Apologies
AF (Chair)
DG (Social Chair)
Updates
CL – book order
CW – ordering equipment – some has arrived – tidied green machine room
RJ – sports and socs reporters going alright – some cuths teams been picked for varsity
EM – charity pub quiz on the 20th – FRAMDA 4pm on the 14th March – collab speed dating with Chad’s this weekend – ticket sales aren’t going great so plug it when you can
LJ – writing newsletter – organised cuths blog with uni marketing team, getting some people to say what they’ve been up to – SU assembly the other day – extraordinary assembly tomorrow
HJ – been minuting meetings and stash order is currently live
AK – reclaims – paying for gym stuff – people don’t know that they need to forward emails (LJ shall check the welfare one is working) – AK doesn’t actually have online banking yet
CS – SHAG week went well – “it’s not okay” also went well – Purple Radio have asked to go on and talk about mental health awareness, but will go on as an individual rather than welfare officer
AJ – Research forum happened and went well – another one of 1st March – will do a trip to Newcastle – 7th March = MCR formal – murder mystery and silent disco
VC – Chinese new year social on Friday – contacted catering staff to make next Monday’s dinner menu Chinese – working on a survey to send out to international students
CM – written up policies and procedures for JCR e.g. complaints, media handling, investments etc. and we can’t spend reserves until we do that – updating college memorandum – did open day interviews and we had loads of great candidates that we had to say no to – green machine clearout – battle with uni about being on train station for open days and they want to do shuttles from station to cuths, which will mean lots of congestion and also it’s a good time to get to know people better – letter to alumni to make them aware of accommodation fees issues
£1 Campaign
Add a pound to ball tickets and that amount goes to charity – thoughts?
£1 on top of the ticket price probably won’t change people’s mind – although people already complain about FIXR booking fee
People should probably get the option to opt out of it? Not morally against the idea of it being compulsory if the charity is being publicised and what it’s going towards
Should we pass this through the JCR meeting about the best way we go about it? – all agree for this
– EM will write the motion
Can do a poster thing to post in the fresher pages to advertise the JCR meeting and the motions
Facilities Budget and Trustees
We want to spend a block of money now to improve the general running of all the facilities and that isn’t in the facilities budget, but the trustees are having issues with it at the minute until we have a reserves policy and need to know the amount needed for running the charity for a year based on no income (levy) and also a conversation about how the trustees are involved in spending money
– TLDR – we need a policy in place before spending money
Facilities should have reserves somewhere based on previous years of spending – need to check this out
DURFESS
A lot of JCRs receive this sort of thing – Butler had a similar thing and it blew up when they reacted
We need to take away from it that some people may feel like that and we do want to be more inclusive if we can
Possible issue on advertising elections and JCR meetings more in advance? Some people think that that is a part of the cliqueyness – that people who are involved know about it but people not already involved don’t
It’s very difficult engaging the JCR, as people get annoyed with facebook notifications and people don’t read emails etc
Not knowing how to run is also an issue with some people – can have a link to it on the posts for elections – can advertise messaging the elections page rather than email SRO as that could be less scary
For next JCR elections – the frame should be used again – new cover photo on the freshers pages – do more Instagram – link to the ways to run and campaign rules
Can do small quotes on how we all got involved
Can have the JCR operating hierarchy in the handbook for next freshers week
Train Station
We all agree that it’s good to walk people – meet in market square?
Campaign Teams
People join just because they’re asked first before they’ve read other manifestos
Should have campaign teams chosen after candidates and manifestos have been released
New Website
Spoke to JE – need various skills to be able to use it – there’s a programme that is £50 per year that makes it much much easier to use for everyone, without needing to code
We’d have to transfer everything over – apparently we can copy the code to it which will be fine – the only issues could be reclaims and book thing
LJ, CM and JE will have a meeting
Strikes
Strikes happening – people will be missing contact hours – have done a poll on the freshers pages about whether the SU officers should support the strikes but not the missing academic commitments – currently very strongly supporting the strike, and over 100 people have responded to it. Exec currently agrees to support this
There’s been an amendment about supporting the physical strike and encouraging students not to cross the picket lines (e.g. not going to lectures or into uni) which MC (SU Pres) is against – exec agrees about this
Stash
Saying no to PlayerLayer
Haven’t actually had any big issues with Moette apart from Freshers Week – HJ will organise stash for the over night open days
Policies
Will send these round to all of us
Vice Principal
RE college side of things: Vice-Principle will be acting principle for 3 weeks. This overlaps with the new VP taking up either post.
Mining Museum Trip
Will be happening after exams
Difficult Dialogue
On local issues and durham history to educate in response to Trevs issues
AOB
Welfare Assistant
Change to one male, one female, four no gender, and have those as a campaign team rather than the large one at the moment, as it’s harder to get people to do it.
Or make them called Campaign Managers?
So change structure to senior welfare, then male and female welfare, then two welfare campaign managers, then four campaign helpers + representatives (e.g. POCA, LGBT+A, SWD, Postgrad and International) – all to be elected
– CS to write motion for the structure change and it being elected