A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
One major suggestion is to split the current position of Academic and Welfare Officer into two separate sabbatical posts.
The current workload of the position is described by the report as "so extreme that it was unhealthy for the post holder" and failing to split them would actually be detrimental to the Officer's health and their effectiveness.
YUSU President Anne-Marie Canning said: "We've seen Academic and Welfare Officers self-implode and on the verge of a nervous breakdown."
It has been suggested that one aspect of the role is always neglected. Canning stressed the need to "give academia the position it deserves in the Union".
Grace Fletcher Hackwood, former Academic and Welfare Officer, was one of the main opponents of this division, arguing that the two roles are so closely linked they cannot be split.
Another recommended change is to join the roles of the Societies and Communications Officer and the Student Development and Charities Officer into one new position: Student Activities Officer.
This move would allow the separation of the academic and welfare role while still maintaining the number of sabbatical officers at six, which is amongst the highest of any university according to Canning.
In line with these suggestions a new constitution will be put forward. It is hoped that the whole process will help the Union become simpler for students to understand, feel a part of and contribute to.
I don't think the work overload would be an issue to much - as the report says there would be increased staff support to ensure that many of the operational issues that the officers currently deal with are dealt with by staff (ratification documents, mailing lists etc). The point on negligence is an issue that could arise - it is one however that could be levelled at the post of student development and charities though - volunteering or charity etc
Having an external assessor come in and recommend the changes certainly adds weight to the argument, although I have to say, if it's been on the cards for so long, its disappointing more leadership wasn't displayed last year on the issue Rich.
Also, surely Sports/Societies should be merged? Aren't they effectively the same job?!
We're forgetting one of the main things!
We're going through a governance review not only to look at officer roles but also our structures.
The Charities Bill comes into force in 2009. WE MUST BE COMPLIANT TO REMAIN IN EXISTENCE!
This means changing some of our structures and introducing an external trustee board.
Please feel free to come along to our focus groups throughout Week 3. Check out www.yusu.org/focusgroups for more information.
Thanks! AMC
Oh yeah, the governance review is for compliance so many of the organisational recommendations are deliberately written with that in mind... and they all work well with each other. Especially with the whole trustees thing. Forgot to mention that at all :-\
NOTE FROM MODERATOR: the first part of the comment was removed due to the use of abusive language and its defamatory nature. The rest of the comment has been left intact:
The report was commissioned by the union in an attempt to find ways of working better.
Why does the campus media always report in such a 'glass is half empty' manner?
What?! This is disgraceful. There was absolutely NO abusive language in the first half of that post. Since when has being critical of the editorial policy of the website been considered off limits?
The utter hypocrisy from a website that refuses to sign the media charter for reasons of censorship. What an absolute joke.
To repeat my point:
I questioned the topic of this article since I believe the use of 'criticism' is entirely unfair.
The deleted part did not involve any question, did use abusive language and made wrongful and outlandish claims regarding the Yorker. We've acted well within our comments policy.
We've let a lot of critism of The Yorker (including your last comment) appear on the site and we do attempt to take sensible suggestions on board (although the feedback link at the bottom is a more direct and effective way to do so).
If you wish to discuss the issue further or require any clarification on why your post was edited please contact me on editor [at] theyorker [dot] co [dot] uk.
Regards
Dominic
As someone involved heavily in Student Action, my concern with getting rid of SDC is that it makes Student Action and RAG seem no more important that other societies. While, OK, I am a leeetle biased, both SA and RAG are vitally important things, that add greatly to the lives of both students, and the wider community, and I think they need to remain distinct from the rest of the student societies.
#22 - After the changes of 2005/6 in the constitution and officer roles it would have been foolhardy to change them again so dramatically in 2006/7 - it is necessary to let some things bed in properly and assess where the requirements are.
I have never hidden my belief that the exec team of 2008/9 should have been formatted in this way or similar, and that was what was passed on to the current team. Their decision however did not fall in line with this and it was their belief when they came in that this wasn't necessary and wanted to have more time to review things etc.
There were also delays in the work on the charity bill - we began discussing it in 2005/6 but there has been significant delays in implementation and recommendations for it. Thus to try and do it last year would possibly have led to further changes again this year.
Whilst we considered changing things in the summer term we felt there was too little time for change and consultation when there had been no report commissioned (as such it would have taken far longer to consult and it was impossible to undertake one given the financial implications etc).
Also the workload of the summer term in my area included work on the porters problems (which finished about week 3), the QAA student written submission (end of the summer term), and the residential facilities changes for Summer 08 which were all major extras on the day to day job that has to be undertaken and other problems.
To take these areas forward and worked to finalise a review process would have been impossible. Instead we changed some areas to ensure short term neglect couldn't continue (e.g. boards of studies area) in the summer term of 07 and put forward the other areas for review/change in the summer of 07.
The fact is that despite the Union having executive officers on an elected basis yearly basis operates on a continuous one like any organisation. To help in some respects the staff are permanent and the non-sabbs and sabbs start at different times. Also the chairs who input to senate start at another one. Anyone internally, or indeed externally who forgets that will ultimately damage it.
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