Aberystwyth University Guild of Students

Urdd y Myfyrwyr Prifysgol Aberystwyth University Guild of Students

President

Supporting an NUS Week of Action - One pair of pants at a time.

Written by Ben Meakin
Thursday, 23 February 2012 10:56
At the last General Meeting a motion was put forward to support the NUS Come Clean Campaign, which calls for a week of action to campaign against the damning cuts to education that are on the horizon. Unfortunately because General Meeting went a bit AWOL, we never managed to get to this motion and the next GM will be after this campaign, that is why I think it is important to announce that we will be supporting this campaign, motion or no motion! For those of you outside of the Higher Education bubble; the background to the Come Clean campaign lies in the fact the coalition government has decided to shelve plans for an HE bill, whilst on the surface this may look promising, it is far from it. This now mean the government can push damaging reforms through the back door, leaving less opportunity to publicly oppose these them. Obviously in Wales education is devolved, which means that decisions regarding HE & FE lie with the Welsh Government. Despite this I think it is important that we campaign against reforms in Westminster, many of which will undoubtedly have knock on effects to universities across the UK, regardless of the nation they reside! Despite this I think devolved education gives Wales an opportunity to take the lead on progressive changes to the HE sector that go against damning actions being taken by the coalition, quite frankly Leighton needs to grow a pair and lead the change! We support a national walk out on the 14th as called for by NUS President Liam Burns, but we also think that Aber could go one step further and do something really imaginative! That's where you lot come in, we want to know your ideas for an imaginative and clever campaign to tell Leighton that he needs to sort himself out and lead HE in Wales into a new progressive era! To give you an idea of what we're after, here is my idea: In 2009 The Guild received a Guinness World Record for the most amount of people in their pants! Thus we clearly like pants, so why don't we use this love for pants to campaign, I propose we get students to send a pair of pants each to Leighton Andrews with a note saying 'Grow a pair and lead the change in HE', imagine filling the Ministers office with pants! That's going to have a bigger affect than a mere 'vote of no confidence' (which I'm sure he won't lose any sleep over!) Anyway that's just one idea, post your ideas below this blog or send me an message! Ben E-mail: union.president@aber.ac.uk Twitter: bmeakin Facebook: Aberystwyth Guild of Students
Last Updated on Wednesday, 21 March 2012 10:05

Campaign Against Damaging Cuts to Bronglais

Written by Ben Meakin
Monday, 20 February 2012 10:51
Many of you may be aware that services at Bronglais Hospital are under serious threat, Hwyll Dda Health Board who operate the hospital are planning cuts that will damage the services available. One of the services under threat is emergency surgery, which in turn will affect the whole Accident & Emergency department. For a university town this is a major problem. I'm sure many of your parents were relieved to know that the town had an accident and emergency service close by if anything were to happen. I'm also sure that many of you who play contact sports such as Rugby, have used the service many times. Finally, we all know that students have a habit of getting into A&E after one too many gaa's. If the cuts were to happen this would not simply be a trip to Bronglais, it would be a long trip to Carmarthen! If something serious had happened that is an extremely long journey, it certainly wouldn't help the recovery process. I have already raised my concern to the Health Board (who have still failed to reply a month later) as well as expressing support to the local community who would be at risk from all the proposed cuts. On the 29th of February the local campaign group aBer are taking several coaches to Cardiff to demonstrate against these shortsighted proposals, I urge you to book a place and show support for this campaign. You can find details on FB here: https://www.facebook.com/events/234124766676404/ I will be going so if you are planning on attending please drop me an email so that we can attend as a united student body, to show the Health Board and Welsh Government that we mean business. Spread the word. Ben Email: union.president@aber.ac.uk Facebook: Aberystwyth Guild of Students Twitter: bmeakin
Last Updated on Monday, 20 February 2012 11:05

President Update - February

Written by Ben Meakin

Friday, 17 February 2012 15:53

Hi all, as ever it's fairly hectic in the Guild at the moment, especially with elections slowly rearing their ugly head! Here is a run down of what I've been working on over the past few weeks, just in case some stuff passed you by.

Coffee Shop

Firstly a quick update on the coffee shop/Starbucks frontier. I was hoping that building would have been well underway by now, but then I was quickly reminded that anything to do with estates/guild renovation takes forever. Despite that I have been sending a barrage of emails to the university whilst rallying the Guild staff to get things started and I can now say the wheels have been set in motion. Unfortunately we now have to go through a tender process with at least three contractors, this will take 3 weeks, but during that time we will be asking you what sort of design you would like i.e. rustic living room style with retro sofas or a modern sleek coffee shop theme.

Another process that is slowing us down and is utterly ridiculous at the same time is the need for an asbestos test. Whilst I'm all up for making sure we don't kill students, I'm also fairly sure that a test was done when the university decided to stick a new chimney through the exact area where the coffee shop is going. Surely asbestos hasn't appeared in 6 months!

Rate Your Landlord/Property Scheme

We all know that private sector accommodation is an utter disgrace in Aberystwyth, it's an understatement to say that the university or the Guild should have been putting a hell of lot more pressure on the private sector before now. With that in mind I have been researching the various options for setting up a 'Rate Your Landlord' system online, as most of you use Facebook as an unofficial platform to do this anyway, we might as well make it more structured.

The company we have started talks to runs the website www.studenttennant.com in Kent, it allows students to rate properties and if landlords sign up will also display a constant calendar of when housing is free (which will hopefully help to stop the rushes such as those recently seen outside alexanders).

Unfortunately the University are mildly apprehensive to get on board and fund such a website. They have said it would not make any difference because students would still have to live in low rated housing.

My argument is that students would have to live in poor housing regardless but at least they would be mildly more informed. The university also keep telling us that the new Penglais Farm Residence will free up space in the private sector when it is finished in 2014/15. If this is the case, it would make sense to put pressure on now in time for the new halls launch, hopefully at that point the rating system and market forces would force the poor landlords to up their game or lose out.

If you think this system should be implemented in Aber then please either let me know or tell the accommodation office that it is a good idea!

Making The Guild More Engaging

Many of you might have noticed that five (rather large) photos of the 5 Guild Officers have appeared in the entrance to the Guild. This is all part of an ongoing plan to let students know that we do so much more as a Guild than put on events such as Reload. Hopefully we can continue with this plan and make the representation, support and membership services that we offer, more visible. We will also be putting new poster boxes on the front of the building to display Guild info posters, the first of which will be the results of the Guild Survey.

Bronglais Hospital Campaign

I attended the recent public meeting held by local groups who are campaigning against serious changes to the services offered by Bronglais Hospital. In discussions I announced that the Guild will be supporting the campaign as the cuts would seriously affect students, many of whom do not have cars and are miles away from friends and family who would help in times of need.

I urge all students to sign the petition online and get involved here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Bronglais-Hospital/123628054426386

Many of you play contact sports and often sustain injuries requiring emergency treatment. Everyone knows someone who has spent time in Bronglais, if the Health Board gets its way students may be forced to go to Carmarthen!

The Aber Experience Plan

And finally … over the last 2+ months I have been working with the team to put together a document that will outline the future of Aberystwyth Guild of Students. It outlines what the student experience consists of in Aberystwyth and how the Guild can become a core part of this. It asks the critical question; 'If the beach and hills didn't exist in Aber, would the university still have such high student satisfaction ratings, or are we just location lucky?". I want the Guild to be part of providing a student experience in Aber that would be just as world class whether or not there was a beach here.

We will be presenting this document to the university in the hope they will support us with funding and resources so that we can achieve this goal, soon after we will make it available to everyone so that you can let us know what you like and what you don't.

As ever, if you have any questions then get in touch:

Email: union.president@aber.ac.uk

Twitter: @bmeakin

Facebook: Aberystwyth Guild of Student

Ben

Real Democracy, Real Representation!

Written by Ben Meakin

Thursday, 02 February 2012 15:23

Consultation on proposals to reform the democratic structure of the Guild of Students

February 2^nd 2012

Introduction

This consultation is the latest step in the process of introducing democratic reform to the Guild. We kickstarted the idea back in September with the first Ideas Forum, which demonstrated a new, roundtable approach to doing democracy. This has inspired us to build on the work done by Jon Antoniazzi and Simon Cameron last year in the production of the “Guild Assembly” model, which has been circulating since November 2011.

But the new Assembly is only part of the proposal. We also want to see a massive change in how we encourage and support democracy – new structures are all very good, but if they don’t have the backing and support from the Guild, then they’re going to mean very little.

Attachments:
Democracy Referendum Proposal	[ ]	281 Kb
New Bye-Law 7 Guild Assembly	[ ]	250 Kb
Bye-Law 7A Membership of The Guild Assembly	[ ]	203 Kb
Bye Law 9 - Elections	[ ]	208 Kb
Bye Law 9A - Elections to Offices	[ ]	212 Kb
Regulation 5 - Halls Representatives	[ ]	216 Kb
Regulation 6 - Town Representatives	[ ]	254 Kb
Regulation 7 - Block of 15	[ ]	170 Kb
Amendments (post shape the change)	[ ]	458 Kb

Last Updated on Friday, 03 February 2012 10:37

Written by Ben Meakin
Wednesday, 11 January 2012 17:13
Many of you may not be aware that services at Bronglais hospital are potential threatened by a new plan from the Health Board that operates it. A leaked document showed that many servies including emergency surgery would potential close and patients would have to travel over 60 miles to receive treatment. The health board seems to have completely missed that students exist in Aber as no consultation with students has happened. With that in mind I have written the letter below to Hywel Dda Health Board, I will post up a reply when (hopefully) I receive one. "Dear Sir/Madam I am writing to raise concerns over the proposed cuts to Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth and to ask whether the Board has considered the potential detrimental affect that these cuts would have on the student population of Aberystwyth? During term time, students are over half the population of Aberystwyth (7,275) and many stay throughout the holiday periods as well. This include an increasing amount of international students that now study at the University. One of the benefits of being a student in Aberystwyth is the easy access to hospital facilities, especially in such a rural location where transport is often an issue. Campaign groups have raised many concerns about the proposed cuts and some of these will impact on student well being in the town. The biggest concern for me would be the potential loss of emergency surgery, resorting to patients having to travel around sixty miles to receive healthcare. For a student this poses huge issues, many do not bring a car to University and rely on public transport. With this in mind how would you expect students to travel for hospital care? For many young people the move to university is often the first step away from their parents and therefore away from family support. I'm sure the current easy access to full hospital services puts many parents minds at ease I would like to know what steps you have taken to make sure that students in Aberystwyth have been thought of when considering future plans for Bronglais? The lack of consultation with the student body demonstrates a complete disregard for such a large part of the Aberystwyth population. In light of these concerns, I look forward to engaging with the health board on future issues and I look forward to your response. Regards, Ben Meakin President, Aberystwyth University Guild of Student"
Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 January 2012 17:24