. The student facilitators were engaged throughout the panel discussion and asked engaging questions at the end. Our contact within the Arts Faculty gave us positive feedback and commented on how beneficial to the student founders she found it to be. Some of our panel presenters were even approached by attendees afterwards who provided positive feedback.

Overall, it was a successful in broadening our work to include cultural sensitivity training within the University and allowed us to take common grievances of students of Colour and inform student facilitators on how to deal with them.

Evaluation of Anti-racism Workshops and Texts on Racism Seminar Series The Anti-Racism workshops were a great way to give a platform to students where they could provide their expertise on a topic of their choosing in a setting of their choice (either autonomous or non-autonomous) and get reimbursed for their labour. Feedback about these events were very positive, with attendance of 8-15 people per workshop. For these reasons, we hope that the PoC Department continues to provide this opportunity for students.

The Texts on Racism seminars, in contrast, was a more detailed and thorough presentation of academic texts which allowed attendees to deepen their knowledge of topic in the field of critical race theory. It was similarly well-attended due to the popularity of Dr Morsi’s events.

Evaluation of Myriad 2018 Despite encountering some difficulties with editorial team membership and insufficient funds, we were able to publish a more thorough and stylistically coherent edition of Myriad this year. Feedback was generally positive, and we’ve been able to add more magazines to the stands since the first lot we distributed has been picked up already in some places.

106

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

In order to reach a wider variety of students, we found that it was beneficial to keep submissions open until a few weeks into Semester 2 so that there would be more opportunities to promote, either in-person, online, or through word of mouth.

We also found that visiting the Southbank campus in person led to us receiving more submissions from students enrolled there and helped us to promote Myriad and the department overall at Southbank.

Evaluation of PoC in the Media Department: A Working Group The actual running of the working groups went well and we provided catering and reimbursement for people who came. The meetings were kept autonomous so that students could share what they liked freely. Suggestions on how the Media Department could improve (like collectives for creatives of Colour, or subeditor quotas) were given, but the main decision reached was that there should be affirmative action for Media Officers, with two being PoC, one of which a WoC.

When this was taken to Council, it was decided that the affirmative action for PoC in the Media Office would be 1 PoC out of 3-4 Office Bearers.

Evaluation of Solidarity Week Solidarity Week gave us a good opportunity to get to know the Indigenous department and its members better. Our Collective were happy to have an opportunity to meet and get to know them, and overall, our events for the week were well attended.

If we were to run this week again, we would hope that some events, like the Welcome to Country and Bilibellary’s Walk, would go more smoothly. We would also have liked to have more involvement from other departments.

We hope that future Office Bearers continue to hold Solidarity Week.

Evaluation of People Seeking Asylum Awareness Week Although it was held in Week 12, we had no trouble with attendance rates for our events during People Seeking Asylum Awareness Week. It was particularly beneficial to combine our weekly events and relate the themes for Film Screening and Reading Group with the theme for the week. The facilitated discussion was particularly well-attended, like many of Dr Morsi’s other events.

We hope that this week is continued by future Officer Bearers.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Keep PoC Collective at 2 hours We found that the 2-hour timeslot was successful in allowing more students to attend and work around their study, work, and other extracurricular commitments. We also minimised the confusion of dates and times by having Collective take place at the same time every week, instead of alternating.

107

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Close Myriad submissions during the semester While we initially planned to close submissions at the end of the break, we found that closing them during the semester allowed us to promote during a busier period so that we could have word-of-mouth advertising and gain submissions from students who started mid-year.

Try to plan major weeks for the Department in advance We think that it would be good to have major weeks (like Solidarity/People Seeking Asylum Awareness Week, Myriad launch night, etc.) locked in early so as to avoid conflicting with other weeks/major events.

Aim to provide opportunities for students with varying positionalites to contribute A strength this year was that we were able to share the platform with students whose experiences we could not speak for (Black people, Indigenous people, Queer people, disabled and neurodivergent people, etc.) whether it was through Anti-Racism Workshops, involvement in training panels, presenting at Film Screenings and Reading Groups, and more.

We believe that these experiences can only be properly represented by those who are of the relevant positionality, and that it is important to compensate them for their labour when they choose to educate and share their experience with us.

Continue with collaborative events We found that hosting and taking part in collaborative events gave us the opportunity to cross-promote and attract a wider range of attendees. It also allowed other departments to run events that aligned with the goals of our department. We highly recommend not only continuing with events central to the Department (like Solidarity Week and People Seeking Asylum Awareness Week), but also taking part in other Departments’ weeks (like Stress Less Week and Enviro Week) since they gave us the opportunity to explore new themes and event styles and offer something new to students

Queer Elinor Mills and Amelia Reeves

This is the annual report of the UMSU Queer Department. This year, we focused heavily on solidifying and expanding our collective and creating a safe and inclusive queer space. This focus came from a number of people at the beginning of the year identifying the queer space as feeling cliquey and intimidating.

Key Activities Throughout The Year

Summerfest Summerfest was the first time we got to engage with new students in the year and was incredibly successful. We ran two main activities outside of carnival day - a picnic and speed friending. We were very lucky with the picnic that the weather wasn’t too hot and we had

108

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

about 30-40 people come by over the hour. We had expected about 20 people to come to speed friending, and ended up with nearly 60 people! This was heartwarming and we definitely suggest running a similar event in Summerfest next year. In relation to Carnival Day, this was a really good time for the department - we had long lines and talked to thousands which was very encouraging. For this event, we handed out 500 pots of biodegradable glitter which was not enough, and had a big poster which people could contribute to regarding what queerness meant to them. We found that having something tangible but sustainable was a really good way to engage students and by the end of the day there were hundreds of students and volunteers covered in glitter which was quite endearing. Evaluation: Success! Summerfest went really well for us and we were able to get 1000 zines to students as well as around 500 new subscribers for our newsletter. We had many students compliment both the picnic and the speed friending, and saw their faces again at collectives throughout the year. The zine in particular was very well received and also allowed for returning students to add a splash of their own flavour to the department. Paying contributors was a very good choice and lead to a greater range of submissions. It’d be good to print more zines next year. The bio glitter was a bit of a headache to put together but extremely popular and (dare I say) iconic. We saw students continue to use it throughout the year. Money-wise, we budgeted appropriately.

Lunch With The Queer Bunch (Weekly Collective) This event ran every Wednesday from 1-2 throughout semester. We provided queer students with pizza, sushi, soft drinks, and juice. This is a very social event and is a great time for people to meet and hang out. However, it can be quite intimidating for some students, especially as it can get very loud and crowded when there are 30+ people in the queer space alone. Evaluation: Success! We went into the role with a key promise of making sure the lunches were run reliably, and we believe this was achieved. Next year’s office bearers will need to consider adding more food options to the lunch, as well as increase the budget to be able to cater for more people as this event has gotten incredibly popular over the last few years and current arrangements are not sustainable for the number of people attending. The fact that the space is often too small for the number of attendees needs to be considered as part of Student Precinct planning: a downgrade in size would be an issue for safely running these events. We brought in drinks this year, which were really popular at a cost of only $10- 15 weekly.

Trans Collective This is an event we delegate to a member of the trans and gender diverse community to run (shoutout to Kath for doing so this year!). This year, we ran it on Tuesday’s from 1-2. A major focus this year was improving the food options and increasing the sustainability of the event. As such, we switched from individually packaged food to large servings of chips, biscuits, dips, fruit, and veg that could be shared by all. Evaluation: This collective is incredibly important: it’s been several OBs’ first entry point to the Department, including Elinor’s. This was smaller than previous years however we did have a number of regular attendees who have expressed their appreciation for a regular time where they could hang out and eat free food. It could be worth asking the collective what time and day is best for them, as a number of students from the 2017 collective had class during the 2018 collective and therefore could not attend. The final collective of the

109

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

year was well attended, likely due to good advertising and Zambreros catering. The new food at collectives generally was very well received and we highly recommend continuing to supply a variety of food. We got a fridge for the office to facilitate this and it’s been really helpful.

Queer People of Colour (QPoc) Collective This is another event that involves delegating responsibility of the event to a member of the QPoC community (Thanks to Abhi and Keets!). This year the collective had an amazing turnout with 10-15+ people from many backgrounds attending every week (compared to the 2-3 average from last year). The collective members have stated their appreciation for a space of their own to rant, rave, and expound upon what is a very white and cishet world. Most meetings were loosely structured with collective members left to interact with each other over snacks. Evaluation: This event is incredibly important for ensuring a safe space for queer people of colour who face unique marginalizations. The focus of this year was to expand the collective and next year should aim to retain and gain as many people as possible. A future suggestion could be to theme collectives, especially through collaboration with the PoC department.

Queer Political Action Collective This event was primarily ran by Andie Moore. The aim was to set up a group of individuals who would be interested in activism work within the university and broader community. Whilst the Facebook group has quite a few members and lots of suggestions for what to do, physical meetings were poorly attended. Evaluation: This event definitely needs some work to get off the ground and become productive. Better advertising and linking with other departments and whole of UMSU events (Rad-ed week, diversity week etc) could help this collective gain some wings. More consistent timetabling is recommended.

Queer Space Maintenance This was one of the biggest ongoing jobs of the year and something we were dedicated to getting right. The major change we made was doing more frequent restocks of milk and adding to what we provide in the space. This year, we extended the tea collection substantially, brought in coffee and hot chocolate, and tried to ensure we had sweets and biscuits (including vegan and gluten free) at all times. We also did weekly clean-ups to make sure the safe was welcoming. We re-organised the informational flyers, removing those that were outdated and adding other helpful resources. Sexual health resources were also regularly stocked. Evaluation: Making the space more inviting helped to create a welcoming feeling in the space. This is important because queer space is often the first interaction that people have with the department and can influence whether or not they come back or to events. For the most part, this worked really well and incentivised people bringing friends and newbies to the space. Supplying small quantities of food and drink was very popular and cited by many students as the reason they came back to the space. Reliably supplying a variety of sexual health and sanitary resources was also commented on favourably.

Coming Out Support Group

110

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Whilst UMSU Queer does not run Coming Out Support Group, we do provide them with funding, advice and administrative support. Elinor attended some meetings as an invited guest speaker on gender diversity. Evaluation: The arms-length relationship with COSG suits the nature of the group. Bringing it further under the Department umbrella can intimidate the kinds of students looking to attend. We were really glad to see a lot of attendees involve themselves in the wider Department by the end of the year, with a contingent coming to Queer Ball and quite a few being spotted around the Queer Space. There were some issues with room bookings going missing and having to find a replacement location that was suitably private, but after a few weeks of hiccups we’d found a lovely location in the Private Dining anteroom.

Craft, Beer, and Queer In mid-semester one, we held this as a joint event with the Creative Arts Department. We provided a large amount of crafty supplies including paint, colouring books, beads, playdough, and a few kits. We had a bar tab and ordered food from ASRC. Overall, about 50- 60 people attended the event and we got lots of attention from other bar patrons who came and joined in briefly. Evaluation: We have had multiple requests from students to re-run this event. It was well attended and a lot of fun with new and old faces alike. We got a lot of positive feedback and definitely suggest running a similar event next year - a dry event in queer space as well as the beer event could be a good idea.

IDAHOBIT We were invited by chancellery to work with them and the GSA to create an activation for International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism, and Transphobia. We attended a number of meetings to organise the event and helped hand out cupcakes and food on the day. We also organised two performances. Evaluation: It is really important that chancellery continues to celebrate queer events and we encourage the continuation of this relationship. Whilst the weather was miserable, we did have a number of people swing by and contribute to the activities we ran throughout the day. We’d recommend organising further in advance to increase attendance and decrease stress.

CAMP Magazine Oh my god we produced a shiny magazine!!! First off, massive shout out to Katie, Ruby, and Morgan our three amazing editors, as well as all subeditors and contributors. This was a bumpy road but gosh are we happy parents! The creation of the magazine was tough, and we definitely would have benefitted from more time (despite two Virgos producing the magazine and engaging in detailed planning, curveballs happen). In particular, planning the launch whilst in crunch time with the production of the magazine was difficult and we had much less of a budget by that point than planned. However, the launch party was incredible and we received an amazing amount of love over both the magazine and the party. Evaluation: Holding our holographic baby in our hot hands was one of the most satisfying moments of our term. Whilst there were some kinks financially - we ended up producing more copies than initially budgeted for after consultation with the Media Department, with more ~fancy~ additions (see: holographic cover) than expected which took a toll on the budget. (We had also budgeted based on outdated information, and needed

111

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

extra money from Students’ Council.) However, this did lead to a magazine that looked incredible and was able to go to many more people. Having a media production that allows for the community to have a voice is an amazing feeling and we hope the CAMP magazine will continue to thrive into the future. We will also note that we later received a copy of the UTS queer publication which has a suspiciously similar aesthetic: national trendsetters?

Queer Study Group We invited students to come join us in training rooms during SWOTVAC semester one. Evaluation: Mixed. Whilst this was a well received idea, the only day that was really successful was the day we had therapy dogs in - this day ended up just a dozen students patting and playing with the dogs rather than studying though. In the future, I think emphasizing the queer space as place people can study and relax. Part of that would include getting extra snacks and making sure students know that the food is for them. We highly recommend sourcing the therapy dogs from the lovely Amanda again. Paying a member of the queer community on a disability pension who had already volunteered to bring their dogs in for free was a lot nicer than just hiring one of the big therapy dog companies.

Queer Collaborations This year we had eleven attendees from a range of diverse backgrounds go to Queer Collaborations (QC), which was held at the University of Queensland. The opportunity to apply was communicated on facebook through both the private and public pages, as well as the UMSU wide newsletter. We were able to pay for a large chunk of attendees conference fees and accomodation, and all attendees were also reimbursed a small amount for travel. Evaluation: QC is an important event where students can learn more about how to get unions engaged in queer politics. A particular highlight was sharing CAMP magazine with collectives across the country. Attendees cited that attending was useful for them as a way to meet and learn about other queer students and their experiences. A suggestion for next year is to run events in the lead-up to QC, especially with the Queer Political Action Collective to encourage a wide range of attendees. Similarly, social events in anticipation of the conference for the attendees would be good to institute, especially given that we had quite a few people from different campuses. Elinor (and incoming OB Andie) helped write a bathroom access policy that passed on conference floor and was subsequently adopted as a guiding document in Student Precinct planning. Policy work at QC should be further explored. Milly was a member of the Grievance Collective, which was stressful but valuable and a good opportunity for an Office Bearer given that grievance work comes up a lot in this job.

Winterfest We ran two events outside of carnival day during Winterfest; the Gender Free Clothing Exchange with Enviro, and an Indoor Picnic in the queer space. For carnival day, we handed out a lot of copies of CAMP as well as another 500 glitter tubs. The Gender Free Clothing Exchange with Enviro was very much helped along by the clothing donations Milly had received after her house burned down which allowed for a wide range of styles to be accounted for (note, we do not suggest arson as a way to get donations next year). The indoor picnic was the main social event of Winterfest and was well attended with around 30 people coming up to queer space to snack and chat. Evaluation: Winterfest was very different to Summerfest in that the demographic was heavily international students. Carnival day in particular was difficult for our department as

112

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

the word ‘queer’ was unfamiliar to many students and there was sometimes a language barrier when explaining our role in the union. The gender free clothing exchange was a lot of fun and we we able to provide lots of new outfits for many babes: we recommend running this one again in particular because it cost absolutely nothing, was well attended, and we had students contacting us afterwards to let us know the swap was the only reason they were able to get warm clothes this winter. The indoor picnic was well attended and fun for all - the hot chocolates and marshmallows were a particular success.

Southbank/VCA Queer Students Forum This year we hosted a Queer Students Forum at Southbank with the help of Lily, the Campus Coordinator. The event was a catered discussion forum for students to talk about what they’d like to see from a queer community and the Queer Department on campus. Evaluation: This was moderately well attended, with maybe a dozen people, and the food was definitely appreciated. The discussion about a queer community at Southbank was really good and a valuable opportunity for next year’s OBs to expand upon; the creation of a Facebook group was also good and we’ve got a lot of people in that now. We think the forum happened a bit late in the year to get substantial things happening afterwards, but next year’s OBs now have the building blocks for a strong presence down at Southbank.

Queer Ball Arguably the biggest event of the queer year. Tickets were purposefully cheap to encourage attendance and allow for accessibility. We barely had to promote the event - comms posters hadn’t even been put up by the time we had sold out. This is likely because, unfortunately, getting the collateral together took much longer than anticipated. We began planning for this event within the first month of our term and had the theme and venue locked in from December. This was great because it significantly reduced stress levels in the lead-up to the event. Evaluation: A roaring success - we sold out twice and had to add money to the bar tab which ran out within the first hour and send out more food because attendance was much better than expected. We did have a few welfare issues that were dealt with on the night, and next year should absolutely have a proper trained (and sober) welfare team to assist with this - especially since we were often busy dealing with organisational stuff.

Newsletter We sent out a number of newsletters throughout the year. We collected nearly 500 new sign-ups during Summerfest and sent out newsletters before key events such as Summerfest, Crafts Beer and Queer, and CAMP Magazine launch. It would be interesting to see how spruiking collectives through the newsletter would impact attendance. Evaluation: Engagement with the newsletters was minimal (we ran giveaways with everyone we sent out and had only one or two people reply) however they are an important way for people to stay up-to-date on Department doings without having to out themselves by liking the Facebook page. As such, semi-regular newsletters are encouraged for 2019.

MU Sport Elinor set up a meeting between MU Sport management and several Office Bearers at the start of the year. This event lead to quite significant collaboration this year, with substantive achievements including the hiring of a Pride & Diversity Coordinator, LGBTQI+ awareness

113

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

training for staff, and better bathroom signage in the works. MU Sport are also on the verge of modifying their conduct policies for staff and affiliated clubs to make sports at the university more welcoming for queer and trans students. Evaluation: While the P&D Coordinator role experienced some hiccups (a few people rotated through the position) we have managed to achieve quite a bit. Elinor was pleasantly surprised at how easy the organisation was to work with, and they highly recommend that future OBs make the effort to reach out because there are a number of people at MU Sport who are switched on, reliable, and open to working with UMSU.

Engagement with Chancellery Elinor’s been pressuring the University to fix a number of issues with gender documentation, such as conflicting gender markers and IT issues with preferred names. We’ve also established a good working relationship with Alisha Fernando, the Associate Director of Diversity and Inclusion. We’ve helped establish and promote the Ally Network for staff and students and worked together on IDAHOBIT. Evaluation: The issue of conflicting documentation and difficult processes for transitioning in the University systems has seen some improvements. The process for staff members (not really our purview but good nonetheless) has been streamlined and the University is (actually) working on improving the systems for students. Alisha has been a helpful ally within Chancellery for us to push this project forward and a good source of information as to where the University is actually at.

Student Precinct Milly attended a number of meetings with the new student precinct team. She was able to provide a lot of valuable information regarding both bathrooms and safe spaces. It was recommended to the team that there be multi-stalled gender neutral facilities on every level of the new buildings. Milly also got the project a ‘safe spaces’ working group, where PoC, women’s, disabilities, and queer were able to jointly discuss what looking after a safe space is like, and the requirements that all safe spaces should have. It was suggested that all safe spaces have access to kitchen facilities, are large enough to accommodate for the growing student population, and where possible, have a second room that can be used as a quiet space to help the spaces be more accessible. Another suggestion made at these meetings was that the autonomous offices are near each other with ample storage facilities as maintaining a space involves having lots of condoms, pads, food, and other stuff. Evaluation: Whilst the precinct project is ongoing, we were able to give a solid amount of advice to the project leaders and hope that the relationship remains productive throughout 2019 and beyond.

Recommendations for Future Officer Bearers

Collectives We recommend that the budget for collectives be significantly increased to account for the increase in regular attendees. This also allows for more sustainable and healthy options. Introducing (some) variability into the food supplied at all collectives increases attendance. We also believe that we erred on the side of privacy (vs publicity) when advertising autonomous collectives, and promotion can be increased a little without concerns for outing

114

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

or reducing the privacy of the space. Working with the PoC department is also recommended for

Working with other departments Whilst we did a great job of this in semester one, we encourage the 2019 office bearers to consider running both regular and one-off events with other departments, particularly the autonomous ones in order to engage a wider variety of students and connect with new issues facing the student body.

CAMP Magazine We suggest that, again, this is produced in semester one as Judy’s and Myriad are semester two. However, this means y’all need to get onto finding editors, subeditors, and submissions ASAP. We suggest that the 2019 office bearers use Summerfest as a way to promote the magazine and engage with potential contributors. You will need all twelve weeks of semester to get the magazine finished so the more time you put in early, the easier it will be. A few particular suggestions: ● Leave an extra week between launch and when you want to be receiving the mag. This gives you time to go over the proofs and ensure there aren’t any typos or other mistakes. Seriously, do it. ● Get the media department’s advice. Esther in particular was our saviour this year and the magazine wouldn’t be half as good without her, and the other three editors’ help. You can also use their contacts to help get contributors. Two of the CAMP editors are now media OBs which is really neat. ● Delegate the launch party where possible, get committee, editors, subeditors and contributors to help out so that the launch is as much about community as the magazine is. ● Be RADICAL!

Queer Space Please change that hideous sign we never got around to changing. The space also direly needs an updated safe space policy: a draft has been kicking around this year but inquorate committees made it hard to progress further.

Student Precinct We’ve extracted a commitment to a significant number of gender-neutral bathrooms, and the team seems to be very on board. We recommend following this up, as well as continuing to advocate for a large, accessible queer space to better fulfil Department needs.

Queer Ball A sober and trained welfare team is paramount: the workload was too much for just the Office Bearers. Booking the venue at the start of the OB term is very valuable.

The Big Boy (UMSU Constitution)

115

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Non-binary people are not well-represented in our beloved governing document, and we simply ran out of time to push the constitutional amendments we wanted to through. We highly recommend this project is adopted by the incoming OBs.

Welfare Cecilia Widjojo and Michael Aguilera

Regular Events

Key Activity One: Yoga The Yoga classes each Tuesday were a staple of Welfare’s fitness and wellness program. We had two instructors this year, Sarah and Frank, and both were enthusiastic about the chance to offer support to students. There were roughly 10-25 people each class. Evaluation of Key Activity One: Yoga We had to find a new instructor when Sara left after semester one. More than once we had to change location to accommodate the larger group. There were a few sessions when either Sara or Frank was ill and people weren’t easy to get in contact with to inform them. Recommendations for Key Activity One: Yoga For next year we recommend that there be weekly email bulletin with all the regular events. Currently we updated students through our Facebook page, but this didn’t reach everyone, and we received quite a few emails looking for clarification. A weekly bulletin would allow students to know whether the classes have changed location, any of the instructors are sick ect.

Key Activity Two: Zumba The Zumba sessions were popular as well. They were taught by Gabby throughout the year and attracted 5-15 students each week. Evaluation of Key Activity Two: Zumba We had some trouble earlier in the year with providing Gabby with access to a speaker. But we then purchased a Bose Speaker and made it available to her. Recommendations for Key Activity Two: Zumba For next year we recommend some further advertising of the classes to make sure that students are aware of the service. (on Facebook, Website, email ect.).

Key Activity Three: Meditation The meditation sessions were less well attended this year. This isn’t new, and the previous office bearers had a similar problem. The Instructors – Annie and Vani – however were very positive about the students they were able to work with. Evaluation of Key Activity Three: Meditation The size of the classes was between 1-5 students each week. We experimented with changing the location and time of the classes to some success. Recommendations for Key Activity Three: Meditation For next year we recommend that there be better advertising for the sessions. We expect that Annie and Vani will not be particularly keen to continue to volunteer their time if there are less

116

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

than 5 people a class. Introducing some themed sessions and maybe a movie session would encourage student awareness of the service. Otherwise cancelling the class and collaborating with the wellbeing team to offer students other options.

Key Activity Four: Daily Breakfasts We provide bread, jams, coffee, tea, cereals, with toast available in Ida Bar everyday except Thursday from 8 30-10 30 am. Daily breakfast attendance fluctuates through the week and through the semester. However it is generally well attended especially since now it has gain popularity. Attendance was averaging 80-120 students. Evaluation of Key Activity Four: Daily Breakfasts The downside is definitely the fluctuating number of volunteers. Since we need to was our own dishes by hand, if we dont have enough volunteers this can be daunting. Also, Coles sometimes canceled its order and hence we need to go to Richmond South or do a Woolworts/7 11 run. Recommendations for Key Activity Four: Daily Breakfasts 1. Better management of volunteers throughout the semester 2. More organisation in terms of Coles order

Key Activity Five: BBQ Breakfasts This is no doubt the most popular event of Welfare department with attendance averaging 280-300 students. It is a cooked breakfast that we held in North Court with food items ranging from cereal, bread, jams, bacon, pancakes, scrambled eggs, juices and fruits from 8 30-10 30 am. We expanded it this semester, adding Hashbrowns and a third BBQ. Evaluation of Key Activity Five: BBQ Breakfasts The most daunting issue for this is again fluctuating number of volunteers and Coles cancelling their orders. If we do not have enough volunteers this can be especially hard because of the complicated operation of Breakfast BBQ. Recommendations for Key Activity Five: BBQ Breakfasts 1. Better organisation of volunteers 2. Back up plans if Coles cancel their orders 3. Book North Court for the whole year

Key Activity Six: Mental Wellness Collective The Mental Wellness Collective was a new addition to the Welfare program this year. Based on the Anxiety Support Group that is run by the Disabilities Department, the bi-monthly event provided a space for students to talk, work through some of their day-to-day problems and meet people. Some of the topics that we touched on were goal making, sleep schedules, the best way to offer emotional support to others, study habits, dealing with the expectations of parents or family. There were between 3-6 people each week and the sessions were guided by Michael. Thanks to the Disability Officers for organising food each week. Evaluation of Key Activity Six: Mental Wellness Collective Largely the events were very positive. There was some confusion about which weeks were the Mental Wellness Collective and which were Anxiety Support Group. Recommendations for Key Activity Six: Mental Wellness Collective We recommend that the Mental Wellness Collective continue to be run. Although the OB’s may not feel able to run the sessions themselves there are plenty of organisations like

117

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

headspace that they could get in contact with. Also there is some cross-promotion that could be done between the wellness department of the University.

Key Activity Seven: Lets Talk Language Exchange This is definitely a good addition to the Welfare department. Attendance averages around 15 students per session and can reach up to 20 students. We collaborate with a club on campus to provide students with opportunity to practice speaking English and to foster international and local students interaction and we also provide food for them. Evaluation of Key Activity Seven: Lets Talk Language Exchange It is a good regular event. Probably do not forget to order food for them Recommendations for Key Activity Seven: Lets Talk Language Exchange 1. Do not forget to order food for them 2. Book room for the whole year

Key Activity Eight: Food Banks The Food Bank program is one of the most essential services that Welfare runs. They provide small meal packs to students that are struggling with economic security. The officers would assemble the packs each month or so with the help of the CIP volunteers. They contained non- degradable ingredients for between 2-4 meals. By ordering ingredients in bulk, we were able to get the price of each pack down to $6 each. They are available through the information desk and in the Welfare office. When students came to claim the packs, we were able to ask a few questions about what the problems were and direct them to other services such as UMSU advocacy or Safer Communities. We made several trips to the Southbank Campus and at the Burnley Campus and left several dozen packs there. Evaluation of Key Activity Eight: Food Banks In semester one we put together and gave out approximately 500 packs to students. In semester two we put together and gave out approximately 600-700 packs. We had positive response from the staff at the Southbank Stop One who were giving them out. There is always a concern that the Food Bank will create a black hole in the welfare budget there more that it is advertised. We have not seen any example of that, but it is something to keep in mind. Recommendations for Key Activity Eight: Food Banks To make sure that there are limited occasions where the bank at info desk is empty, we recommend that the OB’s keep their own records of the number of packs made and taken. Continue to be proactive about the order and packing of the bags. Further they should link with safer communities so they are aware of the service and may recommend it.

Special Events

Key activity Nine: Summerfest Welfare department was given the responsibility of running a stall during department day in Summerfest. We did ducky pond and give out zooper dooper. It was well received and it set the whole tone for our wholesome department. We did our volunteer recruitment as well. Evaluation of Key Activity Nine: Summerfest It was definitely exhausting to execute. Shopping for ducks and duck pond was fun but again exhausting. It is especially so since this is our first major event for the year. Recommendations for Key activity Nine: Summerfest 1. Plan ahead and plan well

118

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

2. Get creative and dare to be different from other department

Key Activity Ten: Co-Op Day This event is in collaboration with food co-op, book co-op and Environment department. We gave out fairy bread, chai tea and students could do free collage. We also did volunteer recruitment. Evaluation of Key Activity Ten: Co-Op Day It was an okay event. A good way to collaborate and engage with the co-op and also to do more volunteer recruitment. Recommendations for Key Activity Ten: Co-Op Day 1. Better planning ahead of the day

Key Activity Eleven: Stress Less Week Semester One This is the week for Welfare department to shine. We held various events to help students de- stress before exams in week 11. We collaborated with quite a few departments in UMSU, advocacy, Rowden White library and various clubs and societies. Evaluation of Key Activity Eleven: Stress Less Week Semester One It was very exhausting to run and coordinating all the events is no small task. We expanded Stress Less as compared to last year. Despite the week not being run perfectly, we definitely recommend up and coming Office Bearers to keep doing a whole week of events since this is one of the most important event for Welfare and where our department gain the most visibility Recommendations for Key Activity Eleven: Stress Less Week Semester One 1. Plan weeks ahead and begin contacting all parties involved days in advance 2. Better publicity for each individual event 3. Delegate task better among volunteers

Key Activity Twelve: Mental Health Day During week nine of semester one Welfare took part in Mental Health Day that was organised by the University. Our CIP volunteers helped on several events including Ju-Jitsu, a public Mandela art piece and healthy food stall, as well as a wellness giveaway pack. Evaluation of Key Activity Twelve: Mental Health Day We had the chance to give away our Welfare Handbook and have some great conversation with students. Thanks to Rebecca Meldrum for facilitating the events. Recommendations for Key Activity Twelve: Mental Health Day We recommend that next year OB’s take part in the event. It’s a good chance to collaborate with Unimelb Wellness and to promote mental wellness to students.

Key Activity Thirteen: RU OK? Day During week eight of semester two Welfare ran a stall as part of RUOK Day that was organised by the University. We had several of our CIP Volunteers and the Education collective that came on the day to help us put everything together. Evaluation of Key Activity Thirteen: RU OK? Day We ran our famous ducky pond game and were able to have some good chats with students. Thanks again to Rebecca Meldrum for facilitating the event. Recommendations for Key Activity Thirteen: RU OK? Day

119

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

We recommend that the next year’s OB’s take part. The outreach is positive and provides a chance for our CIP volunteers to practice their welfare-focused conversations. A little more organising would be better than this year.

Key Activity Fourteen: Winterfest Welfare department was given a stall to run in Union House during Winterfest. This is smaller than Summerfest. We did chocolate fondue with a selection of marshmallow, cookie crumble, cut fruits and more and it was so well received. We also did volunteer recruitment. Evaluation of Key Activity Fourteen: Winterfest It is definitely a well run event and we had so much fun despite the chocolate being very messy and it got a bit stressful. Recommendations for Key Activity Fourteen: Winterfest 1. Plan ahead 2. Prepare yourself for the mess 3. Do not panic when things go wrong

Key Activity Fifteen: Stress Less Week Semester Two We tried to do it even bigger than semester 1. We collaborated with roughly the same number of of UMSU department, more clubs and societies, Rowden White library, UMSU international but not advocacy. Evaluation of Key Activity Fifteen: Stress Less Week Semester Two There are some aspects that is better than semester one stress less semester one but since this is run at almost the end of our term, we are very much spent and it was a struggle to maintain the energy for the whole week. We budgeted 10000$ for the whole week but we only spend 6000$ and we are pretty happy with the budgeting of the whole week. Recommendations for Key Activity Fifteen: Stress Less Week Semester Two 1. Better publicity for individual events 2. Better organisation of volunteers 3. Do not force oneself if oneself is very exhausted

Key Activity Sixteen: Swotvac Stalls We ran 2 different SWOTVAC stalls in semester 1 and 2. In semester 1, we collaborated with Education department and gave out snacks and apples in Giblin Eunson library and in Baillieu. In semester 2, we gave out instant noodles in the same libraries. Evaluation of Key Activity Sixteen: Swotvac Stalls Both SWOTVAC stalls are generally well received and with better publicity it could grow bigger next semester. Noodle giveaway is definitely easier to do and is still generally well received. Recommendations for Key Activity Sixteen: Swotvac Stalls 1. Definitely better time management because we have exam ourselves 2. Back up plans if coles cancel their orders again

Key Activity Seventeen: Other Events Welfare also took part in Activities Sleepover, Radical Education Week, NUS Education Conference, the NUS National Day of Action for Higher Education, the NUS National Day of Action for Sexual Assault on Campus, the NTEU Industrial Action and Change the Rules Rallies. Evaluation of Key Activity Seventeen: Other Events

120

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

We both really enjoyed the opportunity to offer our voices and experiences to various other events and department weeks across the year. We also gained many useful contacts for campaigns and other resources. Recommendations for Key Activity Seventeen: Other Events

Community Key Activity Eighteen: Collective We use collective to discuss event ideas and campaigns and also to foster friendships among everyone in the department over food Evaluation of Key Activity Eighteen: Collective The collective grows a lot this semester due to the volunteering program. It is definitely a good space to bounce ideas and foster relationships. Recommendations for Key Activity Eighteen: Collective 1. More variety of food 2. Prepare an agenda so collective can be more fruitful 3. Spice up the venue (picnic outside occasionally can be a good idea)

Key Activity Nineteen: Community Involvement Program Semester One This is the first time we launch our volunteering program. The purpose is to provide manpower to Welfare events while at the same time to get students to be actively involved in the Student Union in a fun and laid back manner. Students are encouraged to make friends and form a community and learn more about unionism along the way. Evaluation of Key Activity Nineteen: Community Involvement Program Semester One This is definitely a program that runs quite well for its first time. We were not aware of the rigour required to recruit and induct volunteers and since this is the first time that the program is run, we struggled a little bit at the beginning. However this program achieved its purpose in creating a community in Welfare department while at the same time providing manpower for all our events and the students who participated generally give a positive feedback on the program. There is definitely plenty of room for improvement however we definitely recommend up and coming office bearers to keep running this program. Recommendations for Key Activity Nineteen: Community Involvement Program Semester One 1. Start recruitment early 2. Plan induction well (including the slides) 3. Foster a friendly and welcoming environment for all volunteers

Key Activity Twenty: Community Involvement Program Semester Two This is still the same volunteering program as semester one, however we tried to make some changes, for instance, increasing the number of volunteering supervisors to 12 and having a clearer job breakdown for supervisors to make our job as office bearers less daunting. They are now responsible to take down hours for their volunteering groups. Also, the appreciation event at the end of the year is improved in terms of gifts as compared to the previous one. We added 1 extra bonding event. Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty: Community Involvement Program Semester Two We recruited roughly 100 volunteers. While a lot of them come regularly for the first few times, we struggle to maintain involvement toward the end of the semester. This can be problematic

121

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

for events that we run. Also, we struggle to keep the rate of involvement high among the 100 volunteers. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty: Community Involvement Program Semester Two 1. Devise ways to keep volunteers engaged 2. Encourage group activities within each volunteering groups 3. Better planned induction and appreciation lunch

Key Activity Twenty-One: Bonding Days We run a total of 5 bonding events in both semester 1 and 2. These events consist of Movie nights, scavenger hunt and board games nights. Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-One: Bonding Days Movie nights are generally okay and easy to run and we did it in Rowden White library and it was okay. Board games night is really fun and easy to run. Scavenger hunt is a bit more complicated but it was fun and volunteers get to run around the university. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-One: Bonding Days 1. Better planning never hurts 2. Better publicity (preferable tell them during induction) 3. Ask the supervisors to be more engaged in planning

Campaigns Key Activity Twenty-Two: Safer Partying Initiative A central campaign this year for Welfare has been the review of UMSU’s Drug Policy and development of the safer partying initiative. This has primarily been in consultation with the General Secretary and Students for Sensible Drug Policy Australia (SSDPAUS). Firstly, we redrafted the policy document developed by James Bashford in 2016 and made critical changes to the aims and goals of the trial program to provide free drug testing kits to students. We adopted the policy and procedure through student’s council. At the same time, Michael facilitated two information sessions in semester one and semester and participated in a special forum at Monash University. The steering group then worked with the UMSU Legal team and the North Melbourne Police Station to make sure the policy and procedure were legally sound. Michael developed an information booklet for the basics of the ‘safer partying initiative’ and hard reduction principals. We have ordered the kits as of the 5/11/18 and plan to run a session before the end of our term. Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-Two: Safer Partying Initiative The events are pretty well attended, at least the first event. The second one will be held in this coming week. The kits are well received by the students with many contacting us on how to obtain them and their requirements. We generally think this would benefit the student community in general. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-Two: Safer Partying Initiative We strongly recommend that the Welfare officers next year continue the ‘Safer Partying Initiative’. Better planning of the training events and better publicity would not hurt.

Key Activity Twenty-Three: ‘Lets Talk’ Survey and UMSU Position Document Another key campaign this year for Welfare was to form a better understanding and relationships with the University CAPS Service, and to develop a position statement for improvements to the funding model and service delivery. Firstly, Welfare, Disabilities and Desiree met significantly with Orania, Sarah, Dan Persard and Harley to get a clear picture of

122

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

the main challenges to the program and changes they had made to deal with the chronic underfunding of CAPS. Then we consulted NUS National Disabilities officer Kaylee for some direction on her national campaign for a fully funded counselling service. Between May and July we conducted a survey – called ‘lets talk’ – to get a clear idea of the student experience of counselling and the referral service. Michael then developed a position document with consultation with POC, Queer, women’s and Disabilities Officers as well as Michelle from UMSU Advocacy team. *** Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-Three: ‘Lets Talk’ Survey and UMSU Position Document The survey needs better publicity however this is definitely a worthwhile campaign to run. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-Three: ‘Lets Talk’ Survey and UMSU Position Document We hope that for next year we can continue the positive relationship between Welfare and the CAPS team and can build off this research to run a campaign for a fully funded counselling service that Melbourne University students use and desperately need. A campaign would hopefully build on the recommendation that we have to the university.

Key Activity Twenty-Four: Southbank Welfare Between April and July there was not an active VCA UMSU Student Representative on campus. There is also traditionally a communication breakdown between the Southbank and Parkville campus, so Michael and the education academic officer Toby took up the responsibility in reaching out to staff and student organisers to get a clear idea of the problems facing students at the satellite campus. Welfare met with Dove, a staff member, on several occasions to determine the major welfare issues at the VCA. Welfare ran several events, such as reconciliation day, on the campus with the help of our CIP volunteers. We also supervised the Wednesday BBQ’s that ran out of University House and served several hundred students each week. Since Lily took up the role of Southbank officer we briefed her on some of the issues around mental health and study loads. Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-Four: Southbank Welfare It was a worthwhile event to run and Southbank students deserve the same level of Welfare service provision as their Parkville counterpart. This makes us realise that there are still a lot of things that we can do in terms of Welfare department in VCA. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-Four: Southbank Welfare 1. Increase collaboration with VCA coordinator 2. Look to organise and expand the reach of Welfare department in VCA

Key Activity Twenty-Five: Syndicate: Workers Rights Group Although primarily run through the Education Public office, the Syndicate project was an ongoing campaign for welfare as well. In first semester we took part in the launch party and in events with union representatives such as Hospo Voice. In second semester we helped coordinate the Employability Matters week that was managed by the university. We organised for industrial law professor Sean Cooney and Matt Kunkel from the Migrant Workers Centre to run a series of sessions aimed at international students. We also launched the syndicate campaign to Unionise Union House. We were able to sign several people up to their trade unions and gather some data about the conditions in Union House. Finally, we took part in organising the Join your Union day with the CPSU, RAFFWU, NUW, YWC ect. Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-Five: Syndicate: Workers Rights Group 123

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

The events was generally well run and well received and there are still plenty of room in this space for other campaigns to be run. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-Five: Syndicate: Workers Rights Group 1. Collaboration and discussion with incoming Education Public officers are necessary for this to be effective

Key Activity Twenty-Six: Books Not Bombs (NUS) As part of the National Union of Students education campaign ‘Books not Bombs’ Welfare worked with Disarm MU to hold several events. The campaign aims to draw attention to Melbourne university investment and research into arms manufactures. We held a panel in the Ida Bar during week six of semester two with speakers Adam Bandt and Steven Jolly. Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-Six: Books Not Bombs (NUS) The panel was well attended and it was generally a good event. We are generally there just to support Education department and NUS education department. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-Six: Books Not Bombs (NUS) 1. Better collaboration with Environment department Lockout Lockheed campaign

Key Activity Twenty-Seven: Centrelink letter We decide to write a letter to responsible ministers and ministerial candidates to advocate for increase in the rate of Newstart and Youth Allowance and increase and improvement of staff for Centrelink with the guidance of Mark Pace, NUS president, and surveys provided by Jordon O’Reilly, NUS Welfare office bearer Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-Seven: Raise The Rate (NUS) The research that goes for this letter is a little bit complicated but this campaign is definitely worth a try since many students in our constituent is affected by this issue Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-Seven: Raise The Rate (NUS) 1. Proper research prior to enacting the campaign 2. Better collaboration with NUS

Administration Key Activity Twenty-Eight: Welfare Committee We held a total of fourteen successful committees throughout the year. Ten in first semester and four in the second. Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-Eight: Welfare Committee Our committee was difficult to hold together. We had several people that moved universities or needed to quit. We continue to meet regularly and the meetings were always a source of robust discussion and accountability. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-Eight: Welfare Committee 1. Better planning and scheduling from the start of the year 2. Better communication with committee members 3. Foster a sense of community with them to encourage participation and attendance

Key Activity Twenty-Nine: Students Council Students council was good. It was an important platform for different departments to hash out ideas. Welfare took several motions to students council this year including one for the Safer Partying Initiative, Stress Less Weeks, and Co-op Day. Evaluation of Key Activity Twenty-Nine: Students Council

124

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

We enjoyed the chance to learn the budgeting and regulations side of UMSU. We could have taken more time to add our voices to conflicts and constitutional changes. Recommendations for Key Activity Twenty-Nine: Students Council 1. Be more participative in the discussion 2. More meticulous in report writing and write ahead.

Key Activity Thirty: Budgeting We came in very much under budget. With approximately $28,000 spent during the year out of the possible $42,000. Our tight budgeting meant that we were able to run twice as many breakfasts, create an entire volunteering program, increase the scope of our food bank and grow stress less week into a whole-of-union event. Evaluation of Key Activity Thirty: Budgeting There are still places where money could have been spent more effectively but I think we did pretty well. Our records are a little patchy in places but that is also symptomatic of the delay in financial reports. Also, Cecilia deserves a bloody medal for funding thousands of dollars of expenses on welfare and not getting paid back for weeks. Recommendations for Key Activity Thirty: Budgeting Starting the year with budgeting and be meticulous in keeping all the receipts and taking notes of them such that we achieve an accurate budget at the end of the year.

Key Activity Thirty-One: Coles Orders This is a routine activity we need to do to sustain our regular events namely daily breakfast and breakfast BBQ. Sometimes some items for our special events namely special collectives or Stress Less Week and SWOTVAC stall require Coles orders as well. Evaluation of Key Activity Thirty-One: Coles Orders Coles can be alright or can sometimes cancel on us. This requires us to drive all the way to Richmond South. But also Coles enables us to use UMSU creditcard and hence we do not have to prepay the items using our own money. We cannot do Coles order last minute if we want it to be delivered to UMSU. Recommendations for Key Activity Thirty-One: Coles Orders 1. Have a set schedule and a set amount of items to order each week (usually we need to do this 2x a week) 2. Always have a backup plan when they cancel on us 3. Liaise with volunteers who can drive

Women’s Kareena Dhaliwal and Molly Willmott

Key activities throughout the year

Orientation: Summerfest and Winterfest Preparation

125

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

We commissioned artists from the Judy’s Punch collective to design tote bag art, badges, and graphics for our department booklet. Kareena wrote the text for the booklet, which we named the Princess Ida. It included information about the department, our committee members, our regular events, resources and support services. After our tote bags arrived, we had a packing day with the Education Department. We packed our totes with copies of the 2016 and 2017 editions of Judy’s Punch and materials from We Are Union Women.

Carnival Day Carnival Day was successful for our department. In past years, there has been an issue with men bothering the Women’s Officers and committee members about why there is no men’s department. It didn’t happen much this year, as the stall was constantly packed and men seemed too intimidated to troll us. When it did happen, Molly kindly told the person asking that “the Liberal Club stall is tomorrow mate”. There was a lot of excitement about our tote bags and we estimate we gave away around 1200. The badge-making activation was also a hit. We also sent around 150 bags down to VCA to be handed out at their Carnival Day. We believe that we talked to about 800-1200 students that day. Our stall had a line across South Lawn and one point, it was great.

Evaluation: This was a great day and somehow neither of us lost our voices! We loved how the Princess Ida zine and our tote bags and badges turned out. A few things that we think would improve carnival day are; 1. More volunteers to help with the picnic - we couldn’t physically talk to students at both the picnic and the stall during peak times 2. Make sure that you have an action plan for what to do to get the students you talk to the next event. This is an important thing for the entire union. How are we actioning Summerfest to get more students engaged throughout the semester, year, and time at university?

Feminism 101 This was a panel event, intended to be an introduction to feminism. Our panellists were Celeste Liddle, Marley Holloway-Clarke, Lauren Rosewarne and Karin Zhu, with Kareena moderating. We had around 15-20 attendees. Evaluation: While it was a great event and all the panellists were excellent, it was expensive to run and the cost-per-student was quite high. The two big costs were Celeste Liddle’s fee and AV. AV turned out to be unnecessary, as all the panellists would have been heard without microphones anyway. We could have reduced the cost of the event and lowered the cost-per-student by not hiring AV and doing more promotion to get a higher turnout.

Union House Sleepover We kept the Women’s Room open all night as an autonomous quiet/sleeping space. We began the night with comedy in the Rowden White Library (Molly reading excerpts from Fifty Shades of Grey, with commentary). We also made up sheets of Bechdel bingo that we placed at Union House Theatre for the all-night movie screenings. Molly ran a meme workshop at a ridiculously early/late hour. At some point Kareena and Cecilia presented a makeup tutorial. It was a really long night and we were very tired.

126

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation: This event needs to be critically reviewed if it is to go ahead again. The idea is great, but there needs to be some improvements to the running of the event to reduce burnout from everyone involved. Note that there was a meeting of Students’ Council earlier on the day of Sleepover, which meant that Office Bearers and Councillors who were helping to run the Sleepover spent more time working/volunteering than should reasonably be expected.

Smash the Pastryarchy As Summerfest continued into week one, we held special dessert-filled editions of our weekly collectives. We got catering from Brunetti’s, Cupcake Central, and Donut Time (please note this was before everyone knew they were terrible to their workers). This event has been extremely popular and students have given us lots of positive feedback on it. Evaluation: Wow, people really love desserts. Another plus is that it was less expensive than we expected, and we actually could have spent more if we wanted to be really extravagant (a la Adriana Mells’ ‘Sweet Treats in the Women’s Room’ circa 2016).

Winterfest The NOWSA conference was on in the same week as Winterfest, so we were unfortunately not there to run our stall (many thanks to Des, Eva and Nikki for taking care of it for us). Before leaving for NOWSA, we packed more tote bags, organised materials and bought snacks and tea for the stall. As with Summerfest, it continued into week one, so we did Smash the Pastryarchy again. Evaluation: We of course would have preferred to be there in person, but we’re grateful for the volunteers who stepped in. We had more tote bags leftover than was ideal, but this means that next year’s officers can order fewer tote bags and keep ours as reserves for if they run out.

Other Events / Initiatives International Women’s Day We held a sign-making session in Arts Lab earlier in the day and a picnic on South Lawn in the afternoon before walking to the march with our contingent. There was a great turnout at the picnic and it gave everyone a chance to get to know each other before the march. The group unavoidably got separated during the march, but we posted our contact details in the Women’s Department Facebook page. Evaluation: IWD is a staple event for our department. Our only regret is that we didn’t get the department involved with the Women’s Rights at Work Festival (aka WRAWFest) run by We Are Union Women, and that’s something we’d recommend for future years.

Judy’s Lunch show on Radio Fodder Alas, this was short-lived, but we had a lot of fun doing it. We did our first episode on International Women’s Day and it actually went well. Our next two attempts were foiled by technical difficulties, and then we got so busy with other more essential aspects of the department that we had to put Judy’s Lunch to rest. Evaluation: It was fun, but there were more important things for us to be doing with our time and it was ultimately a good call to stop doing it.

127

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Women’s Mentoring Network We opened applications around Summerfest and received around thirty applications. The trouble was that the applicants didn’t match up well in terms of career areas and the ratio of mentors to mentees. We focused on the other side of the mentoring network, and worked with the Women in Science and Engineering club to run a mentoring night with a focus on STEMM fields. Evaluation: As we learned about how much of our time the advocacy and safety on campus aspect of our jobs would take up, we realised that we would have to drop some of the events and initiatives we had planned. This was unfortunately one of those initiatives. Our STEMM night was great though! We had around 25 people attend, and the panellists were really cool.

Rad Sex and Consent Sessions We decided to run Rad Sex as sessions rather than a set week. We started with a Sex and Sensuality workshop with Euphemia Russell from Sex You Wish You Knew to talk about the physiology of sexual pleasure. It was great! Very informative and an important event. Attendance wasn't great though, and there were issues with the presented being overseas, but we believe it’s an important event to run in future. Disabilities ran a few of the sessions, we didn't do another event because of time issues. Evaluation: This is still an important initiative. We need to keep doing it and is a part of our responsibility of the department, constitutionally. We do, however, need to figure out if the sessions structure is working or if it needs to go back to a week. We also need to advertise more, figure out better ways to get attendance, and force other departments to collab.

Screening of the Hunting Ground This was supposed to happen during Respect week this year but, for reasons, we weren't able to run it during Respect and Diversity week. We organised it for week 10 and held it in the Guild Theatre. We organised AV for the event with microphones and a screen for the presentation. The screening was good, we had about 30-40 people attend.

We tried to get CAPS involved for the screening, but due to some issues between the event and the university, CAPS couldn't attend. We supplied CAPS information and information about services, but there was no counsellors present. Following that, we had a panel with Kareena and I, Kate Crossin from NUS, student Rose Monet Wilson-Scott, and Journalist Nina Funnel, to discuss the issues pertinent to the film and the safety on campus campaign. Evaluation: This is such an important event to continue doing. While the examples of the film are older, as long as there is still an issue of sexual violence on campus, this film will be relevant. In fact, we believe that this film should be shown more than once a year. Next year, there needs to be better and longer run advertising as well as direct engagement with clubs and colleges, and we need to start talks with the university about the involvement of CAPS.

NOWSA conference The Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) runs an annual conference that brings together student representatives and collective members from around the country, for a week of workshops and collaboration. This year it was held in Newcastle, from the 16th to the 20th of July. We opened grants in May and held a committee meeting to determine the

128

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

outcome of grant applications once they were closed. We considered asking someone else to chair this committee meeting as we both applied for grants, but were advised by the General Secretary that this wasn’t necessary as long as we took appropriate measures to manage any conflicts of interest. We did this by asking any grant applicants on our committee (including us) to leave the room or the group call when their application was being considered. We received ten grant applications and accepted all of them, however we only received completed contracts back from 8 applicants. We booked flights for everyone who hadn’t chosen to arrange their own transport. Highlights from the conference include a keynote speech from Tilly Lawless and generally the chance to meet other cool feminists from around the country. Evaluation: The conference was well organised and a worthwhile experience from everyone who came along. Booking the group flights was a pain but it meant that people didn't have to pay out of pocket to attend, which made the conference more financially accessible. Tenders are underway, so it’s an option for us to host the conference next year, but this is a decision for the incoming Women’s Officers to make.

Women in Higher Education week We had discussions with the NTEU about collaborating on an event during this week, but ended up working with the Robogals club to host a networking night that clashed with the NTEU’s big event for the week. Also on that same night, we joined the Education and Activities Departments to run Trivia Night, with women-in-education-themed trivia rounds. Evaluation: This was one of many times we wished we could clone ourselves, but we managed. The Robogals event had some fantastic speakers, though sadly the robots were not in attendance. Trivia was also fun. It would have been great if we’d been able to collab with the NTEU, and that’s something we strongly recommend for next year.

Enviro Week – Sustainable Periods workshop Through a workshop at the NOWSA conference, we learned about the Sustainable Period Project and requested a resource kit from them so we could run our own workshop. There were some issues with deliveries, so the kit didn’t arrive in time for our Enviro Week workshop, but we managed without it. In collaboration with the Queer Department, we ran a session on alternatives to disposable pads and tampons. We gave away a JuJu cup as a prize. We had around 10 people attend and they were all lovely and super engaged in the discussion. Evaluation: We loved running this event! The resource kit did arrive eventually, and we’ve encouraged the incoming OBs to run the event again.

Stress Less Week For Stress Less Week in semester one, we worked with the Creative Arts Department to run a painting session and screening of the Princess Diaries in the Arts Lab. We were sadly not allowed to recreate the scene where Mia and her mum throw darts at balloons full of paint, but this was still one of the most fun things we got to do all year. Evaluation: This event seemed to be effective in reducing stress and was overall very wholesome. We <3 Creative Arts.

129

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Collectives Women’s Collective Molly ran most Women’s Collectives in semester one, when Kareena had a timetable conflict. It experienced that same highs and lows as most years. At peak semester engagement, we had 15ish people attend, but it dropped as semester lulled to 5-10. Attendance dropped further in semester 2. We budgeted for $50 per collective and generally stuck to that throughout the year, and spent an average of $650 per semester. Evaluation: We need to look at why it lulled in the middle of semester and semester 2, and change up the way we do collectives to make them more engaging. I think it'd be smart to get in contact with universities that have a super strong women collective that runs throughout the year at peak engagement and workshopping our own strategies (i.e. UNSW, USYD)

Women of Colour Collective Kareena has run Women of Colour collective again this year. We’ve had some great new regulars who have become fixtures in the Women’s Room, as well as old friends who returned for another year. Attendance tends to fluctuate throughout the semester, but the average is probably around 10. There were lots of rewarding discussions and venting sessions had throughout the year.

Something that has been as issue for years is maintaining an autonomous space in the Women’s Room during this collective. This year, we asked Comms to make us A1-sized posters, which entirely covered the window part of the door. These made a noticeable difference, and there were far fewer intrusions than we’ve had previously. We also had signs printed for Women’s Collective, Transfemme Collective and the Women’s Action Collective. We stored the Women’s and WoC Collective signs in the Women’s Room when they weren’t in use, and they unfortunately went missing around Week 8 of Semester 2. Evaluation: A-1 signs are great and women of colour are great. We spent an average of 650 per semester. We ran out of food on several occasions and generally didn’t have much food leftover, so we’d recommend an increase in the Collectives budget line for next year.

Transfemme Collective We began advertising for a facilitator around Summerfest and once we got a facilitator the collective ran fortnightly. Attendance was low, and unfortunately our facilitator was not available in semester two. It’s something that we think should run again, with the understanding that it will take time for a new collective to build up. Evaluation: If we had put up signage in the Women’s Room about when the collective was on, it may have helped with building awareness and attendance. Having fortnightly collectives possibly created confusion about which weeks it was on.

Women’s Action Collective Our first session with this new collective was the sign-making session on International Women’s Day. From there, things sort of fell down as had some trouble finding organisations to run the kind of activist training we were after. Evaluation: We’d love for this to really take off next year, and not just because we love the Comms design for it. We suggest using this collective to keep people directly involved in the

130

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

safety on campus campaign throughout the year, as well as the many other issues that are relevant to our consituents.

Judy’s Punch We are very proud of how Judy’s Punch turned out! We pushed to make it more collective- based, running three Judy’s Punch collective sessions in first semester. We opened applications for all positions at the end of semester, interviewed editor applicants and chose editors in mid-June. Our editorial team was a dream to work with and made the whole process smooth and fun. We opened submissions just before semester two started. Once we’d closed submissions and chosen which ones to accept, we passed them off to the subeditors and graphics team, and everything gradually came together from there. We held two proofreading sessions once the content was finalised. Then, after some technical stresses, we sent it off to print! Our launch party had a great turnout and it seems like the magazine has been very well received. Union House Theatre kindly gave us a double pass to the opening night of the Ida musical to give away at the launch. Evaluation: We had a lot of positive feedback about the collectives, and they weren’t time- consuming to organise so we’d recommend running at least one in first semester. We ordered 2000 copies of the magazine (on 100% recycled paper) so there are plenty leftover to be handed out at Summerfest next year.

Safety on Campus Respect Task Force and Related Meetings with The University Respect Taskforce Molly has been attending these monthly meetings this year (except for that one time Kareena went because Molly was v sick). Many of the matters of Taskforce are commercial in confidence so we can’t really go into much detail other than that they were talked about. Overall though there has been some significant steps forward with safety on campus occurring this year and into the space in the next few.

In the early months of our term, Molly spent a lot of time re-drafting the UMSU recommendations to the Taskforce which were approved by the previous Council. This re- drafting was done based on findings and recommendations from the Change the Course and On Safe Ground reports, as well as consulting relevant policy documents from tertiary institutions across Australia. Justin and Phoebe gave us invaluable feedback and advice as we went through several stages of edits. These recommendations were received… coldly by the university at first (that was a rough meeting). The recommendations were discussed through SAG, so we’ll continue this in the next point.

Other than that, Taskforce has focused on a number of issues. In semester 1, there was a focus on the rollout of Consent Modules. In data that was collated, it was evident that the modules were not as effective as wanted, with there being a low participation rate. This is something that must be followed up as there will be a mild evaluation of the program in the next year. Further to this, there was a focus on how consent modules will interact with graduate students, with the program being unfitting to touch on grad student safety on campus issues. The answer to that is a video made in collab with the GSA that the uni is releasing around the time of this report.

131

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Of course, with the release of The Red Zone report into college sexual violence and hazing, there has been a focus on the colleges. Watch this space, its where we believe the most work needs to be done. To digress from talking about Taskforce for a moment, the colleges are home to some of the most shocking acts of violence we have heard of at the University of Melbourne. This year we met with many college students to discuss their experiences with us, and we were shocked with what we heard they had gone through at a University- endorsed college. We have told the incoming office bearers our ideas of how to best address this and we’re ready to help them at any time.

There has also been a look into what universities like VU have done in this space, with their model of a person facilitating rollout being of great interest to the taskforce. Celia Scott has taken up a like-role in this, we’re very keen of the relationship between her and the union to develop. There was also a presentation from MUSport outlining their new conduct policy – this is a great step on an issue where the union hasn’t known how to address.

Respect Taskforce Student Advisory Group This group ran a few times this year and was made of GSA, UMSUI, Justin, and a few UMSU representatives.

Our recommendations were discussed here, we would have liked them to be discussed in the main taskforce, but those were the cards dealt. That was not a fun meeting at the time, but in hindsight what we presented is slowly, but surely, coming into fruition in many different aspects. Other than that, the other highlight of the meeting was a discussion around consent emails that will be sent to new students.

It doesn’t look like this group will be used in the same way next year, it’s probably going to be something that is called when needed. We’re ok with that as it isn’t the most effective form of communicating and acting on this issue.

Respect Week Working Group Kareena attended meetings of the Respect Week working group, which met to discuss the planning of Respect Week. As we’ve mentioned, our plans to run a screening of The Hunting Ground during Respect Week were met with some resistance. We had an UMSU presence at the Respect Week BBQ, distributing information about Advocacy and the safety on campus campaign.

Respect Meetings with Celia Scott These meetings started in semester two of this year. These are meetings with the President, Women’s Officers, and Celia Scott, who is heading up the respect initiative in Chancellery. These meetings are highly productive and important for our relationship with the university with respect.

Items that have been progressed and initially actioned on in the meeting are bystander intervention, improving reporting, the relationship with safety on campus and international students, colleges and college hazing, and just general safety on campus information.

132

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

We’d consider these meetings the most productive step with safety on campus this year. Having a single point of call to talk about specific issues of safety on campus has meant that lines of communication have been more open and things have progressed faster. It has also meant that specific issues with on safety on campus have been able to be actioned and progressed.

Respect in the Classroom Working Group Kareena is on this working group but has unfortunately only been available to attend one meeting. This group looks at how teaching staff can create respectful environments in the classroom, make students aware of support services, and promote a culture of consent.

August 1st Rally Highlight of the year right here. We got 300-400 students together to call for an end to Sexual Violence on campuses. We worked extremely closely with the NUS to develop the messaging and demands of this campaign, and we hooked up with outside organisations like EROC to help sort everything out. We received national media attention for this (thanks @Pedestrian) and we were able to reach upwards of 30k people with this message. There were posters all around campus, giant banners on Union House, there was word about it around the colleges, and we were contacted by state parliamentarians to talk about this issue. We had speakers from NUS and the NTEU, Zoya Patel, journalist (and honestly the baddest, most fearless woman on the planet) Nina Funnell, and State Cross bencher, Fiona Patten (who just rocked up and we were just like “wanna say something?”)

We put our blood, sweat and tears into this rally. Haters will say it did nothing, but the next week we got an email from chancellery and set up fortnightly meetings with the university – the first one being a revisiting of our recommendations (and beginning some of them). Most importantly, a lot of people were talking about this and saying enough is enough.

Responding to Disclosures / Words About This Year and Safety on Campus/ Future of This Campus We unfortunately did not receive any training on this during induction or at any point later in the year. This is, of course, the worst aspect of our job. There’s an immense amount of emotional labour that is put into every disclosure by the survivor, and the stress of doing it right by the survivor on our side was huge. The nature of disclosures, and something we have experienced this year is that they can happen and any time, any place, inside and outside of UMSU. We can’t stop this from happening, nor do we want students to feel like they can’t come to us for support (very limited support we might add, as we are neither lawyers nor counsellors so we can only refer them to the Safer Communities Program), but there needs to be a clear support and training structure for the Women’s department and other autonomous departments to make sure they are prepared with what to say and how to look after themselves after the disclosure.

All we can say is vicarious trauma is real, and the union needs to help combat it. To be candid (it’s Molly), the mental toll that this position has been huge, and is going to take a lot of work to get over. Honestly, there has been such solid personal support structures within the union,

133

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

especially from staff and some fellow OBs, but I think this issue is still very much glossed over and it’s sad to say that there were times (honestly most of the year) where we didn’t feel like we could talk to or was supported by office bearers and it was frankly disgusting. This union needs to support its Women’s Officers and support this campaign. I can’t believe I actually have to write this but this is NOT a Women’s Campaign, and it is frankly silencing survivors and overtly misogynistic that our department has been historically forced to do this because if we don’t – what department will? Of course, were proud to do this work, its important, but it’s not best practice for survivors and our recommendation with Safety on Campus is that other departments take up the reigns and take on this campaign too.

Despite the prior drag, were really proud to report back that this campaign is moving faster than what it was a year ago. What needs to be continued is a consistent pressure on the university and policy makers (because yes, shockingly, individual student unions can affect government policy and its actually our job) to act in fixing this scourge on Australian Universities. Fix CAPS, burn the Colleges (read “burn” as: fix), help formulate national and state policy, help clubs change their culture, make student events safer, better lighting, better reporting, expel perpetrators, get problematic people out of our union – that’s (some of) the future of this campaign. This section is long, just got a lot of feelings I guess.

Women’s Room Maintenance We’ve had plentiful supplies of pads, tampons, condoms and dams available in the room throughout the year. We bought a nice new kettle. We have had deodorant and sunscreen in the room most of the year (it occasionally goes missing). We’ve had some books kindly donated from Scribe Publishing. Despite several valiant attempts to sort it out, the fridge is a disgrace. People are gross. We’re getting some parents stuff for the room too!!!! Very exciting!!!! Also, board games and mugs and books and very nice things!! Evaluation: The room is the main way a lot of people interact with the department so it’s important to look after it and keep it well stocked. All the money we spent on it has been well worth it.

Committee Meetings We’ve only had 2 inquorate meetings so we consider ourselves pretty lucky. We don’t have anything significant to report about committee this year. We’re grateful we got to work with some really bright and engaged committee members this year and wish them the best of luck for whatever they do next. Evaluation: More calling in was undertaken than we both would have liked but in most cases it wasn’t preventable.

Budgeting Kareena made a few expenditure spreadsheets and now she thinks she’s an accountant. But seriously, we all know finance at UMSU is confusing at times so it’s been really important for us to closely monitor our expenditure so we can identify discrepancies between the numbers we have and what the financial statements say. Evaluation: Spreadsheets are great, and we can’t recommend enough for all Office Bearers to keep a running total of their department’s spending throughout the year.

General Department Business

134

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

· We updated the safe space policy to extend to all Women’s Dept. forums (including the Facebook group) · Made a heap of new connections with We Are Union: Women – up the mighty trade union movement · We are very funny and made a lot of great puns/memes. · The Women’s Collective turned 130 years old! And UHT made a show about the women who started it

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

1. Overall we would recommend reducing the number of events you run to allow for more time to be spent dealing with the safety on campus side of the department. This involves a lot of preparation for meetings and working groups as well as debriefing after. 2. Demand training on responding to disclosures and dealing with vicarious trauma. This training is important for all student reps but especially for departments that tend to get more disclosures. 3. Run fewer events, and allow for more time planning and promoting them. This also means you can spend more on each event, and hopefully generate higher attendance. 4. Fund anything related to safety on campus through the Whole of Union budget line, rather than creating a safety on campus line in your own budget. Safety on campus is an issue for the whole union and not just the Women’s Department, and this is one way to emphasise that. 5. Have fun

Burnley James Barclay

Key Activities

Bee Keeping A bee keeping workshop with Peter Dyer from Backyard honey gave students a firsthand look into maintaining hives. Peter continued to work with select students throughout the semester maintaining the hives on campus.

This workshop and continued education was a success with multiple students gaining first hand work experience with Peter.

Burnley Horticulture Network The Burnley Student Association unveiled the Student Self Education Network (SSEN), an endeavour aimed at engaging students with their passions and learnings via a series of short videos and blog posts. The Burnley Blog is live and is calling for students to contribute works. Students on campus are encouraged to film themselves and friends teaching horticultural knowledge for the benefit of the university.

135

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation: Channel SSEN tripled its membership throughout the year with content accessible through the BSA facebook page and Channel SSEN youtube channel. Due to the success of this program Channel SSEN is in negotiation for collaboration with Farrago.

Masters Student Orientation The Burnley Student Association swelled its ranks with the successful introduction at the Week 1 orientation of both the Masters students and Graduate Diploma students. Evaluation: A success with the mailing list growing over 100+ members strong.

Botanic Drawing Workshop The much-anticipated workshop took place in the afternoon of the 28th which we considered to be a massive success. Much thanks go to the Arts Department OB’s Freya and Ashleigh for organising the event, it was great to see so many new and inspired faces on campus. Burnley is considering round two later in the year. Evaluation: The event was a success with a modest turn out estimated between 20-25 participants.

Plant Raffle The BSA is held a raffle of over two dozen plants for the benefit of ‘Cultivating Community’ a charity that builds community gardens for impoverished areas. Evaluation: A dozen happy students took home some beautiful indoor plants whilst simultaneously raising $150 for Cultivating Community.

Weekly Yoga The BSA has undergone free weekly Yoga classes on Friday mornings between 8:30 and 9:30am. The sessions are open to all students both from Burnley and Parkville though lacked proper advertising. The aim of these sessions was to act as an end of week de-stress session for students. Evaluation: The first class was well received however attendance shrunk over the semester. Students feedback noted it was the kind of activity they wanted available, but this did not translate to attendance, possibly due to the morning start.

Burnley Library The cuts to Burnley Library staffing hours has been officially proposed to the student cohort. To make up for the lack of staffing the University has offered self-serve access to staff and students between 8am & 8pm. The official BSA stance recognizes that this is a better option than straight cuts but will open the library to loss and theft. Increased access also does not replace the vital service provided by library staff who aid not only in book retrieval and online navigation but study skills. Evaluation: Despite efforts from the BSA and Education Department to reverse this decision, there was not enough student engagement to warrant further campaigning.

Fortnightly Groceries The BSA has begun a fortnightly grocery shop to ensure students on campus always have something to eat. Consumption is currently being monitored to ensure the correct amount of produce is purchased to meet student demands.

136

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

Evaluation: A very popular policy and successful implementation. Though due to theft supplies were more heavily rationed.

Mid Semester Celebration Students will be attending a drinks session to mark the mid semester break as we all leave for Easter. $500 was passed by the Op Sub Committee to afford this. Evaluation: Attendance reached a dozen Burnley students a considerable increase from similar activities in previous years.

Community Garden Founding members of the 2018 BSA Community Garden broke ground and planted an array of brassicas and sweet potato to be later donated and sold at one of the Alphington Farmers Market. Since then the Community Garden, later dubbed the Burnley Market Garden has grown a vast assortment of edible plants. Evaluation: The Community Garden is an important initiative on campus to allow students first hand practice in their education. A group of Burnley Students have begun a program to grow market produce on underutilised land. This project had begun on Burnley Campus and has begun spreading to other local schools. The project mission is to increase education around organic food production and increase local food security. The BSA fully supports this endeavour and will be looking at avenues to further the projects goals.

Parting Gifts Students presented a parting gift to retired nurseryman Nick Osborne. A custom engraved copper watering can by HAWS. Nick will be sorely missed. Long-time lecturers Sue Murphy and Kirsten Raynor depart Burnley Campus this semester and the BSA has expressed gratitude for their service with a pass for the two to Peninsula Hot Springs for a much-deserved R&R.

Koorie Heritage Walk Burnley Students underwent a tour this week in the CBD visiting culturally significant Indigenous sites throughout Melbourne. Evaluation: The event had a modest turn out of half a dozen students.

Mid-Year Trip The BSA coordinated a 2018 mid-year ski trip, 15 students put up their hands to spend 3 days at Melbourne Universities Alpine Lodge at Mt Buller. Evaluation: The trip was a massive success, running smoothly from start to finish. All attendees enjoyed themselves and requested the trip be done again the next year.

Enda Semesta Festa Burnley Campus is had an end of 1st semester party to celebrate all the hard work put in so far this year. Live music, ice-cream truck and catering for a cause made for an incredible night. Evaluation: Though turnout wasn’t as high as anticipated there was a modest turnout of two

137

Office Bearer Annual Reports – Students’ Council, Meeting 19(18)

dozen people. The night was a success with many students praising the event in their feedback.

Burnley Master Classes This year Burnley was visited by several industry professionals for insight into their start-up businesses in horticulture. Speakers included Karen Sutherland of Edible Eden Design, Angelo Eliades of Deep Green Permaculture and Sim Hanscamp from Spoke & Spade. Evaluation: The MasterClass project was a major success with consistent turnout and engaging speakers.

End of Year Celebrations Burnley had an end of year celebration on the last day of classes (19th Oct) and plans for our own graduation ceremony taking place early December. Burnley custom hoodies were supplied to ensure turnout and give memorabilia. A live DJ, catering for a cause and the return of the ice-cream truck made for an incredible night. Evaluation: The turnout was much better this time round, with staff also participating. The BSA’s presence increased throughout the year leading to higher student engagement.

Wilson’s Prom Getaway The BSA are continuing the traditional Burnley pilgrimage to Wilsons Prom, final touches are being made to the end of semester getaway with all 24 spaces booked. Reliable transport and food are finalised with a cabin booked for three days between the 18th and 21st of November. Evaluation: Upon the writing of this report the trip has not undergone.

Recommendations for future Office Bearers

Recommendation 1 Prioritize activities that set a common goal such as trips and getaways, this allows student to bond and network outside of traditional settings.

Recommendation 2 Empower students to organise their own events in collaboration with the department. The more students engaged in creating their own activity, the further the unions message spreads and the higher the turnout for future events.

Recommendation 3 Create deadlines and stick to them, this may result in turning away students who have missed the boat at your discretion. Bending the rules for one person will create a precedence undermining your planning and budgeting.