Friday 01-02-2019 - 14:14

As you may have seen, our Executive (spring) Elections are now live and you can nominate yourself as a candidate anytime between now and nomination closure on Friday 22^nd February 2pm. These elections are responsible for electing the people you want to run your Student Union and be responsible for representing you across the University. If you’ve already had a look through the nomination and election information on our website you may have noticed a few things are a little different. This article hopes to explain these changes, as voted by your Student Senate last Wednesday, and why these changes have been brought in.

These changes centre around the Union’s Bye-Laws which were passed jointly by the Union’s Board of Trustees and Student Senate, our bye-laws can be found here. So now we’ve explained that ‘what has actually change?’

Changes to your Executive Committee & Student Senate

Bye-Law 1 oversees the Union’s Democracy, Governance and Meeting Groups and includes the make-up of the executive committee. Student Senate voted to adopt the new bye-law which involves the following changes: 

• The position of Vice President, Education has been renamed and extended to Vice President, Education & Welfare
• Part-Time Officers no longer have an outlined portfolio and will now be known as Student Officers
• The Committee will be no larger than 8 members (3 Sabbatical Officers & 5 Part-Time Student Officers)
• Members of Student Senate will now be elected via cross-campus ballot in Semester 1 and will elect representatives for the following positions:

• Mature Student Rep
• Part-Time Student Rep
• Commuting Student Rep
• International Student Rep
• Distance Learning Student Rep
• Postgraduate Student Rep
• BME Student Rep
• LGBT+ Student Rep
• Disabled Student Rep
• Faculty Reps

These changes are all aimed at ensuring our democratic functions, as well as to be more effective, representational and manageable for our student volunteers and representatives.

Extending the title and responsibilities of the Vice President, Education to Vice President, Education & Welfare is an example of where we are putting into action ways and means to resolve student feedback. You have told us through our big survey, student reps and elected officers that your number one concern is welfare. The Vice President, Education & Welfare will have the responsibility of campaigning and working to ensure your welfare and wellbeing is prioritised in the Union and remains a priority for the University, alongside your academic experience. Their work will be supported by a new full-time staff member who is starting this week, who will be on hand soon to support students with academic appeals, complaints and concerns as well as accessing vital welfare and wellbeing support.

We believe that for too long we have been telling you what your priorities should be, instead of taking a step back and listening to your priorities. Having Student Officers without portfolios will allow you’re elected officers to respond to your concerns and work together to develop effective campaigns, and hopefully results. The Student Officers will sit down with the Officer Trustees towards the beginning of their term of office to reflect on feedback you have been giving us. This will then allow the Officers to decide what they would like led on and change, for you. So if you passionate about equality, student wellbeing, international students or anything else, as a Student Officer you will still be able to work on this and work with the rest of the executive committee to drive will change; but don’t forget Student Senate will be there to hold you to account, ensure you are representing all areas of our membership and keep you to your manifesto.

Removing portfolios from the executive committee part-time officers has results in some demographic positions also no longer being directly represented on the executive committee. None the less, we fully understand the importance of representation and underrepresented demographics are important to the work of the Union and that is why we’ve changed Student Senate. Student Senate is the board responsible for holding the Union officers and work to account. Student Senate have a responsibility to direct the work of the Union through the passing of policy, papers and motions as well as directly questioning and demanding answers from Officers. So whilst the Student Officers have the duty of representing all members, some members of Student Senate will be there to ensure the students they are representing are heard and can be seen through the overall work of the Union. Keep an eye out for these elections in Semester 1 of the next academic year.

Other Bye-Law Changes

We also took this opportunity to review our other bye-laws and ensure they were continuing to develop and work effectively alongside other changes to the Union. As before you can view all our bye-laws here, but below is just a quick outline of other changes:

Bye-Law 2: Code of Conduct

• The President is no longer directly responsible for complaints and disciplinaries with the introduction of a supervising trustee who is independent from the day-2-day running of the Union responsible for overseeing complaints and disciplinaries.
• A clear process for dealing with collective/team disciplinaries to ensure members are dealt with fairly and in a clear similar process. (without cross-referencing more than one bye-law). 

Bye-Law 3: Election Regulations

• This bye-law has been changed to reference the new election required for Student Senate.
• An opportunity for Student media societies to engage in the elections and a process for doing this has now been introduced.
• The returning officer now has the opportunity to require candidates to qualify statements which may be viewed as misleading or false.

Bye-Law 4: Activities

• We have removed the reference to Student Activity Numbers as Students are no longer required to purchase them prior to joining a team or society.
• We have made it easier for team or society members to hold their committee to account through a clear process of removal.

Bye-Law 5: Finance

• This bye-law has remained unchanged.

If you have any questions regarding this changes or the upcoming elections please do get in touch with your Union President, Tali Atvars (SU_Pres@winchester.ac.uk)