A "Typical" Monday

A friend asked me the other day what a typical day with me would involve. I replied, predictably, that there was no "typical" day, but thought to give you an idea of what I do that for each day this week I'd write a blog on my full itinerary. Here is Monday.

I came in at ten to nine to find Sabb Catch-Up had been moved to ten, so I went to my office, caught up on some emails and read the day's Education News on th BBC. I then realised I was block-booked through to three, so went to Spar to buy lunch in advance. Sabb Catch-Up was nice; it's an hour a week we set aside to talk to each other about what we've been up to, what's coming up and just generally get together, as we rarely have a chance to do so in the week.

At eleven I met with Yogi, our outgoing rep on the Graduate School Management Board, to have a de-brief on his year and adress any thoughts he had about the year. This was most interesting and gave me a lot of issues to follow up with regards to Postgraduate education at Birmingham and also within the Guild with respects to how we gather Postgraduate issues.

At eleven forty five I ate a banana.

At twelve I met with two staff who work on the Student Rep system to brief on the upcoming Student Rep Strategy Advisorary Board on Wednesday, and at one I met with two more staff members to discuss said strategy. In between these meetings I grabbed lunch.

At two I left for Muirhead Tower to discuss some problems some students have been having with their courses. They were kind enough to give me a much appreciated cup of tea.

At three I met with Fabian and other Guild staff to discuss the upcoming Town Takeover event, to be held in December. I then took a break, during which time I consumed one coffee and half a bar of Dairy Milk and discussed some Guild matters with Tom Guise.

At four thirty I met with Fabian and the Chief Executive of the Guild to brief for tomorrow's Council Away Day. I then spent ten minutes resolving a health and safety matter.

And now it's six pm, and I'm going to read some papers for a meeting on Thursday and then go home at half past. Stay tuned for more typical days in the life of a sabb!

Perks

Surely none of you can have missed the Vice Chancellor of Buckinghamshire University calling female students a "Perk of the job" and saying that we use our curves to exploit male lecturers.

I bet the millions of women who will go to lectures this week with male lecurers feel really comfortable and secure right now. And I that for a large proportion of them a lot of the behaviour and attitudes they have experienced in their time at Univeristy suddenly make a lot of sense.

Senate Briefing

Right now I'm reading the papers for Senate, the most senior University Academic board on which five students, plus myself, sit, aong with about thirty five academics from across the colleges and a number of others. All academic policy will pass through here, and it sits underneath the afore-blogged-about Council.

All Student Reps are invited to apply to be senators, so if you're interested for next year, pleae stand to be a Student Rep this year...

Building up the Book Exchange

Hey Folks,

The much maladied Book Exchange has been relaunched and is now totally, 100%, really truely problem proofed.

The Guild Marketing Department have been working hard and have sorted out all the problems you have told us about, from the one week expiry time to the login issues. Ex students can now list books with ease and your book will stay up for one year if you want it to.

Welcome Week is just around the corner so this is the time to get your books up and ready for all the new students to buy!

I also want to know if you have any ideas for the future. I'm already looking at having a section for selling non-book related objects, what do people think of a spare room listing?

Brigid Jones's Diary is International Blockbuster

A special hello to my twelve readers in a small town in Brazil who Google Analytics tell me are avid followers of this blog. I don't know who you are or why you read my blog but it's nice that you do :)

Scouting out Council

In the last week I've had extensive training for sitting on University Council, the governing body of the Univeristy. Me and Fabian were sent away to London for a day for a seminar for student governors, which gave us a good overview of the role, and the next day we had a Birmingham specific induction.

Two student sabbatical officers sit on University Council, along with a number of academics and a larger number of external lay members. The board is ultimately responsible for the University of Birmingham, and has oversight on the accounts, appointments, estates, academic strategy, recruitment and research. While most issues are discussed and developed in greater depth in the committees that sit below Council, the ultimate decision on whether to pass their reccommendations is made there.

It's going to be a very interesting year to be on Council!

Help me help you get better Feedback!

What have I done since my last blog?

I've had a "quiet" few days in the office. My time has been spent mostly planning; setting up meetings, chasing up people and planning the "next step" in each of my projects.

Here I will make a call for student input into one of my campaigns!

What is the feedback like in your department? Is it particuarly good, is it bad, does it exist at all; does your dept. have a standard way of doing it or is it left up to individual lecturers?

Any info please to b.jones@guild.bham.ac.uk will be treated confidentially; if you want to send me an example of a feedback sheet you got back I will anonymise it before using it. This information is helping me to map out areas of excellence, mediocrity and absence when it comes to feedback and will help me work to improve the service you get from the Uni!

Well, that's all for now; I'm off to a meeting of the MedSchool's Curriculum and Welfare Committee...

10:10, TT and LSE

On Tuesday I helped a student with a complaint interview, and then caught a train to London for the 10:10 launch. 10:10 is a drive to cut carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010, and together with Fabian and Tom I was there to see it launched. So far I have annoyed my housemates by unplugging pretty much everything in the lounge before going to bed (there is no off button on most of the appliances, they seem to only do standby or on!) and taken to turning off my Blackberry over night, so I don't have to charge it so often. I will be also keeping up my record of never owning a car (my lack of driving licence being irrelevant to the importance of this sacrifice of mine). What will you be doing?

Having spent the night in the basic and cheap LSE halls, which were deeply reminiscent of but far more pleasent than my days in Chamberlain (more halls like this please Brum) I attended a planning and training day for the NUS's planned Town Takeover days of action on tuition fees. More information will be coming soon, but if anyone would like the info up front to get involved in planning or delivering, my address is b.jones@guild.bham.ac.uk.

Being rather too tired to watch the West Wing episode I was looking forward to I will now retire to bed.