31st Oct - what your VP (Welfare) has been getting up to...
Date: October 31, 2009
October 2009
A brief rundown of my diary from October...
Thursday 1st – Planning meeting for the Hales Place Neighbourhood Event, Board of Trustees and then Union Council
Friday 2nd - Catch up with all the college Welfare Officers
Saturday 3rd – First session coaching the Kent Falconettes Cheerleading Squad this year, every Tuesday and Friday evening from now on I will be doing this J
Monday 5th – Weekly sabb meeting followed by catching up with Colum (LGBT Officer) and Hinal (Ethnic Minorities Officer)
Tuesday 6th – Chaired UMSA’s Stakeholder Strategy Committee then returned to Canterbury for Falconettes training
Wednesday 7th – Some Get On Board planning; then the Hales Place Neighbourhood Event in the afternoon
Thursday 8th – annual leave to attend an interview in London
Friday 9th – Catch up meetings with Parkwood’s Welfare Officer, Faith, with Laura King (Women’s Officer) and then a planning meeting for the term 1 General Meeting. The college Welfare Officers along with the Mental Health Welfare Group also hosted a ‘Tea & Talk’ event Mungo’s to raise funds for The Mental Health Foundation as this was World Mental Health Day
Monday 12th October – Weekly sabb meeting as normal; Counselling Skills training began which I am attending along with several other volunteers and officers; met with Canterbury City Council along with all the sabbs for our quarterly meetings; and finally, my weekly catch up meetings with the college Welfare Officers started
Tuesday 13th - Catch up with the Advice Centre about running Advice Surgeries in the Colleges
Wednesday 14th – Venue review meeting and a Love Your Body campaign launch meeting
Thursday 15th – Attended Fairtrade Steering Group then travelled up to Medway with Christ Church Students’ Union for UMSA Partnership Committee and in the evening attended the Times Higher Education Awards with members of staff from both Kent Union and the University
Friday 16th – Catch up meetings with Sabina (Darwin President) and Hinal (Ethnic Minorities Officer)
Monday 19th – up on campus at 8am to put up the GET ON BOARD posters to mark the start of GET ON BOARD week! Then weekly sabb meeting, catch up with the college masters, housing week planning meeting, picked the falconettes cheer squad for the year and had my weekly meeting with the college welfare officers.
Tuesday 20th – lots of GET ON BOARD campaigning and organising volunteers
Wednesday 21st – took the GET ON BOARD bus to the sports pitches to get some photos – have a look here –
Thursday 22nd – catch up on finances with our Finance Director, website review group meeting (longest meeting ever! But shiny new website plans!), met with a local Fire Kills campaigner, caught up with Joe Cooper (Interim Director of UMSA) about our governance review, Union Council training and finally Union Council
Friday 23rd – all day sabb meeting about the governance review and our thoughts on the sabbatical structure
Sunday 25th – Monday 26th – NUS Society & Citizenship Zone Conference up in Manchester. Holding the NUS Vice President Society and Citizenship to account, planning future policy, training and debating the issues. I also stood for election to the Zone Committee and not only got elected to that but came top of the vote so I will also be sitting on the NUS National Executive Council!
Tuesday 27th – Wednesday 28th – NUS Welfare Zone Conference, also in Manchester and much the same but didn’t stand for election this time!
Thursday 29th – back in the office catching up on work! Met with a rep from whenurent.co.uk, met with the VC to keep her in the loop about progress on our governance review, sat on the Parking Panel and caught up with the group of part-time officers I am mentoring.
Friday 30th – review meeting for the recent open day, photo-op with stagecoach for their relaunch and finally a bit of Love Your Body planning
This blog is also published on Facebook and you can always get in touch with me by emailing s.m.kennedy@kent.ac.uk
