Setting
Over zoom. EM is using her welfare background which features a large pile of condoms.
Present: ES (Senior Welfare Officer), EM (President), JC (Vice-President), AC (Welfare Campaigns Manager), JG (Welfare Campaigns Manager), AH (Female Welfare Officer), AS, HH (PG Welfare Rep), HM (Assistant Ethnic Minorities Rep), EGS (Students with Disabilities Rep), JS (Working Class Students’ Rep), LD
Apologies:
Absent:
Plans
ES: I hope you’re all staying safe and are OK. I don’t want to put pressure on you guys to run a big campaign, but it would be good to keep our social media ticking over. We could do a stress less campaign over exam time, but the wording might be a bit patronising. So we thought about instead calling it “Keep it up Cuth’s”.
We want to be positive and encouraging people to keep going. Mildert are posting tips for managing yourself, and dealing with isolation. A daily self-care challenge is an option. People can do that without posting it.
We were talking about asking people to send in appreciation videos about their friends when they finish exams or assignments, to celebrate and give them an outlet, because it must be depressing to finish exams and have no celebration. We also discussed doing a word of encouragement video. We’d have a script, and we’d all say a few lines and then edit it together. A collection of nice things.
These shouldn’t take up too much time. We could also ask people to send in pictures of their pets. Does anyone have any thoughts on those ideas?
AH: They all sound really good. I like the idea of doing Cuthgratulations. That will give a bit more of a sense of ceremony to finishing. If we’re offering tips, it might be nice to intersperse resources and where to find them.
ES: Good idea, it’s not that we’re here to know everything so it’s good to signpost.
AC: Could we make a google doc that anyone can add to, and encourage people to share things there, maybe blogs and podcasts that they’ve found helpful.
ES: Are people keen on the encouragement video?
*Agreement that we are*
AH: I think it should be as scripted as possible. And we should also ask people to commit to doing it or not to make it easier to organise.
ES: I’ve also thought a bit about profile picture frames. What are your thoughts on having one for this campaign? I think it would be a good thing, but I don’t want to detract form the importance of other frames.
HM: There’s a lot of negative media going on at the moment, so it might be nice to have a profile picture frame which stresses supporting friends, particularly east Asians because they’re being attacked online a lot at the moment.
ES: Would you want that in the frame or just the description?
HM: Maybe in the description, because a lot of other people are also suffering at the moment. It would just be nice to acknowledge this.
LD: There are also issues at the moment around people who are LGBT+ with unsupportive parents or who have eating disorders. Could we do a regular social thing, maybe just watching Netflix, so that we can provide an environment for them to have some time out.
EM: I think that sounds nice. Maybe a repeating link for a zoom call at a certain time each week. It can be very unstructured.
ES: It would also be nice if alongside the campaign, we have posts relating to other issues that come up now, such as financial worries, living at home, eating disorders.
Action: Minority reps to think about what some of these posts might include.
ES: There’s more information about SAC forms coming out next week, and I’m planning to make an infographic on it.
LD: I follow too many positive vibes Instagram accounts. One of them did a thing where you post a book to someone, and they post a book to you. I don’t know how it would work practically, but we could do something similar.
ES: I’ll speak to AJ (librarian) about that. I don’t read.
HH: It might be fun to do a quarantine cooking thing.
AH: JS Munroe is really good at budget recipes, and her website has hundreds of cheap healthy recipes. That could be a good resource to share if we do some cooking.
ES: I like the idea of sharing some recipes. Maybe some of those, maybe HH also could share some. I think getting people to share their daily lives is important to foster a sense of solidarity.
AC: If we’re sharing things, it might be important to make sure it’s realistic. We could include some realism over what people are achieving to contrast with the inflated claims on social media.
ES: Would it be helpful for people to offer up their experiences of how they’re feeling? I think it’s important to see people who are struggling, so that we can acknowledge it and that it’s normal.
For anything poster related, I’ll make a template so we can be consistent.
For minority issues, I think general information is good. For example, it’s important to address money worries, but it’s not necessarily only working class people who are affected. So any information about resources that are available would be useful. Signposting to information is good.
EM: Me and RJ are working on having a JCR pot of money for this too, but we want people to have gone to the University and college first, because it should be their responsibility to provide. But if anyone really is struggling, send them to us.
ES: I think it is also important to address issues surrounding racist rhetoric, as HM mentioned. So HM could do that.
LD: The running club is very active on Strava. I find running relaxing, but it can be hard to motivate yourself to go. Could we do a weekly run where all go at the same time? It’s a very beginner-friendly way to exercise.
JG: There’s a youtube channel for yoga that links to a calendar. So maybe we could like the running to a calendar, which has other things too, maybe yoga and meditation.
ES: I’ll set up a drive, and we’ll also make sure we post every day.