NUSSL has been co-ordinating the national collaborations for Students’ Union entertainments programmes for 5 years now. My how time flies, it seems like only yesterday we were encouraging NUSSL to take this area of our commercial work seriously.

This was a great event, where the company had invested time and money in ensuring they really heard what their members want from Ents work going forward.   There was plenty of chance to discover that the variety of opinion in the room, was as ever matched only by the variety of Ents programmes and structures. There was a stong concensus that NUSSL needs to do far better moving forward, but that there was a lot of scope for this.

I’m personally looking forward to seeing how they have translated this into their draft  strategy.  My initial skim read of it is encouraging.  The document has certainly been amended to incorporate the ideas discussed in Birmingham.  There are plans for more discussion meetings before the end of the academic year, along with a revised Ents Manual and research to determe a state of the SU Ents nation.  It looks highly likely that NUSSL will negotiate a national deal on a raft of Ents consumables, including of course Gaffa Tape in the next few months.

I really hope colleagues give their backing to this new focus and that NUSSL can really find their way to delivering national Ents support to the incredibly varied array of SU Ents teams.

Of course, the other great feature of the day was to spend it with passionate colleagues who invest so much energy in providing great nights out for our students.  I always find it rewarding to hear the perspective of colleagues working in different roles in different Unions.  So much to learn!

Thanks to Barry Dore for facilitating a surprisingly rewarding day and to Nick Emms for listening.

Birmingham's second Social Media Surgery (not sure of photo source, sorry)

So how will we do it?

We have ideas to promote a scheme where we invite staff and students who know something about using the internet to help staff and students who want to know.  This would cover the whole range of internet features: facebook, twitter, blogging, mashups, photos, videos and so on.

staff and students side by side, teaching one another for the benefit of our learning community

We anticipate our “trainers”  to be anyone in the university community: media staff, media students, other academic staff, any students and non-academic staff.  In fact rather the point is anybody who knows about this showing anybody who doesn’t.

In time we see the support being garnered at surgery sessions, tweet ups, one to ones, bar camps and a host of other ways – really whatever suits the parties connecting.

So how will we make it happen?

We do think this will work best if we encourage participation on a voluntary basis.  There is good evidence for this in other schemes (e.g. Birmingham Social Media Surgeries).  However, these things need some injection of energy, enthusiasm and organisation.  We think some small amount of funding would help nurture the project.

While we’re looking for this funding, however, we have enough enthusiasm in our small group to make a small social media surgery happen at the City North Campus.  So, we have discussed the following plan:

• Establish a web based administration system, so we can publicise the event.  From there we can also capture attendees and reviews of the event.
• Take care of the practicalities of hosting the first surgery – room booking, refreshments, signage, wifi…
• Arrange for publicity to get the message out there.

When do we want you?

Our provisional date is Tuesday 5 May from 3pm to 7pm.  Look out on twitter and on here for more details of how to become a mentor (drop a comment in below if you know you want to do it!).  Look out around the university for publicity for learners – or as their often called at these surgeries – patients!

Is there anything else I can do?

Yes:

1. we’d like a snappy name for the project which goes beyond a surgery and captures the idea of a learning community to raise our digital literacy.
2. we’d like some funding to expand this idea from a surgery to a broader mentoring scheme across the whole university.
3. we’d be happy to work with other partners who share these aspirations.

I have only used MindJet Manager, which I do like.  I like the way it connects in with outline levels on Word and moves easily in and out of other MS Office packages.  However, at a zero cost, Mind Meister has to be the way to start with e-mapping…

Enjoy.

I thought it would be interesting to some of our members to have a mid year update on where our money is now at…

Actual Result 2007-08

So, for last year, at the AGM Jon Berg (then Treasurer) announced an outturn of £1,510 surplus for the year. The Board of Trustees approved the final accounts at our meeting earlier this month presenting a surplus of £1,863. Well that’s pretty close, I hear you say. Indeed, and the even better news is that this result came after creating a  reserve to cover the anticipated debt from the SUSS pension scheme (see below).  I have posted the accounts on the AMSU website.

SUSS Pension Scheme

The deficit issues around pension schemes are well recorded.  What is not so well recorded is that AMSU has not had any staff in membership of the scheme for some time.  Of course, there comes a time when the Trustees must assume our membership is over and call in the debt.  Unfortunately that happened this year and we have now left the scheme and paid off the debt.  Since we knew this was likely at the time of finalising the accounts, we were able to set aside our best estimate of half the cost in last year’s accounts.  The balance is accounted for in this year’s budget.

Revised Budget 2008-09

Clearly much has changed in AMSU since the AGM.  Our Director has left us and we’ve made decisions to relocate the office.  At our March meeting we re-visited the budget for the year.  I am pleased to say that subscriptions are healthy and allowing for the additional SUSS spend of  we are projecting a small deficit.  I have posted the revised budget on the website in the Governance Section.

Auditors

For the first time AMSU has joined forces with both other major national student organisations to tender for a shared auditor.  After a rigorous tendering and selection procedure, Tenon were selected for all three national bodies.  I am delighted.  I have only just started working with them and found them to be suitable efficient and responsive.  We will of course be proposing them formally at the AGM.

Questions

I will of course be delighted to answer any questions you may have about AMSU money.  Indeed, about any aspect of AMSU’s work.  Please leave a comment in the box below or email me on jaki.booth@bcu.ac.uk

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