University of Nottingham Students’ Union
11thHealthcare Associations Committee

Notes From: Thursday 29th November 2012, 4pm-5.30pm

Attendance

Sian Green(SG)Communities OfficerPresent

Jonathan Kavanagh(JK)Communities Coordinator Present

Frances Jarvie(FJ)SAC Administrator, Secretary Present
Ashok Kumar(AK)UNAD PresidentPresent

James Lainchbury(JL) Med Soc PresidentPresent

Daisy Lord(DL)NUMID PresidentPresent

Josh Plail(JP)Physio Association (SUPA)PresidentPresent

Amos Teshuva(AT)SU PresidentPresent

Welcome and a round of introductions

SG & JK welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Apologies

No apologies

Notes from last meeting

No issues

Issues

January GEN Students at Derby

  • JK: New GEN students will be starting at Derby in January. Planning welcome flyers, events and maybe a mini fresher’s fair. The SU will have a stall there
  • Discussion on why it is often hard to get this cohort of GEN students to get involved with the SU. AK said they were often mature students and had families but they were still planning a night out and probably a fuddle.
  • Also discussed why nursing students in general don’t tend to get involved in the SU, AK mentioned a culture of segregation where previous committees have not been welcoming to the SU. JK also said their timetables are often not flexible.

Love Your Home

  • SG discussed the Love Your Home campaign. She has collated all information from the housing survey and found students don’t feel supported when house hunting. Created the 5 Top Tips to help with this. Made videos available online. SG asked heads of committees to promote this amongst students. DL will promote amongst 1st year nurses at Savoy and in lectures.

New claim form, petrol rate and scanned receipts for treasury

  • JK discussed the new claim form. Some changes e.g., now only need one signature and rate paid has increased to 45p for the first 5000 miles. This may mean committees will have to pay increased amounts to members.

Transition Event for 2nd year GEMs from UNAD to MedSoc

  • When GEMs move over to Notts there will be a handover/meet and greet from MedSoc. Feedback from this last year was good so will be done again this year.

New Derby Space

  • JK said there was now dedicated SU space at Derby

Joint Event in 2013

  • JK: ideas so far have been for a competition between the different groups or an event for all healthcare students. There were ideas for this last year but it never got off the ground. Others indicated this was a good idea
  • DL: there has been talk of a healthcare ball which should definitely be going ahead
  • JK suggested this could be the event
  • JP raised this issue that the Physiotherapy students already have an end of year ball which costs £35 so it might be difficult to get people to pay twice.

Action: JK will pass details of social secretaries to Peter May-Miller.

Committee Reports

UNAD Association

Have held their first meeting and have a keen focus on integration. Want to fall in line with Notts model for sports and societies and have better revenue. They are getting involved with Derby hospitals for fundraising. Also want to have more socials

NUMID

Will hold re-elections in January for all vacant posts. Have held some welfare drop-ins ,turnout so far has been poor but they are hoping this will increase. They had a good turnout at their Fresher’s social and have the screening of Twilight at the Savoy coming up. Their talks have been going well and hopefully attendance will pick up.

SUPA

Held the Fresher’s social at the Ropewalk. Also have Xmas social lined up and a boat cruise. Their sports and societies are going well. Fundraising for CRY this year. They are trying to increase their links with Birmingham. Have an issue with their common room as this has been turned into a restaurant where they can’t take their own food. Trying to petition for a proper common room. JK advised there is a seminar room they can use in the meantime and there may be a plan for a more permanent room.

MedSoc

Had their first social in collaboration with Leicester at the Ice Arena. Sub-societies are having their elections this week and training will take place in December. Have been trying to contact alumni to maintain contacts.Also trying to increase their profile within the medical school by funding Student Voice. JK mentioned there may be an overlap here with what the course reps do and this may confuse students as they won’t know where to go. JK suggested a meeting between himself, JL and Ruth Edgar (Education Network Manager)

Any Other Business / Items For Next Meeting

  • AT asked heads of committees what they would most like to change and how the SU could support them in doing this. DL said that often students complain lectures are pointless and not related to the course. JK said Sarah Gosling has a meeting with the head of faculty to discuss the SU’s relationship with the school. JL used Imperial as an example of where the faculty are very receptive to the SU and there was a good working relationship. He said that in a recent meeting with the Dean, James Lowe, he had been advised that the school saw MedSoc as mostly social and thought there was an issue with the fact they are only in their roles for a year. AT said this issue has been raised and it would be good to have a longer term plan, e.g., 3 year plan so that when new officers were elected they would know what the strategy was.
  • JK raised issue that the medics have rated the SU very poorly in the NSS and there might be an issue of them being detached from the SU, especially when on placement. Also, may not recognise MedSoc as being a part of the SU. JL also said that many final year students have not been at university for some time when they leave as they have been away on rotations and this may be an issue.

Action: JK, JL, AT, DL to meet to discuss the issue of dissatisfaction further.

  • JL raised the issue of a joint social again and JK said it was important to include Derby in this.
  • JL asked if others have links with alumni and would they want them to be involved in a social. JK said this was a good idea and a good way to increase revenue. However, to catch the attention of alumni, it would be better coming from a specific group as opposed to the Faculty of Medicine as a whole.
  • JK also said that event approval forms need to be submitted for unusual events or for events where there will be over 100 people.
  • JK asked DL to ensure that the QMC notice boards were all up to date

Union Council

  • AT discussed the proposed changes to Union Council. They are proposing a motion that will change the structure of Union Council as people aren’t engaging enough at the moment. Many voting members do not turn up and too much time is spent discussing regulations. He had a presentation which he showed to the heads of Committee outlining the new structure and the reasons behind it. Asked them to go to Council in December to vote

Any Other Business

  • Jk asked AK how the first UNAD Committee meeting went on Monday.

Ak said the meeting went well, lots of ideas and enthusiasm, the committee will now meet once a term. MedSoc, UNAD & SUPA meet every 1-2 weeks. Once a term for UNAD meetings was felt to be very odd.AK will also hold meetings with various committee members in between the official UNAD meetings, extra committee meeting will be called if issues come up.

Date of Next Meeting

5th February 2012, 4pm-5.30pm