NUS Conference

SU officers Vamuyan Sileaf, Ian Bond, Tracey Chirwa and Naomi Rushworth joined over 1000 delegates from FE & HE Student Unions around the UK at the National Union of Students annual conference. This year the conference was held in Liverpool, 8^th – 10^th April. The conference consisted of three days of debate, discussion, fringe meetings and elections.

Conference was a great experience as we had the opportunity to meet with officers from other unions and take an active part in setting the NUS policy for the coming year.

Student Union By-election - The Results Are In!

The Student Union By-elections at our university campus - UCO - ran between 4^th November – 15^th November. Naomi Rushworth has been successfully elected at the Student Union Chief Executive Officer at UCO. Naomi is a first year Business Management student and she is very keen to start her role and improve the student experience for students at UCO.

The Oldham College by-elections are concluded on Friday 22^nd November. We are happy to welcome three new members to the SU exec; well done Dale, Tracey & Muhammad, you worked really hard on your election campaigns.

All set for 2013 / 14

We've had a lovely summer break and are now excited for start of the new academic year. We will hit the ground running with our Fresher's Events taking place in the Green Room on Tuesday 10th Sept & Thursday 12th Sept, 10am - 2.30pm and at University Campus Oldham, Monday 23rd Sept & Thursday 26th Sept. Come over and take a look at our stand - we have free goody bags to give away :-)

We also have our new NUS cards in stock. The cost is still a bargain £12. Buy yours from the Green Room & start saving today.

 

We also recently an article published in the Knowledge newspaper, check out the details here: pic.twitter.com/r6Rx6QVrdu

See you in September :-)

London Visit 2013

On Monday 24^th & Tuesday 25^th June eighteen Student Union & Student Rep members visited London. The aim of the visit was to broaden our knowledge of wider democracy and learn how it links in with our roles.

On the Monday we visited & had a tour of the Tower of London and were lucky enough to see the crown jewels & get a photograph with a real life Beefeater :-)

 

 

 

 On Tuesday we had a tour of the Houses of Parliament followed by a meeting with one of our local MPs, Michael Meacher and Debbie Abrahams’ representative. We took the opportunity to speak to them about concerns the SU have of the impact the introduction of fees for learners aged 24+ studying level 3 or above - and the associated loans - may have. We researched findings from the NUS’ ‘Pound in Your Pocket’ assessment and presented these to them.

 

We  hope to follow this up in the new academic year once the impact the fees have had on enrolment has been revealed.

Elections, Meet the new Executive Committee

After two weeks of campaigning hard, including a little bit of help from one of our students of the future (baby Alex),  the candidates eagerly anticipated the results of the Student Union Election to decide the Executive Committee 2013/14.

After a turnout that eclipsed the number of votes received at last year's election the votes  were counted and verified & we were please to announce the results w/c 3rd June. Meet your new SU Executive Committee below. All new members will officially take up their new positions on 1st July '13. Well done to all, you worked so, so hard & every vote counted.

We are looking forward to taking up our new positions, 2013/14 is going to be a great year!

NUS Conference 2013

It was an early start on Monday as Steve & Sileaf boarded the train to Sheffield heading for the NUS Conference 2013. As first time delegates we were a little unsure what to expect, but were looking forward to joining over 1000 delegates from FE & HE Student Unions for three days of debate, discussion, fringe meetings and elections.

 

The conference got off to a great start with opening speeches from the NUS President & local MP before quickly moving on to the debates. This is the part we really enjoyed getting involved in; passing policy motions on the future of education, welfare, student debt to name a few made us appreciate the value of our opinions, especially when some motions passed / fell with only a few votes in between. We also had a chance to attend fringe events on topics including student engagement and overviews of the Pound in your Pocket & No Free Lunch campaigns.

 On the second day it was time to vote for the new NUS President and Vice Presidents for areas such as HE, FE, welfare & citizenship. The candidates worked hard for our votes and have given us lots of inspiration for our upcoming elections – neon capes could well be on the way! After reading the manifestos and hearing their speeches, we made our mark on the ballot papers. Special congratulations to Toni Pearce who was voted as the new NUS President and Joe Vinson as the VP for Further Education. We look forward to contacting them & collaborating on future campaigns.
 

One of the great advantages of attending conference was the opportunity to meet delegates from other colleges & universities, make new friends and discuss campaigns they have worked on. A big thank you to the ladies from Grimsby College who gave us lots of helpful info on a campaign they’ve worked on at their college. We plan to do something similar at our college, so watch this space!

We also had a chance to take a look at the facilities at Sheffield Hallam Student Union -we were very impressed with their table tennis tables! Whilst there we managed to get a quick photo with the Toni Pearce, this one is defiantly going up on our SU photo wall.

Steve & Sileaf with new NUS President Toni Pearce

 

How about these for the Green Room?

The final day brought voting for the block of 15 before it was time to head back to Oldham. Conference was a great experience and we cannot wait to put some of the campaign ideas into practice, exciting times ahead!

History / Democracy / Filming / The Oscars

Yesterday we embarked on a whirlwind of activity; our first mission was to battle through the snow storms (in spring, seriously!) to make our way to the tram station. Once our group of Student Union and Student Reps had boarded the tram we started to wonder what the day may bring; we knew we were on our way to the People's History Museum in Manchester for a tour of democracy through the ages; but the afternoon 'secret mission' was yet to be revealed.

We arrived at the museum and started our tour, it was a fantastic experience, we did not realise how instrumental unions were in making many important changes happen for society. We also made full use of their fantastic range of props, the old style Co-Op is our new favourite shop!

 

After the tour it was time for our 'secret mission' and we were tasked with producing two 2 minute videos - one to promote the SU & Student Rep roles and the other to highlight the importance of taking part in surveys. It was a mad 50 minutes of filming to a tight deadline, and we ran riot using the museum as our backdrop. It was lots of fun and we managed to get it 'in the can' before lunch.

We were treated to a special premier of the finished films when we arrived back at College with 'Oscar' awards for best actor, best actress, most enthusiastic male & most enthusiastic female.

 

p.s. we have to give a special mention to Fathahul, for his bag carrying contribution on the day :-)

 

A busy week for the SU

Most weeks are busy for us here at the SU, and last week was particularly hectic. Here is a rundown of what we've been up to:


Monday

Steve attended the NUS regional network meeting which was held at Blackpool& Flyde College. It was a really interesting day and we discussed many topics including student feedback mechanisms, student engagement, learner voice& quality improvement as well as getting an update on NUS national campaigns.

Tuesday

Today was student rep forum day; time flies, cannot believe we are up to our 4th forum of the year already. As usual it was a lively meeting, we discussed many cross-college topics and were treated to a preview of the plans for the college new build - it all looks very exciting!

 
Wednesday

Steve joined in with the 5-a-side football activity organised by Ray, our College's sports coordinator. It was a fun session, but exhausting, Steve reported that he was aching all over after the game. We think he needs to get more practice :-)

 Thursday

Steve was busy today working with our learners at Stoneleigh Academy. IPad Club is defiantly taking shape now, the group are using Garage Band to produce their own song; we cannot wait to hear the finished article.

 Friday

Today students from the College’s Media department staged their own Harlem Shake in the Green Room. Students from around the College took part & it was 10 minutes of madness, but all in a good cause as we raised £130 for the College charity – well done everyone.

Take a look at the video here:

Oldham College Harlem Shake - Official

National Student Interfaith Forum

On Monday Steve, Sileaf and Fathahul attended the National Student Interfaith Forum which was organised by NUS and took place at Manchester Met University Student Union's building. We were one of only two FE colleges to attend the event & had the opportunity to chat with other delegates from universities during our workshops.

 

The three workshops we attended covered the differences between faith, religion, multi faith and inter faith and how to facilitate interfaith student discussions. We all came away from the training enlightened and happy to have met some fantastic people on the day.

Stoneleigh Acadamy Visit

On the 16th January, members of the Student Union visited Stoneleigh Acadamy to meet the Student Inspectors and get some tips and ideas off them. It was an amazing visit and the Students really blew us away! We definitely did not expect the students to be so professional especially as they are 8 and 9 years old!

They shared with us all these cool ways in which they work with their fellow students and ways in which they work together to help each other learn. We took a lot of their tactics off them and we can't wait to try it ourselves! We were given a tour of Stoneleigh and got to meet all the members of staff, including Catharine Jones, and parent volunteers. We were truly blew away by Stoneleigh Acadamy!

Student Rep Forum.

Had a really good Student Rep Forum today! Students discussed different College issues and shared their idea's of improvements we can make. One of the main topics was 'Student Finance' which produced lots of healthy debate. Lots of actions came from the meeting which the Student Unions and the college will be working on over the coming weeks.

Some of our Student Representatives

Student Discussing College issues

The results are in...

After weeks of campaigning, and hard work by all candidates, the results are in; Fathahul Ansari, Vamuyan Sileaf, Ian Bond, Farasat Bhatti & Ribia Nisa have been elected as Student Union Executive Officers joining Stephen Sutherland, Gaynor Thorpe and Arslan Sabir to form the Oldham College SU.

 All members are looking forward to getting stuck into campaigns for the year ahead, well done guys  :-)

FEstival 2012

On Friday 28th September the Student Union attended the NUS FEstival training event. We really enjoyed taking part in the event as it gave us the opportunity to get an overview of the NUS campaigns for this year, as well as attending a number of workshops throughout the day that have given us loads of great ideas that we cannot wait to put into action - watch this space!

One of the best parts  meet with other Student Union officers from around the country and find out how SU roles work in their colleges.

Fun at the Fayre

We held a Fresher’s Fayre in the Green Room over two days (Tuesday 11^th September & Thursday 13^th September). The fayre introduced new and returning students to a range of activities they can get involved in. Internal and external representatives were invited to promote their services to students, these included:

·         Oldham College Enrichment Sports Coaches
·         Oldham College Enrichment Activities
·         Oldham College Learning Mentors
·         Oldham College Student Ambassadors
·         Mahdlo
·         ‘All That’ Magazine
·         Oldham Community Leisure
·         Voluntary Action Oldham
·         NHS Sexual Health Team
·         Brook Oldham
·         Oldham Coliseum

 

Freestyle football skills were amazing!

The Student Union also had a stand and we promoted the work of the SU, NUS card sales and encouraged students to take SU candidate packs for the October Student Union by-election.  Visitors to the stand were given a ‘goody bag’ which contained further information & ‘freebies’. The fayre was really good fun and we spoke to lots of students during the two days.

Wiff Waff

Been enjoying our new table tennis table in the Green Room.

 

Why not come in and have a game whilst you're on your break?

Freshers Fayre Preparations

Have been busy preparing for next weeks Freshers Fayre which takes place next Tuesday 11th September and Thursday 13th September, 10am - 3pm. Check out this picture of the free goody bags. Visit us next week to pick up yours and see whats inside!

The fayre will take place in the Green Room with visiting reps from lots of agencies such as Mahdlo, high street banks, sports coaches, football freestyling and 'All That' magazine - Hope to see you there!

Student Union 12/13 planning day has gone really well! Discussed our plans and key targets for the new academic year, and what we want to achieve as a Union. Can't wait for our next meeting on the 28th August!

London's Calling

Look, you made tonights newspaper -

Thursday 12th July 2012

Oldham College Student Representatives and Student Union visited 'the corridors of power' whilst on a two day trip to London. The trip focused on the tour of parliament and a meeting with our local MP's Debbie Abrahams and Micheal Meacher. Students and staff found the tour very interesting and enjoyed the question time with the MP's.

Whilst in London the students also visited City Hall, the gates of Buckingham Palace and theatre show Wicked at the Apollo Victoria.

We enjoyed our trip to the capital, visited places that we wouldn't have thought to visit and took in a theatre show - where the performance / set and effects wowed us all. A brilliant but tiring trip!

(You can see who fell asleep on the train home on our twitter link and previous blog!)

Boris Johnson "Wiff Waff" Speech

Join our campaign for table tennis in the Green Room and Enrichment!

Boris is behind us!

Lets bring 'Waff Waff' home!

Check it out.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsFRgIb8mAQ

Our SU President Mo passes on the baton to our new President Stephen for 12/13 @ Westminster Hall. Thanks Mo for all your hard work!