On this event page you will find full descriptions of the workshops and activities within this room. To explore other rooms, click on the links to the right, or return to the Southern Conference home page here. To access your chosen activity, click the timetable below to be re-directed to the Zoom Call for your session.
The conference begins with a welcome talk in room one Peter Taylor House. You can find the link to this below.
Following this you will be reading the sessions available in Room Three - Republic.
Room Three: Republic
Democracy never sleeps but sometimes it must also sprint to catch up with the times. Unions have adapted to engaging members democratically during Covid-19 and started looking forward. Brendan from Portsmouth SU has been working with SU governance specialist Nick Smith (Nick Smith Consulting) to discuss what you can do now and what you might need to change for September. Session will include: - How UPSU brought its democracy online
- Developing the Charity Commission guidance for our specific SU context
- What might be needed in 6 months time
- How you can use or change your current rules
Access and Engagement: Like many, the Democracy and Campaigns Team at ARU Students’ Union has faced significant challenges during the lockdown in enabling student access to democratic processes. This included participation in our Executive Elections, Annual General Meeting and Executive Committee Meetings. In this session, we will review how we overcame some of these obstacles, areas where we continue to seek solutions, tools that we will carry forward and other lessons learned.
Shift from the 'Norm': They say that you do not change until you are forced to adapt; this leaves us to question how a pandemic revolutionised what we do to cater to students in a world driven by technology. We want to explore the cultural norm of the standard ‘how should we engage students’ that we, as officers, all walk into, leading us to challenge the ‘traditional norm’. With the stakes higher to protect the students’ best interests, lobbying the university, campaigning and being transparent, we want to explore how we adapted to empower a whole body to claim their educational rights as students.
Gen Z students: It’s no secret that students who are more involved with their SU are more likely to run for officer positions, but how has that involvement changed for Gen Z students, and how can we transition those students into their roles successfully? How do their opinions on the political and social atmosphere effect their campaigns? We will be examining the actions of current officers, and questioning incoming officers at Anglia Ruskin University Students’ Union to answer these questions and provide recommendations for recruitment and on boarding of Gen Z officers.