Student Representative Council (SRC)

1st Quarterly Report

Name: Heidi Davis and Aaron Masemola / Portfolio: Residences / Month: Jan-May 2017
Project: / Timeframe / Action/Activities / Outcome/Achieved Results / Recommendations/Implications
SRC Strategic Camp / Oct / Planning for the term of office. Looking at things that could be done to improve student life and transformation and planning initiatives around this to make sure there is an all-inclusive student experience at UP. / Many residences had more inclusive and transformative welcoming week programmes when compared to previous years. The monitoring and control around residences during welcoming week was very effective.
SRC Help Desk / Jan-Feb / Liaising with TuskResat Duxbury and on LC de Villiers via regular meetings, visits, phone calls and emails. Assisting students without accommodation. Taking in all residence queries via direct meetings, emails, messages and phone calls. Assisting students with placement by filling out residence forms which are then processed by Tuksres. Emailing feedback on these forms. Helping with the very specific issue of cancelled placement due to outstanding funds. / Many students managed to retain their placement following cancellation after efforts on the part of the SRC. Many students were placed during this period and are still being placed now. Assistance was given with placing students not on in University residences but into many leased buildings as well including The Square, Eastwoods, Flowers Edge, The Fields and Urban Nest. Those who couldn’t be helped after multiple efforts were referred to alternative options and assisted to the furthest possible extent. / More hardware needed at the Help desks such as printers, laptops, more forms as to not run out, more stationery. More important emphasis on the role that TuksRes plays at the beginning of the year during the crucial time of placement.
Welcoming Day / 27 Jan / The SRC was formally introduced to all new first year students at two welcoming day session held at Rembrant Hall. / Interaction with new first years and their expectations for university and the year ahead.
Placement / Continuous / Helping students with placement in residences, leased buildings and private accommodation in much the same way as it was being done during the time of the Help Desk. / Many students have receive placement or are in the process of receiving placement.
Residence sub-council Meetings / Sept-March / Weekly meetings with the Chairs and Prims of all residence and day houses. / Identification of problems or proposals with/by sub-council and taking them to the SRC meetings to get solved and looked at. Providing feedback from the SRC to the residence sub-council and vica-versa. / Increased communication between the residences sub-council and the SRC.
NWU Benchmark / 9 Feb / The NWU PUKKE SRC and their Primaria’s and Chairs of their respective residences as well as their Residences Executive committee visited UP for their annual benchmarking trip. We provided them with breakfast, a welcome and a Q&A session answering questions which the visiting SRC’s had. They were also given a campus tour of Hatfield campus which was followed by a lunch with the Residences Sub-Council. / A very successful benchmark which was praised by NWU. They have extended an invite for the SRC and Residence Sub-Council to benchmark in return. / A need for more members of the SRC to be present for important events such as this as they are here to Benchmark and more members of the SRC present will allow for a greater benchmark.
Accommodation Committee / Continuous / An accommodation committee has been elected in an official SRC meeting and their function is to go out and do research on all other alternative / Still in process / Look for and try and negotiate the cheapest options possible and majority for the students who struggle finding accommodation is either poor students or students on bursaries.
Constitutional Amendments / Feb - / The SRC is in the process of amending the CSG to ensure a more all-inclusive referendum that effectively serves all students. / Still in the process
Residence Placement Policy Review / Mar - / Discussions have been brought up about reviewing and amending the residence placement policy. The main proposed amendments are that distance and bursary funding must be taken into account to a much larger extent. / In the process / Get more residence students involved as they actually live through the experience of being in residence and could actually have valid contributions. Also find out how residence students will feel about the changes made as essentially they are the people who will have to live through the changes that have been implemented
Step it UP/
Step @ UP / 2 May- Ladies Prelims
3 May- Male Prelims
5 May- Finals. / This is the new event created by Stuku to replace what has previously been known as “Serrie”.
After several discussions with the key stakeholders including residences, all the residences accepted this new event and looked forward to taking part and contributing to its success. / This has proven to be a very successful event and Stuku has done well in terms of organising the event given all the challenging that they faced. / Several residences chose not to perform and were reluctant to participate because the Executive of the University took every long to approve the event.
Therefore, we would recommend and encourage executive to approve events sooner so that communication can be sent out sooner to residences and that we are given sufficient time to market events.
Food Drive / April – May / In partnership with the SRC we were able to get as many students as possible to donate food in support of the food drive. The plasm screens in residence foyers played a great role in marketing the food drive. / The Food drive “The return” has proven to be immensely successful. Many students will benefit from this initiative in times of need and more specifically as we approach the exam period.