Friday, 27 February 2009

Johnny Davis- VP Welfare Candidate

Check out Johnny's website here
Check out Johnny's Faceboook group
here


"
Welfare is about access, opportunity and defending student rights! A role that not only defines itself through the campaigns it promotes; but through working with groups such as Nightline, Student Advice and Student mentors, promoting and developing the services that help students like the Arc and Jobzone, and by liaising with the VP Education and Access, Student Activities and Development and Housing and Community. Central the role is taking a well rounded approach to welfare, covering all aspects of student life. So please check out my manifesto pledges below or visit my website and protect your welfare with a Johnny!"

Top 3 manifesto pledges:


1) Bring the National Blood Service back to campus-
I pledge to have them in the Guild during fresher’s week! Targeting people on mass, doing positive work and setting up regular habits to donate. I will however support groups such as LGBTQ to communicate the unfairness and need to update current policy (policy based on research from 1984!) and endeavor to get other groups in the Guild such as the Anthony Nolan Trust which has fairer policies in the area of donation.

2) Create a Joint Honours Office-
If you are a student on a joint honours degree and have issues with mitigations, clashes in timetables, exams and deadlines, or you need to go on work placements then most of you will end up traipsing from one department to the other. I want to make an office that will do this for you, they will liaise with departments, and it will be the one place you need to go to sort out all your problems.

3) More Prayer facilities on campus-
It is appalling that the Guild has the only room available for all 28,000 students. I will lobby the university to provide more facilities as soon as possible, and prove that they are committed to supporting the diversity and cultural differences in our student body!

"If you were a type of cheese, what type of cheese would you be and why?"

If I were a cheese I would be Brie - for three reasons –
1) I go with pretty much anything - I don’t care about political affiliation or anything else like that it’s about getting the job done. 2) I can appear hard on the outside whilst being soft on the inside – taking a tough stance to make sure I defend student’s rights whilst being sensitive to more delicate issues. 3) I’m suitable for any occasion - whether it be a meeting with the University or a drink down the pub.

Election Time

It's that time of year again, where people come and shout out in your lectures, hand you leaflets outside the library and knock your door in fancy dress... Guild elections!


Information on all candidates will soon be available on the Guild of Students webpage

I will be using my blog to post information about the candidates to suceed me as Vice President Welfare, including clips from hustings and the GTV videos! So if you can't make a husting check it out here!

To begin I asked each of the candidates to send me a short statement, their top 3 manifesto pledges and if they were a type of cheese, what would they be and why (both with very deep responses- concerning!)

To make sure that everything was fair, Sparky helped me decide the order in which I would publish the first blogs! So please find photographed the candidate names, Sparky with the candidate names inside a trophy and finally me picking the name for my first blog to go up.

Enjoy the blogs!

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

Multicultural Week Update

Me and Rich have been hard at work planning Multicultural Week. It is a long process and there is still much to be done.

We have firm plans for the first two days now which is very exciting. As usual if you have any ideas please get in touch.

We already held a forum for interested members of student groups- thanks to everyone that came along- you gave us some great ideas!

Some of the things you can expect to see->

*Debates on europe in line with the get the vote out campaign for the european elections
*International Film Festival
*Farmers market in Mermaid Square
* International Volunteering Fair
*Key note speakers on international topics (we have a number of ideas but what would YOU like to hear?)
*An international Fashion show in a marquee outside Underground
*Muuuusic, lots of Muuuusic
*Workshops in music, dance, language......

That's all I will give away for now.
Get excited!

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Volunteer With Student Advice

Student Advice are a student led volunteer project that provides trained volunteers for the ARC helpdesk (at the Guild of Students) to advise student clients on any query or problem they may have.
They run an eating disorders listening service (bEAT) and a housing clinic (which checks housing contracts). They also run campaigns on welfare issues that affect students.

Volunteering at the ARC is a great opportunity to enhance your CV, develop your skills through training and on the helpdesk. They also have group socials.

If you're interested in volunteering with us, just drop into the ARC (next to reception and the Jobzone in the Guild) and ask for an application form, or fill in the form online at the Guild website.
(Click Advice and Representation Centre, then Student Advice Recruitment Form) and email it to Student Advice (Student advice at guild.bham.ac.uk)

Look forward to hearing from you!