FocSoc RA Election

On Wednesday 3rd December we held the FocSoc elections to vote for the new RA for 08/09. For what may be the first time in FocSoc's history we had contested elections for every positions, unlike most of the other halls, so go us! =) Turnout was just 23 people, although again this was one of the highest in FocSoc's history and was only bettered by a turnout of 26 in the by-elections at the beginning of the year. However, this does show the need for e-voting for FocSoc, when you consider the fact that at least 1,000 students live at home in their first year and 25% of the student population are home students. As getting e-voting was one of my manifesto pledges I did look into getting it sorted for both the Home Student Association and FocSoc elections but was told that it wasn't something that could be facilitated this year. I'm not giving up though, and I'll press futher to try and get it sorted for next year's elections.


Congratulations to the new FocSoc RA committee and thanks to the old RA for all their hard work over this past year to take FocSoc from strength to strength.

FocSoc 08/09:
President: Michaela Bowles
VP Entertainment: Charlotte Ward
VP Finance: Dave Hooper
VP Volunteering: Ellie Lowe
Welfare Officer: Sam Davies
Sports Officer: Tom McNamara
MCPR: Greg Beckett

November in the Guild

I’ve recently been contacted by the University’s Sustainability and Environmental Advisor about a travel survey that they’re doing to develop a sustainable travel plan for the University, and they’ve asked for my help in publicising it to home students. They want your views on how you get to uni and how things such as car parking and public transport links could be improved. If you’re interested in having an input, and being in with the chance of winning an i-pod then you can complete the survey here.

Also this month we’ve had the Home Students Association AGM and elections. Turn-out was pretty poor, both in terms of the number of people voting and the number of candidates. Congratulations though to Lisa (President), Jon (Treasurer) and Sukhneet (Secretary). If you’d like to be involved with the committee then we still have the following positions available: Campaigns Officer, Welfare Officer, Entertainments Officer and Publicity Officer. If you're interested in standing for any of these positions you can email the HSA: homestu@guild.bham.ac.uk.

Welcome Week '08

The last few weeks have been absolutely manic! I’ve been working so hard on making sure that everything has been ready for FocSoc’s Welcome Week that I’ve come close to being locked in the Guild a couple of times! So much has happened that I have absolutely no idea where to start. Everything seemed to be going OK up until the Tuesday before Welcome Week when I found out that not only did we not have a BBQ booked for Welcome Day on the Saturday but that all our Welcome Week info and sign up forms hadn’t been delivered to the mailing guys to send to the freshers – cue a panic attack from me! Thankfully though, with the help of the Guild’s marketing department we managed to get the stuff to the freshers the day before Welcome Day and had all the info put up on the swanky new website and the committee ordered lots and lots of pizza for the freshers. There have been so many events, including Welcome Day, sports day, buddy day, a quiz, stalls at the Community Fair and Freshers Fairs, as well as all the Freshers Fest events. The FocSoc committee have been absolutely amazing throughout Welcome Week, so I have to say thank you to you guys for all the hard work and effort that you’ve put in and congrats on the amazing events that you’ve held and the success of Welcome Week...you totally topped the last committee’s efforts! You’ve a new website, a new Facebook group, which is pushing 300 members – practically double the old group, a new hockey team, a netball team to be reckoned with, and the amazing taxi share idea complete with rave paint! It’s been stressful at times but I know that without each other there’s no way that we’d have had such a successful Welcome Week, so cheers guys! That’s enough of the sentimental stuff! Now that Welcome Week’s over I’m really looking forward to getting back to geoggers, campaigning for home students and seeing FocSoc netball top the league!

Computer Science Loves Home Students

The Wednesday after the A2B induction day, myself and Jo (FocSoc VP Welfare) went over to Computer Science to the Computer Science induction day for home students. This is something I’ve been working on over the summer, liaising with the Head of Student Development and Support for Computer Science. There were about 10 students there in total, some of whom we recognised from the A2B day, who got to hear my lovely presentation about FocSoc and Welcome Week, which I have to say I didn’t write myself, so thanks for that Lib! Then after a natter and some free tea and biscuits we took them over to the Guild for a tour of the building.

A2B Induction

On the 12th September I was invited to give a talk about FocSoc to the freshers who had applied to the Uni through the Access 2 Birmingham Scheme. The scheme itself is designed to encourage students from the West Midlands area who wouldn’t normally apply for higher education to continue their studies at university, whether there is no history of university education in their family or their school is in an area where the progression to higher education is low. Students are normally offered a lower A-Level or IB points offer in return for shadowing a current student in their chosen course, completing an online skills test and completing an essay with the aid of a university tutor. Being an A2B student myself I was more than happy to go along and talk about the opportunities that are available to home students and to show that living at home doesn’t mean that you’re going to miss out on the so-called ‘university experience’. Jen (President) and Sparky (VP Sport) also came along to give their presentations about the Guild and University of Birmingham Sport...although Sparky needs to brush up on his knowledge of intra-league fixtures! =) I also took a few members of the FocSoc committee along with me – Dave (VP Finance), Jo (Welfare Officer) and Charlotte (VP Entertainment) to help answer any questions that the students had and to hand out the all important FocSoc sign-up forms!

The highlight of the day though came with my first Officer Group Raid! Tom Marley came into all our offices to announce that there was loads of food left over from the A2B lunch and they said that we could have it. So, on the promise of chocolate cake (which I later found out that Marley had made up!) several of us took a trek over to the Arts building to grab some free grub and bring it back to the Guild, without being caught – something which we failed, and which resulted in Jen falling backwards out of the sliding doors whilst carrying a load of food.

Gearing up for Freshers' Flu ’08...

I’ve been really busy since my last blog helping both the Home Students Association and FocSoc plan their events for Welcome Week and the first term. The HSA have got some great events planned for you returning students that are living at home, including a Salsa evening, a Deal or No Deal night and a film night in the Guild. FocSoc have got all the usual Welcome Week events for those freshers who aren’t living in University accommodation, whether they’re living at home or in private accommodation in Selly Oak. They’re going on all the Freshers Fest club nights out (see http://www.freshersfest.com/ for the timetable and to buy tickets) as well as planning loads of their own events. There’s a Welcome Day on Saturday 20th complete with a BBQ, as well as a sports day, quiz and football and netball tryouts happening throughout the week. We’re still finalising all the details at the moment, but as soon as they’re sorted I’ll post them on here.

I’ve also had a meeting with some members of the University’s Student Advice and Support department discussing the plans for home students during Welcome Week. The Uni have booked the area outside the Avon Room for us to use on the Saturday and throughout the next week, so we’ll be working with them looking at ways we can use the space to promote FocSoc and address the issues that affect home students in their first few weeks at uni, such as ways of getting to uni.

The Uni have also included a section about home students in their Welcome Guide that gets sent to all new students:

Staying local
Are you local to the West Midlands?
Will you be living off-campus duringterm-time?
Each year up to a quarter of all first year students choose to live with their family, partner, friends or by themselves within theWest Midlands area. We realise that during the first few weeks this can mean local students do not always have the same opportunities to meet other new students. There will be a Staying Local welcome area in the Avon Room (R23). We would encourage you to use this area to meet new students with whom you can explore the campus and attend welcome events or even just to take a break and eat lunch. Staff from student support services will be available to answer any questions and offer advice on Saturday 20 September, and thereafter from Monday to Friday at key times throughout welcome week.

Within the Staying Local welcome area there will be a commuter lounge. This is an ideal opportunity to find out more about public transport links, keeping your bike secure, personal safety, car shares and much more. There will be information on display including the Guild of Students’ Freshers Off Campus Society (FOCSOC). Visit the Guild of Students website for more information and sign up for a buddy visit (www.guildofstudents.com).

During your first term there are ongoing opportunities for you to meet other students. Most Schools provide an induction programme where you will meet students on the same course. There are also numerous Guild societies that you can join to meet friends with similar interests.

This level of publicity is brilliant for FocSoc as it means that they’ll be able to reach so many more students. FocSoc always send out booklets detailing their Welcome Week events to the list of students living in the West Midlands that we receive from the Uni. However, there are always students that are missed out, often because they went through clearing. Having the Uni publicise FocSoc to every new student means that those whose details we don’t receive, and so don’t receive anything through the post from us, know we exist and can contact us if they want.

Apart from that, I’ve mainly been trying to focus on my dissertation. I know for most people this seems crazy, spending my summer doing it but the Geography ones have to be in in the first week of February, and with so many events planned for the first semester I figured that it’d be better getting as much done as I can now rather than leaving it and having a massive panic come Christmas! Being the holidays you’d have thought that the uni would be really quiet. While the Guild is pretty dead in terms of students, the library is pretty full. Give it a couple of weeks though, and I’m sure that’ll all change!

I’ve also been watching a fair bit of the Olympics whilst I’ve been at home. I’m a bit of a tennis fan, but I’ve found that I’ve not been watching it at all. Instead I’ve been captivated by the swimming and the great Michael Phelps. I remember watching him four years ago in Athens racing against Ian Thorpe. To achieve what he’s achieved is absolutely amazing – the most decorated Olympian of all time at the age of 23, especially when you consider that relay against France when everyone thought the USA were down and out, and his winning his seventh Gold by just 100-hundreth of a second. I was absolutely gutted that I missed the men’s 100 metre final though. For me it’s the highlight of the Olympics, and where was I? At work. I did see a replay of it later on though. I was absolutely blown away by Usain Bolt. The fact that he practically stopped 20m before the line and started celebrating – amazing! I can’t believe it’s over already but now it’s on to London 2012, which hopefully, will have as many amazing sporting moments as we’ve seen in the past two weeks, although it’s going to be pretty hard to top that opening ceremony!

My role as HSO...

In my manifesto I pledged to increase the participation and representation of home students in University and Guild activites. I want more home students to be aware of and become involved in things like Guild Council, societies and sporting activities. I also aim to have e-voting available for the Home Students Association and Freshers off Campus Society (FocSoc) elections, so you don't even have to get out of bed to vote =)