meeting 9 reports
DESCRIPTION
Reports submitted to the meeting of the Board of Management held on 13th February 2012TRANSCRIPT
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Queen Margaret UnionReports to the Board of ManagementMeeting 9 – Monday 13th February 2012
General Manager Submitted President SubmittedHonorary Secretary SubmittedHonorary Assistant Secretary SubmittedCampaigns & Charities SubmittedEvents SubmittedOrdinary Board SubmittedPublications SubmittedSocial Submitted
1. General Manager’s Report to the Executive Committee
1.1 Graduate RecruitmentI have been working closely with the Graduate Recruitment Office over the last couple of weeks and we have had some success in bringing both KPMG and Ernst & Young to the QMU. Both firms were delighted with their experience and the response they received from customers. This is a good income stream for the QMU and puts us on the radar of the University for providing facilities for students.
1.2 Promoting Best bar NoneWe should be included in an article by The Dram magazine on Best Bar None. We have supplied photographs of Champions Bar and have focused on the range of malt whisky available in the union
1.3 Whisky Club The society has teamed up with a group from Napier University for this Saturday’s tasting and the Napier group are bringing 30 people to the event. I will have a better idea of how successful this event was before the Board meeting and can report the details. It is expected to be one of the busiest events with approximately 80 people expected.
1.4 Finance CommitteeI reported a poor level of sales and a disappointing attendance level at Cheesy Pop to last week’s meeting. After a very positive start for Cheesy the attendance numbers are down 15.4%The Burns Supper & Ceilidh was reported as a financial success in that the event made a small surplus and bar revenue was up on last year.The committee approved the proposal for a band/club event for St Patrick’s Day but the big event that week will still hopefully be a St Paddy’s Cheesy Pop. We have applied for a late licence until 3am for that event.The Jailbreak event was approved although I will be trying to secure sponsorship for the T-shirts from Coca-Cola. The need for a new A3 colour printer has been recognised and a proposal has been made although approval has not been granted as a few minor issues need to be clarified.
1.5 Strategic PlanI have attended both meetings of the group over the last two weeks and believe we are beginning to see some real progress on this issue. The need for feedback from the students is very clear and I have high hopes for the current survey among both members and non-member. The on-line response to the survey has been given a significant boost following our President’s intervention. I am hoping to arrange for the presentation of the results to take place on Friday 24 th February, prior to the Board meeting, but need confirmation from David Brooks that this is possible.
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2. President
2.1 Strat PlanThe past few strat plan meetings have gone well. We have started discussing the three main sections (Social Space & Events, Individuals & Community – in case you forget!)If ord board specifically have any ideas to raise specifically then please speak to Alice or Laura-Anne.
2.2 Gender Neutral ToiletsI’m pleased with the overall response from members on gender neutral toilets. There still seems to be some uncertainty amongst some members as to why the decision was made and why it is a positive move, so I ask all board members to keep discussing the topic with our membership. If anyone needs help with responding to some difficult questions on the topic, SRC Amy Johnson has passed on some useful info so come and see me.
2.3 Love Equally MarchWe have 12 spaces reserved on the bus for those who responded on facebook or asked me in person. Can you please give me your £3 before the board meeting which I will pass on to the SRC. Can we all meet in the union at 11.45am.
2.4 FinanceColum sent out the finance minutes well in advance so I hope you can all see how serious our situation is and we can discuss this more when we pass the minutes. Our shop is a serious concern and I would like to ask ord board to focus their attention on this at the moment.
2.5 Event AttendanceI was really pleased with the turn out for Battle of The Bands this week, keep up the good PR. Cheesy Pop is still a worry. We have one club night to focus on and it NEEDS to be a success. I thought the events committee did a great job today with Marty outside, and I hope we keep coming up with innovative ideas for PR and the night itself. If we really push it then I hope we can start building the numbers up again.
2.6 ElectionAs you all are aware the election is coming up. Alice will go through more with you how we expect board members to behave at this time. Things can get a bit tense, so please remember that while the election is running along in the background you are first and foremost a member of THIS board of management, so continue to work together. I do not foresee any issues, but if you are supporting a candidate in any position then keep it civil. Liam and I also need help with publicising the election and administrative odds and ends, everyone’s help would be much appreciated and we will use facebook to find volunteers nearer the time.Remember, it’s the job of every board member to encourage any member to run in these elections, no matter if they haven’t been to a committee before, for example. So go find all the people to run and vote. Go, go, go!
3. Honorary Secretary
3.1 Clubs and Societies.There have been a number of events recently in Jim’s bar, Which seem to have gone well and it is pleasing to see societies make use of more than just our third floor. A request was also submitted by the African-Caribbean society to the President to watch the African Cup of Nations in Champions bar and I was pleased we were able to, mostly, accommodate this request. I feel this is a very positive move towards integrating clubs and socs into the day to day fabric of the union.I will, by the time of the meeting, have emailed all affiliated clubs and socs regarding the online survey currently in action, and also by the time of the meeting I will have provided all those who requested contact details with them in full.
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I also plan to contact clubs and socs regarding the election, but will wait until nearer the time. By the next meeting I also aim to, at the very least, arrange a date for the clubs and socs consultative meeting which will hopefully feed into strat plan.
3.2 Life Membership.There has been much productive discussion about life membership in recent weeks, and I intend to provide a summary of what has been discussed in these various forums to the board soon. In order to keep the momentum going I intend to have another meeting on Life Membership before the next board meeting.I also plan to input as much data as possible on current life members into the current data base in advance of the election in order to make it easier for any interested members to vote on the day. This will be a laborious task so all assistance appreciated, any volunteers please contact me after the meeting.
3.3 DisciplineNothing serious to report here, however I would once again ask duty board to remain clear, detailed and formal when submitting both duty and incident reports and stick to the clear basic facts. This makes dealing with any issues considerably easier for me. Thank you.
3.4 ElectionIt can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that this is on the horizon. Myself and the President have had some preliminary discussion regarding the publicity and administration of the election, more details will be available after it has been formally called.
3.5 Super Bowl.I was involved in this in a minor way, specifically the sweep-stake, which seemed a popular edition to the evening despite the fact no one won. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who pushed the event and attended, it was a very pleasing success.
4. Honorary Assistant Secretary
4. Honorary Assistant Secretary
4.1 TrainingI have promoted three level 1s – L. Hinton, J. Ansell and P. Kelly, and the Executive are half-way through training them on duty. There are several other clear candidates, but the level 2s are already well outnumbered, and are doing more duties. If you think you have been overlooked, I can only apologise – the decision was a purely logistical one.
4.2 ConductHate to sound like a broken record here, but stop getting outrageously drunk. It would be bad form to name names here, but if you don't know who you are, ask around. Although thank you for listening re: the hoodies.
4.3 CBPWell, this is self-explanatory. This should be sitting in front of you – let's talk about manifestos and the Ordinary Board. Also, it's time to start planning for the AGM – I've already drafted the rolling membership clause, but I propose we hold a meeting following the election with old and new exec to completely re-work the job descriptions. They are a joke. Additionally, I'll be updating the online version – and printing an entirely up-to-date paper version – as soon as the results of this meeting are clear.
4.4 Online VotingNot wanting to sound like I'm tooting me own trumpet, but this has been drafted, tested, and [hopefully] passed today. I think it's great. Dr Stewart does too.
4.5 Elections
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I'd like to repeat my recommendation from after the previous election and recommend to the organisers that a Board Member be present, wherever possible, in the polling booth. It'd be good to see us running this election what makes us, eh, us.
4.6 ReportsI have four months left doing this, and probably at least six Board Meetings. For at least one of these, I'd like all of the reports to be on time. It'd make my day. I sent out the previous minutes mid-Sunday, so I could be sure you'd get them. At time of writing, I'm still three reports to go. Please let's not make these something nobody reads until we get to the Board Meeting.
4.7 EBMOn a lighter note, I'll be producing the minutes of last week's meeting to be passed at this one. Sorry they didn't get out at the weekend.
5. Campaigns and Charities
5.1 Sederunt30/01/12: 8 Board Members (E. Munro, R. Callaghan, E. Zhdanov, T. Kelly, J. Ansell, E. Murphy, S. McFarland, P. Hughes) and 12 Ordinary Members.06/02/12: 8 Board Members (E. Munro, R. Callaghan, E. Murphy, E. Evans, C. Fraser, J. Reid, T. Kelly,) and 9 Ordinary Members.
We're definitely experiencing a drop-off in committee attendance. I'd like to say that this is because of greater course commitments in second semester, but given the popularity of other committees currently, I'm not sure this is true. I'll look into it.
We have changed our subcommittee meetings to Wednesdays at 4pm for fundraising, 5pm for Condoms, all in Committee Room 4. Do feel free to come along, particularly if you fancy doing a challenge for RAG Week.
5.2 Fundraising
5.2.1 Unity in the CommunityI had a meeting with Unity on Tuesday 7th March to discuss their input as charity of the semester. They are keen to be involved, and will provide collection tins, and, hopefully, t-shirts. They, like WestGAP, have expressed interest in using us to host a benefit gig. I'll discuss this more with them when they have some solid details.
5.2.2 Fundraising at Free CondomsWe've finally achieved synthesis between our two main activities. We're going to run a 'how many condoms in the jar' competition for the rest of the year, for a sexual health charity to be chosen by the committee. Current frontrunners are THT Scotland and Marie Stopes International. This will be confirmed at the committee meeting before the board meeting.
5.2.3 RAG WeekPlans are coming along. The week will kick off with Jailbreak, organised by R. Callaghan. Other ideas need to be confirmed with the Executive, Social and Events Conveners and Events Manager, but include a 12-hour busk, in conjunction with Unplugged, a games buy-in, in conjunction with GUGS, a knit-a-thon/quilt-making session, promotion of blood donation services elsewhere in Glasgow and assorted dress-ups. I encourage everyone on the board to commit to undertaking a personal challenge to raise money. It's a great opportunity to raise a lot for a number of good causes, and everyone should get involved. T. Kelly has already designed a draft poster – my thanks to him.
6. Events
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6.1 Sederunt 31/1/12Sedurent: L.Hinton, L.Clarke ...
31/01/12L. Clarke, L. Hinton, A. Johnston, M. Richardson, A. Duerden, L. Sparks, K. Allcott, R. Brown, K. Irvine, C. Long, S. McFarland, N. Fisher, G. Stewart, R. Callaghan, C. Sutcliffe, P. Hughes, P. Kelly, J. Nelson, B. Dawson, A. Cairney, S. Patterson, R. Coyne, J. Lui and N. Ballantyne.7/2/12Sedurent: L.Hinton, J.Lui, S.Patterson, E.Munro, C.Fraser, M.Jackson, C.Sutcliffe, N.Fisher, R.Brown, K.Irivine, J.Nelson, C.Long, T.Kelly, B.Dawson, A.Cairney, S.McFarland, A.Stearn, G.Stewart, A.Johnston
Firstly, can I apologise for the amount of times I have written “I will confirm this verbally during the Board Meeting”. I have been ill all week and I am a bit behind in what I needed to do. Also, a few of the things I have mentioned took place on Friday 10th February (post-report writing) but I would like to inform you of any feedback regarding these as soon as possible, hence, during the Board Meeting. Thank you.
6.2 PR ROTAThe Events Committee now follows a monthly PR rota where Committee Members can sign up for shifts on the facebook page based on their particular commitments for that month. I believe this is working well and Committee Members are generally sticking to it! In future I will perhaps print out a copy of this timetable to distribute to the Committee as there have been two occasions now where people have signed up for a shift and two weeks down the line have completely forgotten about it. The rota clearly states what needs PRing and where so hopefully we are getting a more even distribution of PR and people aren’t just heading straight over to the library every time.
6.3 BATTLE OF THE BANDS 9/2/12Unfortunately I could not attend the second heat of ‘Versus: A Battle of the Bands’ due to illness but I have received positive feedback from Board Members and Committee Members. There were more than enough volunteers (thank you everyone) and they all seemed happy to help out and get involved. I will confirm exact attendance numbers with you verbally during the Board Meeting but as far as I am aware, it was roughly double the amount of people that attended Heat 1 – this is good
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7. Ordinary Board[grid attached]
8. Publications
8.1 Sederunts01/02/12: 9 Board Members (C. Fraser, N. Ballantyne, T. Kelly, E. Zhdanov, P. Hughes, A. Stearn, R. Callaghan, E. Munro, G.
Stewart) and 22 Ordinary Members 08/02/12: 9 Board Members (N. Ballantyne, E. Zhdanov, S. McFarland, E. Munro, E. Murphy, L. Porterfield, R.
Callaghan. J. Reid, T. Kelly) and 19 Ordinary MembersAttendance is obviously up a lot which is great but I plan on staying on top of things to ensure it doesn't slip
drastically around deadline/exam season, which is always a danger.
8.2 Issue 948.2.1 DistributionBy the time of this meeting I hope to have begun distributing to the usual places plus some of the slightly more far afield locations we used last issue. This includes department student common rooms, Fraser building tables, Rainbow Rooms, department buildings and will hopefully include a few more cafés/bars near campus.
8.2.3 ContentI feel content is strong for this issue but as always would appreciate feedback from the board. Two articles from Clubs & Socs, one on Mardi Gras and one on the Glasgow Miracle, name-checking the QM. Definitely plenty of QM content, but need to make sure it's readable too! Kenny (karaoke) is making up a readers' questionnaire to try and glean feedback from ordinary readers as well as committee and board members. The idea would be to slip them into a few copies, with the promise of a pint (or something equally cheap. The editors have all pledged to chip in 28p.) for one lucky respondent.
8.3 Online contentTom has really been working hard on this and deserves some recognition. Due to academic commitments, I've been unable to be as hands-on in this the past few weeks as I would have liked and Tom has really stepped up to the plate by chairing the online subcommittee and spearheading most of the online concept. We met with the exec on Friday to discuss what had been achieved/we hoped to achieve so far. If requested, I am very happy to give a more in depth verbal report on this but didn't want to clog up the report pages any more!
8.4 AdvertisingWaiting on responses from Glasgow International but have been lucky enough to get some advertising from Securigroup with the help of Mr. McConnachie. I believe we are still looking into ways to contact businesses who run graduate schemes for this issue, and for any issues that may be published next term.
8.5 Issue 958.5.1 DistributionHopefully we will be able to build on the distribution of Issue 94. Also, I am hopeful that entering businesses to talk to people in person may prove useful in building contacts for advertising as well.
8.5.2 ContentPossible features for this issue so far include an 'expose' of Nightline, more clubs & societies involvement as will hopefully be able to contact all affiliated by then, an interview with Glasgow University volunteers at Unity, the QM's new charity of the semester, an article discussing fairtrade cigarettes (tying in with fairtrade forntnight at the QM', interview with former board member and something on RAG week personal challenges.
8.6 Goals for next BM Exclusive online content published
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Film and sound training for video and audio interviews/live sessions organised Implement reader feedback questionnaire
Have the advertising and events subcommittees have a formalised meeting
[grid attached
9. Social
9.1 Sederunt02/02/1213 board members (P.Hughes, E.Murphy, R.Calghan, L.Porterfield, J.Reid, S.Mcfarland, L.Clarke, J.Ansell, G.Stewart, E.Zhdanov, P.Kelly, A.Stearn, L.Hainey) and 15 ordinary members09/02/1210 board members (P.Hughes, E.Murphy, L.Porterfield, S.Mcfarland, J.Reid, L.Clarke, E.Zhdanov, L.Hinton, P.Kelly, A.Stearn) and 12 ordinary members.
9.2 Unplugged31/01An entertaining Unplugged with 50 people in the bar throughout and a good number of sign ups. The Unplugged hosts have also been hosting Battle of the Bands which will hopefully link the two events under the Qm live music banner. I think we need to start looking at having a give away or a gimmick for Unplugged towards the end of term to make sure the numbers do not drop.06/02A quieter Unplugged this week with only around 45 people in the bar. I will be bringing up ideas in the next few social committees of how we can attract more people to this event which I feel runs pretty well. Next week the hosts have planned some valentines and anti valentines songs to PR the Battle Royal event and to maybe spice things up a bit.
9.3 DJ’s In Jim’sIt was suggested in the committee that we theme some DJ nights ie have a rock night / soul / ska etc. This would essentially just mean that the DJ would play that type of music and created a more cohesive musical feel within the bar. We will talk about this some more in the coming weeks. This
9.4 BWNPQ01/02/12This was the first week with just J.Ansell hosting the quiz and he did a fantastic job. The host took more responsibility with rounds and the whole quiz ran very well. There were 66 people in attendance and everyone seemed to have a good time. From next week onwards there will be people hosting the event with James. These people will be essentially auditioning for the role of permanent quiz host. As long as people keep applying then this format will work . We have also tired to tweek the format of the quiz designating rollover games to a member of the committee and increasing the number of questions per round from 5 – 8. This seems to have worked well.08/02/12This week the attendance was 77 people which I was really impressed with. I was ill for this event so committee members over saw the quiz. We also had two people trying out as hosts which gave the event a bit of variation. The risk of this is that if someone is not very good at hosting the quiz can suffer, this is why it is important that J. Ansell was there to make sure everything ran smoothly. There were also some minor technical difficulties which meant the quiz started around 15 minutes late, this is something we need to make sure does not happen as the quiz needs to start on time every week. Next week there will hopefully be a few more people hosting the event which is good because it means that they bring their friends and the competition continues to run smoothly.
9.5 Pop Culture and a Piano02/02/12The quiz ran well this week with around 65 people in attendance. PCP is still doing very well and I am happy with how it has run this term
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09/02/12This week the numbers were a little disappointing with only around 42 people taking part in the quiz. It is important that we keep pushing with this event and make sure that it is not neglected. We will be taking about new ways to PR this event at the next social committee.
9.6 GoalsContinue search for hosts and increase attendanceGet soc com members to bring a friend to socialArrange a card event in Jim's with GUGSLook at PR strategies for PCP and Unplugged
[grid attached