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The University of Brighton Students' Union is an essential organisation that ensures there is representation and support for the students of the University of Brighton. The Union however appreciates that like all organisations it requires regular reviews to ensure that it is relevant to its current demographic of members. UBSU’s elected representatives have therefore decided to undertake a review of the Union, with the support of its membership to ensure that it is ‘the modern day union for the modern day student’.
With the ever pending change of legislation making students’ unions register as charities it is important that we are meeting the requirements that will be set out for us. Advice from the National Union of Students, is that unions follow CC10 ‘The Hallmarks Of An Effective Charity’, which was published by the Charity Commission in July 2008. This outlines various things that the Union is currently not doing, including have a board of trustees with a mix of skills, knowledge and experience.
The review will be undertaken in the 2008/09 academic year under the supervision of the Union President, VP Education and Equalities and the Union General Manager. It will be completed in time for the June 19th 2009 Board of Governors for approval.
The review will be split into four manageable topics, and each topic will run for four weeks at a time. The first topic will be Engagement and Participation, followed by Democracy, then Accountability and finally Officer Roles and Trustees.
We will be engaging with the membership to discuss each topic in detail, this will be through informal one to ones, more formal open meetings and e-questionnaires. We believe that through using these various methods of engagement we will be maximising the number of members of who will have the opportunity to contribute to the new look Union. We will also be making good use of our sources of sharing information, including ‘The Pebble’, www.ubsu.net <http://www.ubsu.net/> and through numerous flyers and posters. To ensure that the members are aware of the topic of the month, each topic will be colour coded and this will be widely advertised.
As well as consulting the membership we will be looking for professional input from both the Staff at the Students’ Union, University and other key stake holders. This will be through meetings and focus groups to understand what people are expecting form the UBSU, and if some of these can be incorporated with the needs of our members.
Various other focus groups will be taking place over the review, to ensure that the University of Brighton students who study at partner colleges have their say, along with looking at the needs of specific demographics, for instance mature and international students viewpoints. These will be predominantly led by the part time executive officers.
The four weeks for each topic were split up to as below.
Week 1 Mon –Fri Gather information through informal conversation with membership
Week 2 Mon –Fri Gather information through informal conversation with membership
Week 3 Mon – wed Gather information through informal conversation with membership
Thurs am Collate information
pm Open Forum
Fri Create the questions for the E-Questionnaire
Week 4 Mon Forward questions to IS so that it can be made and sent out
Mon-Fri Members can answer online questionnaire
These four topics were investigated from 27th October 08 – 27th February 09. View more information about each of the topics by clicking on the appropriate images below
Engagement & Participation Democracy Accountability
Officer roles/Trustees
A more detailed outline of the timeline for the coming year can be seen in the appendix
27th October Start of the review
27th October Start of Topic 1 (Engagement and Participation)
20th November Start of Topic 2 (Democracy)
5th January Start of Topic 3 (Accountability)
26th January Start of Topic 4 (Officer roles and trustees)
27th February End of the 4 topics
27th February Board of Governors where a earlier constitution review will be requested
30th April The new Union will be presented to council for approval
14th May The new union will go to council for second approval
4th June The new union will go to a third council (if needed)
19th June The new union will go to Board of Governors for approval
The Union believes that this review will ensure the strength of the Union for years to come along with the effective representation of its members. It will also allow the Union to be a charity when the legislation comes in with very few alterations, except for those affecting financial issues.
22 October 2008
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