QMU AGM 2015 Contents 1. Report of the President (submitted by Lauren Hinton) pg2 2. Report of the Honorary Secretary (submitted by Yasmynn Lloyd) pg16 3. Report of the Honorary Assistant Secretary (submitted by Jack Smith) pg22 4. Report of the Campaigns and Charities Convenor (submitted by Emma Anderson) pg28 5. Report of the Convenor of Current Student Representatives 5.1 (submitted by Claire Dobson) pg35 5.2 (submitted by Celia Varela Sixto) pg37 5.3 (submitted by Priya Khindria) pg39 6. Report of the Events Convenor (submitted by Tom Frost) pg41 7. Report of the Publications Convenor (submitted by Max Sefton) pg50 8. Report of the Social Convenor 8.1 (submitted by Patrick Macdonald) pg55 8.2 (submitted by Kat Denham) pg59

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1. Report of the President

1.1 Introduction

Hello. Thank you for taking the time to have a read of the reports for the AGM 2015. I shall attempt to outline and review my responsibilities for this year with the aim of advising and recommending how the QMU may go forward and improve.

If you have any further questions please do attend the AGM, visit me in the exec office on the third floor or email president@qmunion.org.uk

Thank you!

1.2 Achievements

As will always be the case we have had both successes and failures this year and this puts us in a fantastic position to advise the new Board of Management. I will report honestly on our failures in the hope that they need not be repeated but first wish to recognise some of the achievements for 2014/15. I believe we have worked well as a Board and achieved a great deal that all involved should be immensely proud of.

Scran has been restructured to ensure it is catering to the student market and this has resulted in over 200% increase in takings from last year.

Jim’s Bar has been redecorated to provide a more suitable space for live music and evening social events and entertainment.

Successfully launched a new social event, Aloud, and an accompanying magazine. As a literary open mic, Aloud offers something unique on campus.

The Glasgow University Environmental Sustainability Team and their ‘Eco-Hub’ have been welcomed in to the building, helped them host numerous events and worked with them to introduce Meat Free Mondays.

We have maintained positive and productive relationships with the Executive Committees of GUSRC, GUSA and GUU.

We have produced the most successful Refreshers’ Week in terms of attendance at events for several years by working with the other 3 campus bodies. And created the first cross-campus model that will hopefully continue for years to come.

We have organised a successful dinner to celebrate the QMU’s 125th Anniversary including an exhibition of historical papers and items and the launch of our own QMU 125 beer.

The online traffic for the qmunicate website has tripled from last year.

We have made (at the time of writing) a total of £8545.97 for various charities. More than has ever been raised before.

We have launched a brand new Friday clubnight (Magic) as opposed to rebranding for the first time in around 20 years.

A brand new Mental Health Campaign: ‘Elephant in the Room’ has been successfully launched and very well received.

1.2 Manifesto Pledges and Personal Priorities

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My manifesto outlined what I personally thought were the main areas that needed attention and what I believed would be the best actions going forward. I was absolutely delighted to be elected and was happy to find my ideas supported by the board, my manifesto could only be enacted with their support. In this section I will go through my manifesto points and comment on their progress. Whether successful or not so I believe we have learnt a lot this year and so will include my recommendations going forward with each section.

1.2.1 Friday Night Clubnight

1.2.1.1 Overview

My manifesto identified the importance of doing something new to create a sustainable Friday night. The main aim of this was to attempt to combat the steadily decreasing attendance numbers. Unfortunately despite creating what I believe to be a much stronger brand, and a night more fitting with student interest, attendance has continued to drop.

The creation of Magic was a bold step and was the first time in over 20 years we had tried something entirely different on a Friday night rather than rebranding the Cheesy Pop formula. The rebrand to Snap, Crackle & Pop meant that QMU Fridays had very little identity and this in many ways was the perfect opportunity to move away from what we had been doing for such a long time and try something new.

Tom Frost’s report will explain the development of Magic in detail but I want to note how exciting it was to be part of the process. We started with a completely blank slate and by looking at what was offered across Glasgow, doing a full SWOT analysis of the options that we had and getting feedback from both board members and committee members we aimed to create something that was best fitting to the current student interest.

We looked at the clubs across the city and noted that for the most part clubs offered free entry to many and had promotional drinks from £1. The formula we put together predicted a significant increase in attendance thus balancing out the lower income from the door with spend behind the bar. This I believe was our biggest mistake. We were very optimistic in our predictions for how the night would take off and we have been far from achieving our targets. This has resulted in a significant drop in income.

We have learnt a lot about our entertainments provisions this year. Some may argue that in hindsight we would have had a more successful Friday night if we had gone back to Cheesy Pop but the decisions made by those involved in the organisation of Magic reflected the feedback from QMU Board and Committees and in turn we believe the student population. I must confess that I am disappointed with the lack of increase in attendance at Magic but I do not regret our decision to create a new Friday night.

1.2.1.2 Recommendations

I am very happy with the Magic branding that was created. The name does not have any preconceptions and thus is flexible and can be easily adapted to any special, one-off events. We invested in the creation of the brand and would strongly recommend that it is continued.

The attendance numbers over the past few years have been in decline and I believe they will continue to do so. Although there are changes that can be made I would not recommend any significant financial investment in any change to our Friday Night provisions.

When the role of Jim’s Bar was first discussed it was agreed, after much discussion, that it should provide the same music every week so that people see continuity and know what they are getting. Since then we have had clubs and societies with guest DJs use the space (e.g. Hip Hop society) and this has been popular. Involving the University clubs in the night attracts a crowd that we may not normally be reaching and adds a new level of PR. I would recommend a varying line up of guest club and society DJs/ themes in Jim’s Bar.

It is my opinion that student unions are no longer the first port of call for students to have a night out and we cannot live up to the reputation of being ‘cheap and cheerful’ and still financially justify hosting a

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weekly clubnight. I would recommend increased flexibility in what we offer on a Friday with ‘special’ Magic nights potentially once a month and the other three weeks open up to external bookings and more unique entertainments that do not necessarily centre around drinking and dancing. No matter what we provide we continue to have the fantastic reputation of being welcoming to all and it is a priority that this is maintained. We cannot please everyone with our weekly event and thus I think it is time we begin to provide more unique one-off experiences for the vast student population with varying interests.

1.2.2 Community and Campaigns

1.2.2.1 Overview

In my manifesto I declared the need to ensure that students see us as more than just a business, somewhere to get a pint but a community of students. Working with the Campaigns and Charities committee and Current Student Representatives I hoped to ensure that we produced policy that truly reflected student opinions, could organise larger campaigns and be part of cross-campus campaigns.

I believe we have had some successes in this regard and it was positive to see that when we started being open to discussions that numerous campus groups and societies were excited by the idea of our support. I still believe that this campus can be quite divided and groups are very keen to do everything independently but hopefully we can continue to engage with them and work on more campaigns.

1.2.2.2 Campaigns

Although the Campaigns and Charities committee have the remit of running campaigns, the Board of Management can be approached with proposals that the QMU publicly support campus, local, national or international campaigns. The proposal is discussed in a Board of Management meeting and then there is a vote in order to decide if the QMU shall support it. In some cases our support for the campaigns is just our public support for its aims and in others we raise awareness and attend campaign events. I have been the main port of call for people organising campaigns and looking for QMU involvement and have met some truly fantastic and proactive people this year who have all been a pleasure to work with.

Here are some of the campaigns and policies the Queen Margaret Union has supported this year.

Make Renting Right Campaign - Organised by Shelter Scotland this campaign calls for a sector that works both for people who live in rented housing and landlords who let out their properties.

Leelah’s Law Solidarity - Members of the QMU Board of Management attended the demonstration in March and publicised the event on our QMU social media. The demonstration was held in memory of Leelah Alcott, was in support of transgender individuals of all ages and called for information on transgender and gender non-conforming identities to be taught compassionately and appropriately in schools from an early age.

Good Night Out Campaign - Despite the safety of students in our venue being our utmost priority already we signed the Good Night Out Pledge (a national campaign to end harassment on nights out) to reiterate our policies of care and ensured all staff members new the processes to deal with incidents. The pledge reads: ‘We want you to have a good night out. If something or someone makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter how minor it seems, you can report it to any member of our staff and they will work with you to make sure it doesn’t have to ruin your night’

Attitude Is Everything - Attitude Is Everything works with venues to improve deaf and disabled people’s access to live music. I organised a visit from a representative and we did a full tour of the building. He provided a full review and guidance as to where we need to improve our facilities. Although he was generally

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fairly impressed with the venue he noted many improvements that would be necessary to meet the standard of their charter. This is something I hope can go forward and be regularly reviewed.

Uni Cycle - In the summer we were approached by Uni Cycle looking for support for their project. Uni Cycle aims to encourage students to cycle by providing facilities, classes and workshops on University and college campuses across Glasgow. I took this cross campus and all four student bodies sent off a letter of support for the campaign for their application to the Scottish Government Climate Challenge Fund. They were successful in their bid for funding and in February hosted a meeting with interested parties to put plans in place for the launch. I have suggested that Qudos is an appropriate space for many of the plans they have and especially as we are home to GUEST that we should be the hub for this project at UofG. I am excited to see this develop and I hope that the QMU can continue to be significantly involved.

Cost Price Feminine Hygiene Products - In reaction to the luxury tax that continues to be charged on feminine hygiene products a policy was created: ‘Whilst the government charges luxury tax on feminine hygiene products the QMU Shop will sell them at cost price’

Gender Neutral Toilets - After it being agreed last year that the third floor ladies toilets would be gender neutral they were not properly sign posted as such until Freshers’ Week. After FW we decided it would be more appropriate for all toilets on the third floor to be gender neutral. It was fantastic to receive positive feedback on this from GULGBTQ+.

1.2.2.3 Recommendations

There was some suggestion made that CSRs might want to keep their ear to the ground in terms of student campaigns that we should be publicly supporting but I would recommend a more proactive approach is taken to this and there is further communication with campus groups. I would advise further engagement and promotion of the campaigns that we do choose to support.

On several occasions I have suggested to the SRC that the campaigns that they organise can only be made better with our support and promotion of them. There have been some cross campus campaigns such as the ‘My Dress Is Not A Yes’ buttons that were distributed in Freshers’ Week and the coasters that promoted gla.ac.uk/dignity but I believe that we could have been more involved in some of their campaigns and petitions to the University such as the fossil fuel divestment campaign with the Climate Action society. This was obviously successful without our voice but I believe we have an engaged membership and the campaign could have called more supporters with our help to promote it. I recommend that we continue to be proactive in identifying campaigns that would be of interest to our membership and facilitate opportunities for them to be involved.

1.2.3 Membership

1.2.3.1 Overview

My manifesto identified a need to encourage more membership sign ups and try and encourage loyalty from these members. There were a few things we put in place to try and achieve this.

- Freshers’ Week Sign Ups After lengthy (!) discussions with the GUU executive it was agreed that we could begin signing up members during Freshers’ Week. We decided to open our dedicated membership booth from the Thursday 18th. Freshers’ Helpers have always been encouraged to explain the membership system but now had a chance to encourage them to sign up right away while the unions are still at the forefront of their social experiences.

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- Dedicated Staff For the first few weeks of term we had a staff member dedicated to signing up members from the old coffee booth next to Qudos. We used the banners and posters to identify the area. This meant that new members were given a proper welcome and were given a flyer explaining the perks of membership and where to find us on social media.

- Magic With the increase in free entry passes the perk of discounted entry for members became less meaningful (although this did remain). We introduced a further perks for members in the ‘Magic Members Menu’. This offered a discount on a selection of drinks for those with a QM card.

- Friday Night Sign-Ups With our main priority being encouraging as many as people as possible in to the building for the launching weeks of Magic we decided to set up a sign up stall for membership. This meant that we never had to turn anyone away as if they had no one to sign them in then they could take two seconds to sign up for membership. Many people do not know the entry policy at the QMU and presume it to be the same as normal clubs and therefore do not prepare/ sign up in advance if they intend on coming. Later in the year this became less necessary as we had more people signed up as members.

1.2.3.2 Recommendations

Sort out and promote the loyalty card system. I ensured that the system that we had was reviewed across all commercial areas. The general manager and myself agreed on the structure and how it would work (For every £1 spent you get 10 points. 10 points = 10 pence) and I even made promotional materials but I am still waiting on confirmation that the system can work on all tills across the QMU.

Consider fully what it means to be a member of the QMU and what we want it to mean. We have increased opportunities for signing up to be a member of the QMU in order to avoid turning people away from our events but does this mean that we have simultaneously decreased the value of membership?

1.2.4 Additional Focuses

There were a couple of other things that I mentioned in my manifesto as requiring attention.

1.2.4.1 Renovation of Jim’s Bar and Champions Bar

Champions Bar was already being renovated in the summer of 2014 but we kicked off Freshers’ Week with a newly decorated Jim’s Bar too. Our priority in the changes to Jim’s Bar was to make the space more flexible to night time activities so it had a better atmosphere for live music gigs and could be incorporated in to Magic. We wanted stackable furniture to create dancefloor space and areas that were designed for standing customers. We also included sound proofing tiles around the stage in an attempt to minimise noise pollution from Qudos – I believe they have improved the acoustics in the room but we are still a long way away from a fully sound proof venue!

1.2.4.2 Improvements to Committee Rooms

All of the committee rooms got a lick of paint, new blinds that actually close, a white board and a notice board. They are now much more fit for purpose. Committee rooms one and two also have projectors attached to the ceiling with a VGA cable in the corner of the room to minimise risk of breaking equipment and making set up quick and easy. This has meant that use of the rooms is less flexible, I would recommend a budget for purchasing another ‘floating’ projector.

1.2.4.3 Beer Garden Development

GAH! This has been infuriating. I produced a budget based on plans from Anderson Landscaping Company and this was passed by the Finance Committee in the summer. I met with the University Estates department in order to get their opinion on the development and to ask their advice on the process. I know absolutely nothing about

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planning permissions etc. and so they kindly outlined all of the hoops that would need to be jumped through. They estimated it would take over a month from the plan submission to begin the project (if permission was granted) but the landscaping company suggested the project itself would only take around two weeks if conditions were well. I had no doubt that we would have a beautiful beer garden ready for Spring. I began discussions with GUEST about how we could furnish and decorate it with recycled materials and began looking at the kind of licence we would need to apply for in order for people to actually drink in it.

The first step of the process was to provide a full survey of the land to check the plans we had were feasible before we solidified them for our application for planning permission. We still do not have this survey. I have requested progress feedback on a fairly regular basis but I can only presume there is some confusion. I understand that it may not have been our priority for this year but I am disappointed with how it has been neglected and wish we had set stronger deadlines.

The project is a feasible one. I don’t even understand myself how it has not been achieved this year. I will be passing on the things that need to be completed and I hope to be sat in it this time next year. If I die please name it after me, thanks.

1.2.4.4 Review Social Media Practice

In the summer Yasmynn Lloyd put together a social media strategy plan. We all agreed that it was very good and then promptly ignored it. I am fairly happy with the way we have used social media this year but would recommend a more official plan for usage is put in place.

Our use of facebook I think has improved. The events manager schedules daily posts for events including a weekly run down of what we have on and I (and Yasmynn and Jack) post more reactionary things regularly during the day. We have recently included the daily events in our scheduled posts so nothing is missed. We don’t use Twitter quite so regularly but it is a better forum for retweeting and sharing posts about events that are held at the QMU but are organised externally (e.g. society events, gigs, conferences, debates etc.) as well as our own activities.

We set up an Instagram in the summer and this has been great fun to use. We currently have 469 followers. We use Instagram to show almost the ‘behind the scenes’ of the QMU with photos of student officers working in the office, attending cross campus events, blowing up beach balls and attending gigs etc. in the QM. We also post a regular #QMU125 #throwbackthursday photo with information on a snippet of QMU history. Where our Facebook mainly advertise our services and encourage attendance, our Instagram reminds followers that the QMU is student run and everything they enjoy has been put together by volunteers.

1.3 Presidential Responsibilities

The role of President is a unique one, no day is the same and I am ever so thankful for the opportunity to have such varied work experience. It does however make for quite a long report. In this section I will outline my approach to some of my roles and activities executed within them.

1.3.1 Executive Responsibilities

Sit on Health and Safety Committee - We held a health and safety committee in January in which we reviewed the role of the group and the best way for it to operate going forward. We aimed to have electronic copies of all risk assessments undertaken in an accessible folder, near-miss and incident reporting to be similarly recorded, all training undertaken to be legitimised with certificates that are kept and a review of Health and Safety for the year. It fell under the remit of the General Manager to ensure this was done and to report back to the Board of Management. After attending a training session on Risk Assessments with the events manager we decided we needed more formal RA procedure for Club and Soc activities. This was not something that we have had in the past and would be tricky to get

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ever single society to submit a RA for their bookings. I am in the process of making up risk assessments for activities (e.g. pole dancing, dance class, theatre rehearsal) rather than societies and once they have been completed I recommend it is a requirement for affiliation that they are edited and submitted for the societies core activities.

Sit on Freshers’ Week Committee - Yasmynn will expand on this but I am fairly happy with the way FWC was run and we had good communication between all throughout the process. Being part of Freshers’ Week itself and helping lead the huge amount of helpers was an absolute pleasure. Yasmynn did very well to organise such a big number. I would recommend going forward that more consideration is given to the daytime events that we provide and to ensure there are relaxed social spaces maintained throughout the week.

Sit on Executive Committee - This has been an absolute delight. Jack and Yasmynn were an absolute pleasure to work with from start to finish. We created an environment in which we always looked forward and concentrated on solving issues that came our way. Of course we had the occasional vent about things that weren’t going to plan but swiftly moved on to how best to move forward. I believe we naturally fell in to a routine of helping each other out with things that fit with our varying skills and were always a team. I can’t believe that they have shared an office with me (and my truly awful music taste) and are still my pals. They reassured me on everything from big decisions and important meetings to colour schemes and spelling and grammar. My only recommendations would be to ensure there is an honesty policy so when one of you needs to chill for a bit the other two know to step in and to find time to drink wine (or absinthe cocktails like we did) somewhere that is not the QMU.

Chair Staffing Committee - This committee does not currently have a full structure and we did not have a formal meeting this year. Staffing was, however, included in the agenda for my regular meetings with the general manager and we often discussed the best ways to ensure staff needs are met and the correct systems are in place for full productivity in all departments. I would encourage that constant communication continues but a review of the committee structure may well be in order.

Chair Finance Committee - I believe I have been a confident chair of the Finance Committee and ensured that in all discussions the needs of the students are fully reflected and budgets are considered fully before any decisions have been made. I added reviews to the agenda whenever I could especially for social events that required a one-off budget. These reviews reflected attendance and how the spend was returned in bar sales. I believe these reviews made it much easier to justify future spend on similar events. I am disappointed that I did not manage to maintain regular reviews and I would encourage a full review system be put in place. I also believe, for particularly risky or contentious budgets, that the author of the budget should be invited to fully justify their case and fully understand the reasoning and discussion of the committee behind whatever decision is made.

Chair Executive-Convenor Meetings - We did not have Exec-Con meetings nearly as regularly as we should have and I apologise to the convenors for my lack of organisation in this. We had some good catch up meetings to ensure we were all on the same page and could help each other with projects and activities but were more productive when we took a significant amount of time to discuss the bigger picture. I would encourage a regular time and date is set for exec-cons meetings and agendas are distributed in advance. There are not regular problems that arise that call for an exec-cons meeting but dedicating time to pool ideas on things that can benefit the union in general is needed far more often. I tried to encourage an attitude in the convenors to try new things and reach further than the remit on paper and the standard set by the predecessor and I believe this is an attitude that should continue. By this I do not mean set unrealistic goals but rather look closely at what has been

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done before and assess if this is the best course of action. I believe we have all worked well together and we had a positive working atmosphere where they could ask one another for assistance and work together to make the best happen. My recommendation going forward would be to try even more to do things as a team and have regular meetings so that action points set can be reviewed by all.

Support the Board of Management - My attitude and approach to the role of President was to try with all my might to maintain the enthusiasm for being on the board that all have when they first run. All members are volunteering their time for the QM and I wanted to ensure that this was remembered, that all their contributions were fully recognised and they had a chance to socialise and have some fun along the way. I met with all of the CSRs (albeit not as regularly as I would have wished) within the first week or so of their election to discuss what they wanted to see change about the Union. We established lists of action points for both myself and the CSRs to complete. Although some suggestions were easiest and quickest completed by myself and I would always be around for advice, I made it clear that the project was that of the board member and it was their responsibility to chase me up if I am too slow or seek assistance from other CSRs etc. to ensure it went forward. The action points were monitored by the CCSR and reported to regular board meetings. Certainly from a personal point of view I thought this was a good system to find direction for the projects and I only wish I had made more time for regular update meetings with individual CSRs. There does however need to be great consideration of how CSR actions are reported to the Board as the list format does not provide enough room for feedback. Meetings with CCSRs brought up any other ideas that were discussed as a group and gave me a chance to suggest things for discussion at their meetings. I think there was a positive atmosphere throughout the board and it was motivating to see new things for students manifest from CSR efforts. I also think supporting the Board of Management with the occasional bottle of Messerschmitt and board flat boogie definitely helped. I would encourage that a set of dates are put in place for social events for board members as it got tricky to organise them with little notice and I truly believe them to be important in creating a good working environment and encouraging collaboration.

Be Responsible for the Union’s Strategic Direction - This is something that from the beginning of my term was not formally addressed. Although in all decisions and discussions the future of the QMU was considered I did not have a formal plan for more than my own term that I considered on a regular basis. There is no formal remit for there to be a strategic plan or for it to be regularly revisited. I must confess until I found the one from 2012 tucked away in a corner of my flat I had forgotten it existed. This is not good. I have put together a first draft of a Strategic Plan for 2015-2018 and a review document for the Strategic Plan 2012-2015. Huge thank you to C.Fraser, K.Hill and the Strategic Planning Committee of 2012 for putting together a formula that I could work from with ease to create the new one. I shall be having numerous communications with both the outgoing and incoming executive to put a final strategic plan together that we all consider in the Union’s best interests. I hope to have a final document completed by the time I remit office and will leave it to Max as incoming President to consider how he wants to share it but I would recommend it is accessible to all and making a bigger deal of it than we have in the past and proving to the University and our stakeholders that we take the future of the QMU very seriously. I will also take a suggestion that the executive remit in bye-laws includes a responsibility to review the Strategic Plan on a regular (annual) basis and that one be produced every year. I am yet to flesh out the specifics of this.

Liase with General Manager - My relationship with the general manager has been on the whole very positive. He has a brilliant attitude in recognising the importance of communication with myself on every aspect of the QMU as both a student service and a business. We meet on a very regular basis and are in almost

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constant communication. We very rarely disagree and he takes my views and those of the board very seriously when making final decisions. He truly understands that we are student led. I would recommend constant communication is maintained and that the executive committee are aware of his plans so they can advise and ensure deadlines are met efficiently.

1.3.2 President as ‘Chief Executive Officer’

Chair the Board of Management - As chair for these meetings I have attempted to ensure that everyone gets a chance to communicate their ideas and views but also to minimise circular discussions and ensure we come to a timely conclusion that everyone is happy to get behind. I have tried to encourage an atmosphere for big ideas where no suggestion is seen as ridiculous or unreasonable but is fully considered. The way that convenors and executive members report the board of management did not undertake a huge overhaul this year and I will be considering how this might be done over the handover period. I think there needs to be better review of everything that is done (whether it is successful or not so) and more evidence of future steps that convenors and executive members have planned.

Be responsible for external communications from the Union - I very much enjoyed being involved with the communications surrounding the 125th Anniversary and writing the press release for it. Unfortunately, it did not seem to be taken on by many media outlets and I hope this was not a failing on my part. The alumni magazine, Avenue, are doing a full page spread on the history of the QMU and I was interviewed as part of this. I loved this (even though I got a little emotional) and I look forward to seeing the final article. The Glasgow Guardian have occasionally asked for quotes and I have done a few for The Herald regarding student drinking habits and incidents in Freshers’ Week but I have not had much interaction with the media on the whole. To the best of my knowledge nothing that I have said as QMU representative has been misinterpreted.

Represent the Union at Public Occasions - I have done my best to attend every public occasion that we have been invited to and believe I have been successful in creating relationships and portraying a positive image of the Queen Margaret Union. After meeting University senior members I have tried to promptly engage in email exchange to firm any conversations that we had face to face and some of these have been fairly fruitful. It is important to have relationships within the University and I cannot stress the importance of face to face interaction to get the most benefit out of this.

Represent the Union at Business Meetings - It is the general manager that tends to meet with people in regards to commercial business meetings but he has often invited me when looking at long term negotiation and sponsorship plans. I have been also in attendance in development plan meetings with University Estates and contractors. It is very helpful to be in the loop on plans like these.

Liase with the University and other student bodies on campus - I will refer to this fully later on in this report (1.5)

Be the QMU’s delegate for Northern Services - As I was also elected the Northern Services student president for this year I have had more communication than most with Northern Services. I have attended executive meetings and a catch up meeting in St Andrews which gave me a great opportunity to see their set up (It is gorgeous). I must confess that I have not focused on my role of Northern Services or indeed changed in any way the way it operates. I have sent emails to the NS Unions’ student presidents and I hope to form a forum for sharing ideas if I can successfully make initial communications with a majority.

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Report to the Student Finance Sub-Committee - Each student body president is required to present a budget for the following year. The timing of this is unfortunate as it means I present a budget for a year that is led by my successor. We were asked to submit a report on the Union’s activities and I tried to emphasise the many things that we do that provide graduate attributes and unique experiences that improve the student experience. I believe I presented our case to the best of my ability and I will continue to stay in touch with representatives from the committee to glean their advice and University strategy priorities to go forward.

Report to various stakeholders - I don’t believe we share enough with our membership. It has been suggested that we share our board minutes on a regular basis and encourage members to contribute suggestions directly online. We are yet to get in to a habit or find a proper system for this but I think it is a brilliant idea and recommend it is cemented for September. I believe I have been fairly strong in my communication with the board and do my best to ensure that the convenors have relevant information to share with committee members. My door is always open and this has led to spontaneous action point making which is fab. There is always room for improvement but I am fairly happy with this area of my remit.

1.4 Commercial Areas

A true reflection to the successes and failings of the commercial areas will be reflected in the accounts but I wish to comment on the effects of changes.

1.4.1 Catering Department

1.4.1.1 Scran

In the summer months I very much enjoyed being part of the development of a new direction for Scran. It was evidently under performing and I believed this was due to both the formal atmosphere and the wrong provisions. Along with the executive, general manager and catering manager we fully reviewed Scran and put significant changes in place to make it a relaxed student environment. The first of this was change it from a ‘bistro’ to a bar that serves food. We wanted a menu that reflected the different needs of students from those wanting to grab a bite to take away and those wanting to sit down with friends for good food at reasonable prices. From the beginning I wanted to create an atmosphere of sharing and so tapas, sharing platters and a full wine list were instated as well as a menu that catered for many tastes with its ‘build your own’ framework. We put in a physical bar space with what we served on clear display and a more relaxed ‘order at the bar’ policy. We introduced long tables to seat larger groups, aged beer barrels and a sofa space which contributed significantly to the complete change of atmosphere. I am immensely proud of the development of Scran and it was very motivating to see plans and ideas we had as student officers manifest in an improved commercial area. Scran is over 200% up on takings on last year but we must take in to account the significant increase in staffing costs and the fact that it is 200% up on really not much. It is a successful operation but there is still much that can be done to improve it and publicise what it offers.

1.4.1.2 Café Twenty2

We introduced Wicked Coffee in to Café Twenty2 and received wonderful brand support and staff training. Still more work can be done to advertise what it offered but it is not a priority area in my opnion.

1.4.1.3 Food Factory

Food Factory needs a full review. It is in decline, admittedly affected by competition from Scran. We need to make sure there is minimal crossover and that Food Factory has not only a high quality of food and a reasonable pricing structure but an exciting and varied menu. This needs to be a priority for next year.

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1.4.1.4 Recommendations

With a concentration on Food Factory, I would recommend a review of our catering facilities. The increase in popularity in Scran and the longer opening hours has affected staffing costs. We have discussed in Finance Committee investing in a consultant to assist us in reviewing the whole operation and this is something we will be looking to do over the summer so we can perform the best we can from September. I think we need to look not just at getting more students in and serving the right food but the full operation.

1.4.2 Bars

I do not have a breakdown of our bestselling drinks but it is evident (mainly through the popularity of Messerschmitt amongst others) that the promotion of specific drinks can make a big difference. Beyond our initial Magic promotions at the beginning of term and random others in response to brand sponsorship we have done little to encourage bar spend. The first step is to get people in to the bar but I am disappointed that I did not consider further options to promote bar spend.

I would recommend when developing the entertainments strategy that there is communication with the bar managers to incorporate drink promotions in to the formula and a consideration of pricing as bar spend per head is down on Fridays.

1.4.3 The Shop

This is an area that has been significantly neglected. It is not actually losing us any money but I also believe it is not meeting its potential. I would encourage consideration of what it stocks and whether it might operate better with a more specific remit.

1.4.4 External Bookings

The events manager has been very proactive in sourcing external hires and they are responsible for a significant part of both our entertainments and bar takings. Although the QMU should prioritise its students I would encourage a proactive attitude towards external bookings is continued as the more we make from these events the more we can subsidise events for our members.

1.5 Cross Campus

1.5.1 Glasgow University Environmental Sustainability Team

This year we offered the space previously occupied by Speedy PCs to GUEST. As a student based organisations we believed they should be prioritised over an external company hire. They spearheaded the overhaul of our water system that both saves a significant amount of water and estimates to cut our water charges by around £2000 a year. Alongside this the food co-op store there stuff in the cupboard on the ground floor and operate from the cloakroom on a regular basis. We signed an agreement based on this year and I would recommend it is fully reviewed before renewal but it has been very positive to hear reports of significant increase in engagement with GUEST since they moved in and to see their events in the QMU well attended. I also believe it has improved our relationship with University estates and they certainly seem more willing to invest in safety improvement projects here.

1.5.2 Cross Campus Student Bodies

We have generally got on very well and had productive cross campus meetings this term. For the first time ever (or at least in my experience) we organised an official UofG Refreshers’ Week that was promoted across the four student bodies. This made a great improvement on our attendance at the events and I would hugely recommend it being done in collaboration again next year and beyond. We designed and ordered the PR (because we are kind and happened to be the best at it) and then the cost and distribution was split between all four bodies. I would recommend starting organisation earlier next year.

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Unfortunately, despite exciting discussions in our first few meetings, by the time RAG week came around there had been little collaboration to ensure it was a campus wide event. Similarly, even though we had activities for International Women’s Week and LGBTQ+ History Month I feel like a lot more could have been done and promoted in collaboration. The Cross Campus Committee will continue to meet in the coming months and pass on recommendations for priorities to the next cross campus team.

I attended SRC council on several occasions and found it very helpful to understand their directions and it made it much easier to access information from the University. It also gave me an opportunity to promote links and collaborations on projects and campaigns. I would recommend regular attendance at SRC council meetings. I confess that I did not attend GUSA meetings during my term. I have a good relationship with the GUSA executive and therefore it was easy to organise any things we would do together through them.

The attitude this year has been across all four student bodies one of four heads is better than one. Special shout out to Owen, Rory and Holly for your willingness to share and compare ideas in order to help each other succeed. Thank you to all cross campus executive members for being so fun to work with this year and for the many hilarious robe photos that have surfaced from various events.

1.5.3 Clubs and Societies

Yasmynn will cover this in her report as communication with them fall under her remit but I wanted to note what a pleasure it has been to work with societies this year. Having an office on the third floor and being constantly on the end of the phone means that I ended up developing relationships with a fair few club and society leaders and it was great when we managed to work together and have their support at our events.

1.5.4 Western Development

I noted in my manifesto the importance of keeping our ear to the ground in regards to the development of the Western site. The first project to affect us will be the Learning and Teaching Hub proposed to appear behind the Maths building. I have been in communication (and continue to be) with several of those leading areas of the project (especially the student services and commercial aspect) and have been ensured that I will be included in the consultations as the project progresses. I have been told that they believe it important the hub complements what we do rather than cuts across our activities and will value the opinions of the board. Not much has developed from this at this stage but I will continue contact until I remit office and ensure Max is introduced to the appropriate parties.

1.5.5 Think Global Act Local Symposium 2015

GUSA, GUU, SRC, QMU and Professor James Conroy (VP Internationalisation) are in the early stages of planning a symposium with the goal of gleaning what we can be doing as student bodies and what the University can be doing to help integration of international students in to university life. We will be looking to hold a day long symposium for post graduate and PHD students at the end of May with drop in sessions and more formal feedback meetings. We will then begin to put in place a slightly different agenda for undergraduates in October. This is a great opportunity for us to access feedback from potential members and improve our services accordingly.

1.6 The Rest of My Term

My main focus for the rest of my term will be the review of the Strategic Plan 2012-2015 and the formation of the Strategic Plan 2015-2018.

Continue communication with board members to make sure their opinions are reflected and they are set up for the next year.

I have suggested formal handover documents be put in place that are essentially ‘how to be a…’. My hope for these is that they are edited each year to reflect any changes but are concrete record

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of the practices that are recommended but not cemented in CBP and include all of the fiddly housework stuff. I will be working on my own and ensuring all of the information, contacts etc. that have been so helpful for me are fully accessible for the President-Elect.

Training for the Executive-Elect that includes both formal training but also a chance to begin full development of their ideas and cementing plans with our feedback/help.

Work through a series of handover documents with the President-Elect to help form a personal plan, systems that will work best and a leadership objective.

1.7 Closing Thoughts

I have been immensely lucky this year that I have had such a fabulously motivated and organised bunch of board members and I think we have achieved some great things this year but also learnt a lot about where we need focus to go forward.

The QMU really is for students by students. We have done so many new things this year we should be proud of and they have all come from dedicated volunteers. We need to continue to look at what students really want rather than what they have wanted from us in the past.

What I have found the hardest this year, and tried to avoid as much as possible, is the neglect or stifling of ideas that offer a great benefit to the student experience to prioritise the commercial areas. However we are in a position where we do need to get the balance right to ensure that our commercial areas are successful enough to support the numerous student focused activities. I can’t pretend I have the answer to everything and I would never claim that there are not a crazy amount of things that I would do differently if I had this opportunity again but I believe we have had an eye-opening year.

Your committee for 2015-2016 is a fabulous one and I have no doubt that I am going to feel like a right silly when they get everything right

1.8 Thank you and Cheerio

I absolutely cannot fit in to this report the crazy amount of people that I would want to thank for making my experiences this year so incredible.

Thank you to cross campus executive and all of the fabulous society leaders that I have had the pleasure to work with this year.

Thank you to Bill Blackstock for being so easy to work with, for your consideration of all of my ideas even if they are a little crazy sometimes and for sharing hilarious things on facebook.

Huge thank you to Terry Murphy for supporting me throughout my time volunteering at the QMU but especially your faith in me this year. Terry has given a crazy amount of his time and efforts to this union and we should be immensely grateful for his support.

Thank you to Alice, Ali and Euan for your support in everything and for focussing on the larger things that need attention when I get all distracted by the bitty day to day stuff. You have been invaluable in steering our progress and I really appreciate all of the time you have given.

Thank you to every single CSR for being so confident and sparking really helpful and productive discussions. I have been involved in the QMU for quite a while now and I truly believe you lot have been the most productive and enthusiastic bunch. You should be immensely proud of yourselves. All of you stay involved and keep contributing. You are also an absolute hoot to be around and I should probably blame you guys for the many hangovers I have suffered this year but #noregrets.

Thank you to all of the convenors for being a constant source of ideas and amusement. You have all been amazing and should all be immensely proud of the things you have achieved this year. Special shout out to

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Tomitty Tom Frost for his unwavering optimism and being the receiving end of an accidentally epic vent on a very regular basis. You are a hero and you have kept me chipper

Thank you to Yizz Man and Jick Smath for being the best partners in crime I could have wished for. You are two of the most impressive people I have met and one day when we have made it in the real world we will meet in Execuador for a reunion, I just know it. Jack thank you for tolerating my use of words like #exsqueezles and the fact that I can’t help that I am just in a James Blunt mood or it is just a Depeche Mode sort of a day. Yizz, thank you for being so quick to learn that we need to make eye contact or I am not listening and for waking me up with your epic sneezes. I quite literally could not have done anything this year without you guys. I love you both. Genuine. (DIBBY DIBBY DIBBY DIBBY DIBBY)

Thanks for the opportunity. S’long presh.

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2. Report of the Honorary Secretary 2.1 Freshers' Week I'll talk about the committee, then do a run down of events, then mention helpers and cross campus work. I assume that the Social and Publications reports will discuss their role in Freshers' Week. Although pass sales were at a record high, this did not translate into full buildings every night, across the whole of campus, for reasons that were a mystery to the cross campus executive. 2.1.1 FW Committee Last summer seems an awfully long time ago now I sit down to write this. Attendance fluctuated throughout the summer as people were home/on holiday, but it worked out adequately in the end in that there were enough people present at each meeting that it didn't feel like the exec and the managers were running away with decisions without consulting the committee. People who were away still remained contactable, and a few snap decisions had to be made; notably when Scott Mills pulled out and we had a few hours to decide on one of the replacements offered by the agent; Lauren was in France and took time out of her busy wine-drinking, sunbathing schedule to answer a few panicked and abrupt phone calls. For next year's committee I would recommend ensuring convenors stick to realistic deadlines for each event/idea, as there were some great ideas in FW2014 that did not live up to their full potential as they were not allocated enough attention early on. The committee worked well together, though, and I was pleased that we had things wrapped up so early and were able to begin promotion on Higher results day in the first week in August. 2.1.2 Events 2.1.2.1 Opening weekend These events were superbly attended, by a decent mix of returning students and freshers. The Magic launch night on the first Friday was excellent, and blew the 'cheesy' cobwebs away. White T-shirt party is a stalwart of the first Saturday night, and as predicted the building had reached capacity by 11pm, with a queue stretching all the way down University Gardens. It's important to keep communicating with the queue, and assuring people that they will get in and it's worth waiting, or conversely, apologising to people that they won't be able to get in and advising them to come earlier in future. Incidentally, there were a lot of freshers caught drinking alcohol in the queue and the helpers were very good at amicably but firmly explaining that this is not allowed in Glasgow. Sunday night comedy and hypnotism was decently attended, despite the confusion over ticket prices – originally the committee had decided to charge separately for both parts of the night, however everybody forgot about this so there was a bit of a confusion on the night, and eventually we decided to charge a fee for the whole evening no matter what time people arrived. 2.1.2.2 Monday – Gig. We worked with Clyde Radio to put on live music. This worked well insofar as we got a really high calibre of performer, something we would never have been able to afford on our own – Twin Atlantic, Prides and Vukovi – all of whom have gone onto much bigger things since Freshers' Week. The chain of communication here however was so long that it took a long time to get anything across, both ways, and things risked being distorted in the process. Part of the agreement was that we would allow up to 200 tickets to be sold to any student, which would then allow Clyde 1 to be able to advertise the gig on the radio. The logistics of this were a hassle, though, when it came to entry, and considering the popularity of Twin Atlantic the ticket uptake was quite slow. I would recommend not selling tickets again. Following the gig there was a DJ set from Hodor. A lot of people cleared out after the gig, and the same amount did not come back in afterwards, but it was still decently attended and went down like a storm. Rave/techno music is

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not often heard in Qudos but anecdotally people seemed to be having a great time. Potentially something like this would have been a draw in its own right, so putting it on after a gig might have wasted the potential, but there needed to be something there to keep people around and interested. 2.1.2.3 Tuesday – DJs. After Scott Mills' last minute withdrawal, we replaced him with DJ sets from Radio 1's Dev and MTV's Rewire and Varski. Numbers this night were not at the levels of the previous night or even previous Freshers' Weeks, perhaps highlighting the fact that it is really all about the name, and despite the high quality of the acts and the great audience engagement they had, people do look for well known acts during Freshers' Week. 2.1.2.4 Wednesday – Headphone Disco. Despite the headphone disco being a reliable crowd-pleaser in previous Freshers' Weeks, this one did not quite live up to its predecessors. It was still well attended, and Qudos looked and felt busy and fun. It became apparent that attendees at this event did not drink as much as previous events, as the bar sales were noticeably lower. It is worth thinking hard about for next year. We didn't run out of headphones, as has happened previously. 2.1.2.5 Thursday – Freshers' Ball. This suffered significantly this year, presumably because it happened on the same day as the independence referendum. Even if students hadn't headed home to vote, they wanted to watch the count and the results rather than come to the unions. The same was probably true of the Freshers' Helpers so I am thankful that they continued to put the effort in even so. Cabaret style acts in Jim's worked well, but the cycle/repetition of events in Qudos (band/acrobatics/DJ/band/acrobatics/DJ) led people to believe it had finished early and so they left. A rethink of the format is necessary to ensure people come early and stay all night. At least this year there won't be all that pesky politics getting in the way. 2.1.2.6 Friday – Magic Paint Party. This was very well attended as it is a very easy and appealing concept for helpers to promote. We ran it ourselves by mixing the paint and shooting it with the guns, and it worked well with everyone getting a healthy coating of UV paint. Paint parties are fun and easy to sell (although a nightmare to clean up) but it is worth noting the increased health and safety risks as one of the helpers ended up in A&E with concussion. 2.1.3 Helpers We had more applications than ever before (almost 300), and managed to take on just under 50% of applicants, after interviewing everybody. There were ten teams of ten people, each having a leader and a deputy, as well as Exec Cons, 8 Team Pubs (in hindsight this was too many people to comfortably work in the cons office), 8 Team Hack (who were around the weekends and were useful, particularly with the queue) and 20 Tech Team (in 4 teams of 5 with their own leaders). Some of the downfalls I experienced with the helpers was that we started too early – even before the training day we held a scavenger hunt, which ended up with everyone in Polo. This could have contributed to the mid-week slump in motivation/morale, as everyone was just exhausted. Twenty pizzas ordered from Scran and a round of messy bombs soon perked everyone up, though. Teams bonded really well and I have enjoyed seeing lasting friendships form between helpers, as well as the amount of dedicated helpers that have gone on to be excellent committee and Board members. We attempted to cover more halls of residence this time, but despite summer meetings

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between myself and Residential Services staff, there were some that were not receptive to helpers. This is a shame, but has happened the last couple of years so should be expected by now. Lanyards and handbooks were all fully distributed throughout the week thanks to the helpers' hard work. Helper training was largely similar to last year, but could have done with being a bit more extensive with regards to equality and diversity training. 2.1.4 CCFWC Cross campus meetings have continued throughout the year and their usefulness is more when we have a definite goal that we want to achieve. Definitely worth carrying these on and potentially starting a long-lasting campaign between all student bodies to the university for more funding. We all got along well, too, which made working together particularly in FW enjoyable. 2.2 Clubs and Societies 2.2.1 Affiliations These started off numerous and did not really relent as semester one wore on. Understandably, affiliations dropped off during semester two, but in total there are around 50 societies affiliated with us which is respectable, the vast majority of whom actually use the building on a regular basis. There isn't really a way of simplifying this, but quite often I have had to chase societies for one or other of the required documents in time for a board meeting in order to pass the affiliation. 2.2.2 Perks and benefits The Magic Experience (free entry, free cloakroom, free drink, random gifts for affiliated clubs and societies who book) was popular towards the end of semester one and the beginning of semester two, but as deadlines and exams approach, both general clubnight attendance and societies wanting the package have decreased. It was thanks to drinks promoters offering free stock that we were initially able to run this, but it did help with the promotion of Magic in general to raise its profile amongst clubs and societies. The committee rooms have been fully booked every weeknight, and still heavily used all day at weekend, so much so that I often find myself having to say no to people as there simply isn't space. It is nice to see that the services we provide to student clubs and societies are known about and used to their full extent. 2.2.3 Room booking system and emails Thankfully I have not had the disaster of an email account that my predecessor had to deal with – our new system means I can access my email outside the building and it has been much easier to keep in touch with clubs and societies (and indeed, everyone else). Google Calendar is a bit of a hassle, but it is free, and with reducing the amount of people who have access to put things into it it has been manageable. There have been a couple of occasions where people have had to have been moved around to make space for gig dressing rooms, but they have all been perfectly amicable and not complained. Recently I have been making signs for the third floor corridor detailing which club and society are in which room between which times. I have been sporadic with this, however, due to other commitments, but would encourage my successor to figure out a way of making this regular. 2.3 Membership 2.3.1 Ordinary Membership Membership this year has reached 3240, which is similar to last year but a bit lower than the year before. After Freshers' Week we had loads of membership posters up, as well as a banner, which I

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think helped, but they fell beside the wayside as the term wore on. A dedicated member of staff on the sign up booth for the first six weeks was invaluable, and something I would heavily recommend doing again. The benefits of membership need both expanding and advertising, as often people only get it so they can get cheap clubnight entry. Membership should be worth more than this. It also needs to be better publicised that membership is not rolling and that people need to sign up again every year. 2.3.2 Life Membership The bugbear of every Hon Sec's job – it is time consuming and often discouragingly fruitless. I reduced the fee to a nominal £5, to cover the cost of the card and postage. There have been 28 new applications this year, but mostly from ex-board or committee members for whom the fee was waived. Lauren undertook the massive task of cross referencing our database with the Alumni database to get up to date contact details for people, so it is now as up to date as can be. We now have a total of 269 members for whom we have full information. In my opinion, we will continue to see only limited success with life members until we decide why they are valuable to us. We cannot expect them to want to use the services in the way they did when they were students, so how can we cater to them? This is what needs considering for the future. I would also highly recommend emphasising the benefits once they have been decided on and relentlessly promoting this to graduates, perhaps with the help of the Alumni Office since they were so amenable to helping update our database. I have also been very sporadic with posting out membership cards to those who cannot come in to collect them, which is nobody's fault but my own forgetfulness. It is not my place to dictate the merits of Life Members to the union, and the incoming executive should think in detail about how the union and its life members can mutually benefit from each other. 2.4 Staff Election Due only to my own forgetfulness, the Staff Rep was not elected until February/March of this year. I ran an election in November, for which there were no candidates, and decided in January to do another one. With the long times taken for staff elections (to take into account the fact that nomination packs are distributed with payslips) this took much longer than expected. C. Angus held the position until the election in November, following which the position was empty until S. Ralph was elected in early March and will hold the position until after the 2015 Autumn By-Election when another Staff Election should be held, as per CBP. 2.5 125th Anniversary 2.5.1 Dinner The anniversary dinner had its good points and bad points (from an organisational side at least) but it all came together and was a really positive and enjoyable event. There were 72 guests, 14 of whom were invited and therefore did not pay for their tickets. Speakers from QM past went down well and enjoyed seeing the current manifestation of the Union. It was all more last minute than I would have originally liked, however my personal circumstances got in the way and stopped me from being able to allow the long lead time I would have preferred. Thanks to Lauren, the General Manager, the Events Manager and all the Scran and catering staff for helping me to pull this together. I have written a detailed review of the event which I shall be passing onto the incoming executive should they wish to hold a dinner again. Some things I would emphasise include increasing the lead time by months and months, and introducing a deadline by which people should have bought tickets, perhaps in conjunction with a pre-order to make things easier for the kitchen. As it was there were people buying tickets on the day, which made it more difficult for the staff to plan around it with regards to seating and food preparation. I would also recommend

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finding a system of creating a seating plan, so people can sit next to who they want and it is planned and arranged in advance, rather than the free-for-all that it became. 2.5.2 Exhibition We wanted to run an exhibition during the week or even month leading up to the dinner. Unfortunately, due to time consuming trips to and email threads with the Archive services, it turns out we couldn't use original materials as they need to be kept safe in the Archives. However, we had a lot stored ourselves, and were able to get copies of other things, so managed to produce a decent timeline of the QMU throughout its history. Many thanks to Celia and Jack for helping with this especially when I was frantically trying to dry my hair twenty minutes before the event started. Again, a greater time would be needed if something like this were to be done again, for the Archives to do proper assessments and perhaps provide a member of staff to watch over items we may wish to borrow. 2.5.3 Other We created a 125th anniversary beer, with a label designed by Lauren, in conjunction with the Drygate brewery. There are still a lot of bottles of it in the building, and I (a reluctant beer drinker) am assured that it is nice, so give it a try. The 125 logo that was created can be used in things throughout the year as it is generic, and the 125th anniversary does last all year. I doubt it would be a particular draw and that it would encourage more people in, but it is nice to celebrate and be proud of the history. 2.6 The remainder of my term 2.6.1 Graduations Graduations are ideal times to promote Life Membership, so I will be designing some specific posters to go around the main building in particular, especially areas where people mill around and wait. We are also discussing doing some end of term deals in Scran, which can be promoted in conjunction with life membership to increase the reach. 2.6.2 Therapets There will be 8 dogs coming into the union on the 6th May for a couple of hours as part of another Paws for Stress session. Given the huge success of the last one I don't think there is anything to worry about here as it will run in exactly the same way. 2.6.3 President's Dinner This is what I am focusing on at the moment, which will be super fun and enjoyable, definitely for L. Hinton but hopefully for all the guests too. If you have had an invitation and haven't responded yet, then please take note of the RSVP date and send me an email! 2.6.4 Handover Once E. Anderson has finished her exams she and I will go through all the aspects of the Honorary Secretary and Executive positions in great detail. That's about it. Her excitement for the position fills me with confidence and I know that she can help take the Union forward to greater things. 2.7 Recommendations This is a brief section, and a much more comprehensive list of recommendations shall be discussed with E. Anderson during our handover period.

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2.7.1 Freshers Week - Set yourselves as a committee strict and realistic deadlines - Wider variety of training for Freshers' Helpers - Fight at cross campus committee to be able to open up membership sign ups during the week - Be unique and promote what differentiates the QMU from the other four student bodies 2.7.2 Membership - Decide exactly what the benefits of Life Membership to the Union are and how we can work with current and future life members to achieve this, before beginning to promote something vague - Don't give up promoting ordinary membership, do it all year - Figure out how to use the database to do a mail merge and email members, but not incessantly or they'll just unsubscribe - If a Life Members' dinner is going to be organised, then an absolutely massive lead time is necessary – like, plan it in September to be held in April – more recommendations can be found in section 2.5.1 2.7.3 Clubs and Societies - Make a policy of room bookings needing to be in place x days in advance so you don't have people emailing at 4pm wanting a room for that evening - Get feedback as to how we can tailor the service we provide for clubs and societies - Promote tea/coffee packages more 2.7.4 Miscellaneous - More Therapets sessions, as they are very popular (and easy, and fun) - Don't forget about the staff election and be conscious of dates/days when staff get their payslips so documents can be distributed 2.8 Thanks I have had the time of my life as a board member of the QMU. Thank you to the many, many people that have made it possible and enjoyable. This year's convenors, Tom, Max, Emma, Patrick, Chris and Kat, have been unfathomably enthusiastic and fun, and I have enjoyed immensely being on board with you. The same goes for everyone with whom I have served on board over the last couple of years, it has been both a pleasure and an honour. Thanks to hundreds of others, no doubt. To my friends, who have helped keep me sane this year, I am eternally grateful. To Louise for saving me from homelessness. To Euan and Alice for keeping me on track with the questions and the prodding. And finally to Hinton and Jack – I couldn't have asked for better fellow exec members, and indeed, friends. You are indescribably superb. And Jack – sorry I broke your chair. And also sorry that I propped it back up so that you'd sit on it and think you'd broken it yourself.

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3. Report of the Honorary Assistant Secretary 3.1 Elections 3.1.1 Autumn By-Election The Autumn By-Election was very well contested with two people per seat in each category, so I was pleased with that. I think we can put the number of candidates down to an incredibly close knit and enthusiastic bunch of helpers, who made up the majority of candidates in all elections this year. I had expected the increased competition for seats to drive up voter turnout but it wasn’t as good as I had hoped. We saw a turnout of 296 people, which was around 11-12% of the membership at the time. Numerically, that’s a good number of people and up on the previous two years’ autumn elections, but in terms of percentage of members it’s no different to what we normally get and the average turnout at NUS members was reported at 16% in 2012, though I can’t seem to find any more recent figures. I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in that then. I think there are a couple of reasons for the slightly lower than expected turnout. I don’t think it helped having the election on a Tuesday as it didn’t give us a huge run in after the weekend to push it, so I would recommend against that in the future. Primarily though it was simple disorganisation that let us down in that I hadn’t really managed to arrange PR properly to go out around campus. The building was covered in posters but campus was less well hit. We still fall short in PR-ing elections on campus. 3.1.2 By Election 2: Social Convenor Following the resignation of Patrick MacDonald, a by-election had to be held shortly after the November one to fill the position of social convenor. This was extremely disappointing, though not unexpected. With only one candidate and it coming just two weeks after another election a low turnout was always likely, but 42 voters is embarrassing. I don’t know how to explain it away other than apathy from members, board members, helpers etc. about smaller elections like this. I was particularly disappointed to see that not all board members voted in this election. We really need to lead by example and we can’t expect people to engage in our elections and come down and vote if we’re not prepared to do it ourselves. 3.1.3 General Election The General Election was interesting. President (3 candidates), Honorary Secretary (2 candidates) and Campaigns and Charities Convenor (2 candidates) were the only contested seats, and we were one CSR short of a full house in each constituency. This, I believe, was in part due to resignations as some CSRs (all but two continuing CSRs) resigned to run for other positions, leaving us with more to fill than we would ordinarily have. However, the election again should have been more widely publicised and if I had been more organised in that respect we might have at least filled those seats. We tried some slightly different things for this election which I would encourage again next year like setting up information stands at halls. We left it too late in the nomination period this year for it to yield any great benefits but people showed some interest and we did manage to give out a few nomination packs at each of the halls we went to (Wolfson, Murano, Queen Margaret, Cairncross), though none came back. If we had done it with more time before the closure of the nomination period I am confident we would have seen some of them come back, and had more first years running. I believe this is key for increasing first year engagement; actually engaging with them and making the effort to go out and make ourselves visible and approachable can make a big difference in everything we do. This is not a problem which is exclusive to elections, and will not be solved simply by going out with a form to fill in twice a year, but it’s a start at least.

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The Glasgow Guardian and Sub City ran coverage of election week across campus. They streamed and live-blogged our Presidential Debate and Hustings, with 203 and 893 people tuning in to each stream respectively. I don’t think anybody doubts that the controversy surrounding one candidate which broke before Hustings contributed to that massive spike in numbers, but we did not publicise the fact that the Debate was available to stream as well as we did Hustings so that will have had an impact too. I would recommend streaming and/or live-blogging again next year as it requires minimal effort on our part if the Guardian/GUST are willing to do it, they get good experience out of it, and it increases coverage and awareness of our elections. Turnout for the election was 431 and 14% of the membership, so an improvement on autumn (and previous years) in both numbers and percentage terms but still below the most up to date national average I can find (16% in 2012, see para 3.1.1 above). I don’t know how to fix that. We better advertised that you can’t join the Union on polling day so saw a fair few people signing up on the Wednesday, and subsequently less than usual trying to vote without being members on the day which certainly helped. PR was better than in November but could be better still. 3.1.4 By-Election 3: The Electioning We had two CSR seats left unfilled, so had another election in the last week of term. There were two candidates for each category to begin with then one dropped out. I am relatively happy with how this one went, all things considered. Turnout still very low, but higher than I’d anticipated at 150 and given that it was a CSR by-election, on the second last day of term, I think it was ok. We can always do better and we need to take by-elections as seriously as the scheduled ones because they are no different, save for the fact that they’re an indicator that we’re doing something wrong because we either haven’t managed to get or maintain a full board. If anything, they should be taken more seriously. 3.1.5 Other Comments We had briefly talked about incentivising voting somehow, but I don’t think that’s a particularly good idea as it could call in to question the integrity and representative value of our elections if people only vote so they get a free cuppa. I have looked in to online voting again this year. The SRC system is expensive and stupid because it can only cope with one election at a time and, since ours is on the same day as theirs, therefore not an option. I had used a website called OpaVote to do distance voting which is good for small numbers of people but would be extortionate to do full scale online voting. It’s worth pursuing but I don’t know if we’ll have much luck there. We used the same style of PR for each election this year, changing the colour each time. Mad props to Lauren and Yasmynn for helping out my tech illiterate self with this, and a million other things. I think this is a good idea because if we can establish good recognisable PR for the election in November and use it again in February/March, people are going to know it’s an election already because we’ve already had similar posters out for a few weeks a few months ago. We did some Scran and chat to board members evenings in the run up to elections and both were almost exclusively attended by people leaving committees and taking advantage of free food. They were poorly advertised, which is my responsibility, and didn’t yield much success. We made it more informal than in the past as well with board members just sitting around to speak to people interested in running, rather than the previous format of delivering speeches on their roles. I think that has been beneficial as it allows us to make contact with potential candidates and to encourage them directly. I cannot stress enough the benefit of face to face engagement in all things that we do. Talking to the members is so painfully simple and effective and we really ought to do it more. The President’s Debate continues to be a bit of a strange one. The format of it doesn’t currently lend itself to much actual ‘debate’. Though somewhat dependant on having candidates who do

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disagree, under the current format there is quite a lot of ‘Yes I agree with (x) on point (y) but I’d also like to add (really good thing z).’ Opening up a section of the evening for free debate may be of benefit if it is moderated well. It may well be that the candidates don’t disagree on much anyway and there’s not a lot of free debate to be had, but it’s worth considering. 3.1.6 Thanks There’ll be a lot of thanking in this AGM, because a lot of people have done a lot of lovely things. Thanks to everybody who helped with the polling booth, with counting, to Celia Varela Sixto for helping with making up ballots, and to Mark Stewart, Bateman McBride and Colum Fraser for being Returning Officers at various stages of the year. Much appreciated. More importantly, thank you to the people of Scran for providing food and drink for counting sessions. Way more appreciated. 3.2 Board of Management 3.2.1 Training One of my key points in my manifesto was to do with improving and standardising training. To put it bluntly, I have not done that. I haven’t been able to update any of the training from last year and I apologise for that. It isn’t necessarily in disrepair or not fit for purpose, but I do think it can be better and I wanted to do that. I haven’t. I have, however, tried to introduce first aid training with the help of the Red Cross Society. They came in on the 3rd of February this year to deliver a rudimentary course in things that duty board may need to deal with like people passing out, taking drugs, cuts etc. This was (I believe) helpful and I had tried to get them back in after the General Election but unfortunately we couldn’t find a day when the board, the Red Cross and the space we would need were all available. I would recommend continuing with this though. Before Freshers’ Week I asked a man named Dave from Securigroup to come in and give some training on basic security work like how to deal with drunk people and so on. This seemed to be useful and reassured people a bit before going on to do some pretty hectic duties. I would recommend doing it again certainly before Freshers’ Week; whether it’s necessary for the rest of the year I am less sure. 3.2.2 Resignations Not counting people who resigned from their seats to run for election to another position, we had three CSRs, a CCSR and one social convenor resign before November last year. In each instance people took time off to think about what they wanted to do and decided to resign, and they all spoke to me beforehand. It’s a shame that this happens, but it can be unavoidable at times with people’s personal circumstances naturally taking priority. I think it’s important that Board as a whole club together to try and take the strain off of people when they have a lot going on with either coursework or personal circumstances, and in particular it is key that the Hon. Asst. Sec. is on hand to listen to people’s concerns. These people are volunteers without whom the Union would not exist. They deserve to be commended for whatever amount of time they put in, and supported throughout their involvement. 3.2.3 Discipline I have probably been too lax on discipline generally. I haven’t really pulled people up about things like quota or handing in reports late – minor things, but things that are supposed to lead to disciplinary action, particularly when it happens more than once. I would recommend being more

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vigilant in that respect in the future. Nobody wants to be the bad guy but, in my experience, people tend not to actually see you as the bad guy when you do call them out for not doing what they’re supposed to. I should have paid more attention to that side of discipline this year. I strongly believe that the procedure for disciplining board members needs a radical overhaul. I would have liked to have done that myself but time has not yet allowed me to. The confidential nature of board discipline means that I am not at liberty to discuss it in any great detail but it has been difficult and unpleasant. I think that board member discipline is an entirely different thing to ordinary member discipline, and the fact that they share the same reporting procedure in particular is unsuitable and unhelpful for all involved. When I have had to use discipline this year, I have had to bend the rules because they are wholly inadequate for dealing with the sort of highly emotional and stressful situations caused by these things. Because of the rarity of serious instances of board discipline and the requirement for confidentiality, there is little to no scope for assistance and the Hon. Asst. Sec and everyone else involved can end up quite isolated. That is not a situation that is good for anybody. I will be sitting down to look at it in detail shortly but in particular and to begin with I think there should be greater guidance for punishments and a more personal and flexible reporting structure than the currently required incident report sheet. The procedure should be made distinct from ordinary member disciplinary procedure, and purpose built to account for the fact that friends and colleagues may need to go through this stressful process and maintain a healthy and productive working relationship afterwards. At the moment, it is entirely inadequate in that respect. 3.2.4 CCSR When our CCSR took time off in September, I tried to take on the role. It has been suggested in the past that the role and responsibilities of the CCSR should be done by the Hon. Asst. Sec. I would recommend against that. I can’t say in 100% certain terms whether it was down to personal failings or too much work but I did not find much time for CCSR stuff. I only had two CSR Committees in the two months I was acting CCSR, and did not create any sort of PR Rota, so I would suggest that the role of CCSR is an important one in its own right and absolutely should be kept as a distinct position on the board in its own right. On a similar note, a number of items of CBP relating to CCSR were amended back in November. They included job description, the role of the CSR Committee, and how CCSRs are elected. Relatively minor adjustments but included things like restricting voting for who is CCSR to CSRs only and removing the responsibility to arrange board socials from the job description. 3.3 CBP 3.3.1 Bye-Laws and Policy I set myself the target of updating restructuring bye-laws and policy over the course of my term. I have not managed to dedicate as much time to this as I would have liked and I am currently only around 2/3 of the way through bye-laws. This has proven far more time consuming than I had anticipated but I will hopefully be able to get back to it once my exams are out of the way. They are weighty, technical, and difficult to digest texts and their aesthetic does not help trying to get board members to read them in any way. If we want our Board to function as well as it can, we need people to know the rules. You don’t need to be an expert in all things CBP, but to at least have an idea of what’s going on is vital. It is for this reason that I highly recommend regularly reviewing these documents for suitability, and accessibility. There are items in there that have been allowed to (rightly) fall out of common practice, but the governing documents have not been updated to reflect actual activity. We also need to be regularly reviewing them for issues of outdated

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language. I would recommend holding a CBP Committee with no focus other than review of the documents at least once every year, probably in the run up to the AGM. 3.3.2 CBP Committees I have had a number of CBP Committees this year. At the request of a member, I held a few committees to discuss last year’s AGM’s decision to remove first year seats. This has been talked about at length and the Committee concluded that the best course of action would be not to reintroduce first year seats at this point, but rather to try to make a more specific effort to engage and encourage first years to get involved in the Union through Freshers’ Week, stall at halls around election time, and continuous promotion throughout the year. A problem exists in getting first years involved in the Union full stop, not only in the Board of Management. This is in part the reason that the Committee felt that targeting them will be more beneficial than to reserve seats, as involvement at any level is positive. I also held several committees to discuss Section VII (Equality and Diversity) of the Constitution. I believed that parts of it were in need of review. In particular, I was concerned that we could force ourselves into difficult situations with the absolute prohibition on all forms of discrimination, including positive and necessary discrimination, without the consent of a General Meeting. I was concerned that if the Union were to find itself in a situation where there were two competing forms of discrimination, it would be unable to resolve that conflict in an expedient manner that is best for all parties involved. I felt it would be of benefit to the Union to allow the board to make such decisions, subject to serious limitations on its discretion to avoid any potential for abuse. The Committee discussed this at length and we have prepared a proposal which we feel is appropriate. As with all things CBP, Equality and Diversity needs regular review to ensure that we are always doing the very best we can in providing a safe space for our members. I would recommend more regular, reviewing-centric CBP Committees rather than simply waiting for an issue to present itself to have one. As I alluded to in paragraph 3.3.1, I think it would be of particular use to have a meeting or two in the run up to the AGM to discuss the state of the Union’s governing documents and see if there’s anything that needs to be updated. 3.4 Admin There’s a lot of it. I have been quite disorganised with a lot of this, but usually managed to get reports and minutes out for Board Meetings on the Saturday before. I have made no grand sweeping changes to the way that papers for any meetings are made up or circulated, but convenor training this year will have a large focus on report writing. I will be getting input from the incoming executive as to how they feel this should be done. At times reports this year have been lacking in detail, too informal, and lacking meaningful evaluation or discussion. This will hopefully be rectified for the year ahead by proper convenor training before the end of the term. In what is becoming a worrying trend, I failed in one of my manifesto promises with regards to admin as well. I had intended to make minutes of board meetings more accessible but, while they are all on issuu, I have not made much of an effort to alert the membership to their existence. I would recommend that this be done, either through facebook or through emails to members. 3.5 Duty Board I had intended in particular to update duty training as it can be inconsistent with so many people and so many different methods of training. This is something that I am disappointed I have not managed and I still believe that it is important that it be revisited. I took the decision this year to train as many people as possible to Level 1. This has proven to be very helpful on a personal level with creating rotas as people can be more flexible if they are fully

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trained. I would recommend that this continue, but perhaps train people up less readily than I have done. Everybody has been perfectly fine in their performance as duty board, but it is important to make sure that those trained up to Level 1 are people who the Executive Committee agree are competent and capable of performing the role. 3.6 Summary of Recommendations In short, I recommend for this year that:

Election PR be spread to every single nook and cranny of campus, and in enough time to actually alert people to the fact that it’s happening.

Go up to halls with some nomination packs well before the closure of the nomination period. Do this at other times of year for other reasons as well, but it could be particularly useful for elections.

Pursue the possibility of online voting. If it can be done at a reasonable cost, it’s worth it.

Revisit the way that board training (of all forms) is currently delivered.

Hold CBP Committees for no reason other than to review our governing documents for inaccuracies, inadequacies, and out-dated language/practice.

Be on hand to support your fellow board members and listen to their concerns. Be accommodating when a person is in need of some time off.

Pay close attention to aspects of board members’ responsibilities such as committee attendance and reports. Discipline people when necessary.

Amend board discipline procedure.

Publicly share board meeting minutes. 3.7 Thanks This has been a heck of a year. I did not anticipate the amount of work that I was going to have to do for my course, particularly since Christmas, and my work here has suffered as a result. I apologise to everybody for that. Thank you to all who helped me through it. Particular thanks to: Lauren and Yasmynn for being super helpful and supportive throughout this past year, y’all are delightful and it has been a pleasure to share a tiny, miserable, messy office with you both; to Celia for helping me with a lot of the more time-consuming administrative side of the job over the past few months (including typing up the minutes of last year’s AGM while I tore my hair out over essays and exams); to Euan for being an utterly invaluable source of advice on every single aspect of my job; and to Tom Frost for his fantastic help in difficult times, on more than one occasion. Thanks as well to everybody I’ve been on board/had a pint with in the year and a half I’ve been here. You’ve all been wonderful people. The Union and I have greatly benefitted from your company. Ta.

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4. Report of the Campaigns and Charities Convenor 4.1 Introduction This past year has been a wonderful one for the C&C Committee, and I am very proud of all that we have managed to accomplish. My belief when taking on the role of C&C Convenor was that we needed to have a dynamic year and push ourselves to see what we have the potential to be capable of. I strongly feel that I have only just scratched the surface of what this committee has the power to achieve, and I am hopeful that this can set us on a longer term trend of bigger and better successes. With the idea of pushing ourselves in mind, we set a fundraising target for this year of £12,500. This would be a four to fivefold increase on the highest previous total, and in spite of being a challenge I believe this target aided a lot to drive the motivation of the volunteers and particularly myself. In my manifesto for this role, the main areas that I wanted to focus on were:

- Raising the profile of C&C within the QMU and the wider University

- Increasing Committee attendance

- Increasing the annual events schedule of the committee

- Collaborate more with the other committees

4.2 The Year Overview ‘At a Glance’ This table represents the funds raised by the committee for various charities across the year. The figures that change between the Fundraising Total and the Total Profits to Charity, indicate where funds have been removed from the total to cover the costs of the event or committee activity.

Charity Event Fundraising Total Total Profits to Charity

Charlie Waller Memorial Trust

Freshers’ Week £1904.47 £1798.89

Sense Scotland Bungee Jump £1012.04

Head Shave £1894.39

Marathon £1305.72

Firewalk £338.70

Sober October £339

Weekly Fundraising £540.59 £359.97

Movember £134.59

Breast Cancer Care Wear it Pink £304.11 £293.40

Children in Need £94.31

CHAS Spare Change Collection

£106.96

Flourish House Dance-a-thon £150

Terrence Higgins Trust

Red Ribbon Ball £916.08 £718.00

Total £9040.96 £8545.97

4.3 General Practices 4.3.1 Volunteers

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The committee has benefitted this year from an increase in attendance, partly due to a successful Freshers’ Week interaction with Freshers’ Helpers and Freshers. Giving Helpers an experience of C&C in Freshers’ Week encouraged many to take part in the committee, or an interest in our activities. That consistent support throughout the year has been a great boon and I would suggest that this practice is continued. This year, I have also advocated volunteers bring their own personal challenges and charities of interest to the committee. I believe this has boosted committee morale, in addition to allowing a wider range of charities and campaigns to be benefitted. 4.3.2 Clubnight Sales Glowstick sales have proven popular across the year, but decreasing attendance at clubnights may be a concern if a resolution is not found. The most profitable nights have been those on which novelty items or facepaint have been sold, and any opportunity to incorporate these should be taken. My one greatest lesson in this area is that overbuying is the best policy, as we have consistently run out of novelty items before demand for them. 4.3.3 Free Condoms The Free Condom service has continued to run this year with success and efficiency due to the hard work of many volunteers. The stand increasingly serves a dual purpose as an information point for our various campaign materials, which is a valuable asset to the greater purpose of the service. The one issue that the service faces is that distributions are inconsistent. It is often felt by volunteers that the extensive opening times are unnecessary, and this year I have been unable to establish a trend of rush times in an average week. This could be an area to look at in the future. 4.4 New Introductions 4.4.1 Relationships with Charities We have managed to establish a very close relationship with our Charity of the Year, Sense Scotland, which has been a very motivational experience. If possible in the future, I would recommend an attempt be made to engage with the work that the charity does as it has been a wonderful experience. 4.4.2 Donation Cake Sales Everybody loves cake. Baking cakes that can be bought on a donation basis constituted the primary fundraising efforts for Pink Magic, Movember and Children in Need, and has delivered excellent returns for relatively little effort. 4.4.3 Facebook Page This is the first year that C&C has taken to social media, and it has proved to have some success in broadening our reach to people outside the QM bubble, and promoting our campaigns and services. 4.4.4 JustGiving Page Having a JustGiving page to share and promote our activities has been hugely beneficial to increasing our online presence, as well as being a convenient totalizer for the committee. Setting a target to aim for has also provided a motivational boost which I would encourage future convenors emulate.

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4.5 Freshers’ Week In terms of money raised, this was the most successful Freshers’ Week ever for C+C, with a total of £1,704.03 raised for CWMT. Although this was an excellent total and I could not be prouder, I do think that there is still scope for future years to push for bigger and better totals. Just Giving text donations: £36 As this is the first time that we have ever used this method of donation, the total was never expected to be huge. The SRC has completed research on the different text donation systems available, and with a better system of PR – maybe online and/or in Qmunicate, I think that this may have promise. 4.5.1 Vintage Fair: £185 This event was a glorious success on the whole. All of the stallholders had an amazing time and were incredibly complimentary of all of our Helpers and the organisation. Though there were not as many stallholders present as I would have liked a lot of these events depend on word of mouth, and I have been assured by each of them that after this year’s success they will happily be involved again and encourage others to do the same. This means that any other fair held in the future has the potential to be much bigger and more successful. Additionally the event is easy to set up and run, and returns a guaranteed fundraising total and an excellent day event. 4.5.2 Buskathon: £39.35 I really enjoyed the inclusion of this event and thought it was a lot of fun. I would definitely not be opposed to doing it again, but as I wasn’t the main organiser I will leave any official comments to the Social Report. 4.5.3 Sales Glowsticks - £818.30 Boas – £75.92 Neon face paint - £403.20 We made a stunning amount of money on all three of these but we ran out of each before the people willing to buy them stopped. I bought more than I thought we’d ever be able to shift, but in future we could get away with buying even more. 4.5.4 Hydration Station: £146.26 4.5.5 Debate The debate itself was fantastic and the speakers enjoyed it. Those who went to see it also enjoyed it; the only issue is that there were not very many of them. I believe that this was most likely due to our choice of topic, ‘This house believes that the benefits of charities are suffering due to over commercialisation’ was very different from the cross campus debate focus of Independence. Whether or not a debate is a good idea for next year is something that I would leave up to the judgement of the next convenor. 4.5.6 Coffee Morning This was very well attended with 25-30 people present, and we gained a couple of volunteers who have attended committee all year. Although these mornings are less successful for other committees I would encourage C&C to continue with this method of engaging Freshers. 4.6 Cross Committee Collaborations

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4.6.1 Events Collaborations such as Pink Magic and the Danceathon have been a fantastic opportunity to increase the profile of the C&C committee to the regular members, and raise the potential for money to be made, although clubnight attendance has proven to be a great influence in the success of these nights. Additionally to specific charity nights, C&C has also benefitted from big annual events such as Paint Party, Rainbow Magic, Halloween and Hogmanay, so it is advisable for C&C to continue to keep track of upcoming events and adjust our sales accordingly. 4.6.2 Publications Occasional articles in Qmunicate to advertise upcoming events or campaigns have been very beneficial to us in promoting our activities, and this year the two committees have formed a good working relationship. I am hopeful that this can continue in the future as both committees enjoy increasing success. 4.7 Events 4.7.1 Red Ribbon Ball, Cirque Rouge 4.7.1.1 Overview Anecdotally, I can tell you that the night was amazing. There were several changes made to the formula of the night which I believe were mostly positive:

2am close: Approximately 60 people remained at the night until close, and the

atmosphere made this well worth it. With the size of Qudos reduced by the tables the

room didn’t feel empty, and everyone seemed to have a cracking time. I feel that this

made the event more rounded as it also allowed some of the acts to stay behind and

get involved.

Two-tiered Tickets: This goes hand-in-hand with the 2am close really, and I think it was

beneficial. Although it was a less popular option, there were people who attended only

the later part of the night. A method of differentiating between tickets would be handy

in the future, but I don’t think we lost out due to all tickets being the same.

Circus Theme: Of everything, this is the change that I am proudest of. Over the last two

years the committee have had very little input on what the event is, and there were

comments made last year that the event was a carbon copy of the year before. I

thoroughly believe that the introduction of a theme made the night special and was a

real benefit to the committee as they could properly own the event.

Carnival Stalls: Again, this went hand-in-hand with the theme. Although almost

inconsequential in terms of financial gain, I think these had potential and worked well

as set dressing.

4.7.1.2 Recommendations

PR-ing: The PR this year was fantastic, but we need to find ways to widen the net of

people that attend the event. Much as the number of people who attended created

a great atmosphere, a few more from outside of the QM fold would be good from a

fundraising perspective.

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New themes: More. Bigger. Better. Amazing. Anything that involves more unique

acts will go down a storm. (My vote would be for Moulin Rouge next year, just

saying.)

4.7.2 Movember This was intended to be a cross campus effort, but we were the only group that got involved. For a reason that I am not sure of, Movember seemed to be a non-thing this year whereas in previous years it has been incredibly popular. I do not know if this is a trend that will continue, but it is an event that we lose nothing by getting involved in, and it makes a fun theme for an Events collaboration. 4.7.3 Jailbreak This event was a complete failure this year and there was relatively little interest shown in it at all. Although the popularity of the event has been declining over the past few years, there were several factors this year that, if different, may have allowed the event to run. The first and foremost of these was that the timing of the Jailbreak was much later than in previous years. I take responsibility for this being a bad idea and it was something that was questioned in January when the calendar for second semester was being established. At this point however, the SRC informed me that RAG Week was still an idea that they planned on pursuing cross campus, and it was concluded by myself and the committee that the difficulty of the late scheduling may be counterbalanced by the hype surrounding RAG Week. This week did not end up coming to pass which I believe was the greatest blow to the event. A second and more directly controllable reason for the failure was that PR and event information was not released until too close to the event. I, again, was wholly responsible for this and admit that I did not have the foresight to structure an online PR plan or strategy for the distribution of posters around campus, both of which have shown in our other events to make an incredible difference to participation and general promotion. By the end of second semester my workload was increasing and my motivation failing to provide the drive that it had in semester one, and I will be making a concerted effort in my handover to ensure that Lucy has plans in place that should greatly reduce these stresses. In the future, if this event is to be continued, a massive PR push would be necessary to make it appealing and promote the excitement of the event. I would also encourage the next convenor to schedule Jailbreak for the weekend that would best suit the QM, as I do not imagine that the SRC will be reviving RAG Week in the future to the extent that it has been done in the past. A brief word on RAG Week: The RAG Week that the University has enjoyed in previous years has become increasingly difficult for the SRC to accommodate in second semester. This is mostly due to the fact that the dates of the week do not hold any national or international significance so can remain fluid, whereas International Women’s Week and other broadly recognised campaign and charity celebrations are branded to take place annually at a particular time. With the increasing significance and popularity of these broader campaigns, I think it doubtful that second semester will ever have the space available to showcase RAG Week as a prime-time occasion. In future therefore, it would possibly be worth thinking about either scheduling our own QM RAG Week, or spearheading a cross-campus move of RAG Week to semester one or three. The latter would, I believe, fall to us to initiate and take responsibility for if it to be successful because, as I have said, RAG Week is no longer a priority for any of the other student bodies. 4.7.4 Mini Jailbreak

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Although it may seem that this event was not a success, I am happy with what we did. The event made £25, but more importantly we have created an idea, PR, and a brand which I think has the opportunity to be something in the future, especially due to the decline in popularity of our full Jailbreak over the past few years. I would encourage this idea to be used in the future both to expand our annual calendar and potentially provide a more appealing option to people looking to take part in a Jailbreak-like event. 4.7.5 Christmas Fair This event was generally a lovely idea and has the potential to be much bigger and encompass a lot more of our building facilities and committees. My original intention for this event was a much larger scale school Christmas fair type day, but unfortunately this was not the case. If this event was to be repeated I would suggest that it takes place earlier in the semester when exam pressure is not so intense yet. 4.8 Personal Challenges This year the committee has hosted four personal challenge fundraisers in addition to the traditional Movember and Sober October events. Teams Jump, Shave, Fire and Run have been the most profitable in terms both of income and committee motivation, as volunteers have been able to undertake challenges personal to them with the potential to tailor the charity to their personal investments. Being able to provide opportunities to volunteers has been a wonderful way of increasing engagement and personal investment from volunteers and the wider groups of people that donate money to them, and I would strongly encourage future convenors to enable this continuing, bearing in mind that it must be kept in healthy balance with our full committee annual events and not done to excess. 4.9 Campaigns 4.9.1 Consent Campaign The button badges proved to be a huge success in Freshers’ Week, and have anecdotally been most useful as a conversation starter, enabling volunteers to provide helpful information on general ‘staying safe’ protocol to more receptive Freshers. We have plenty of badges still available to continue this campaign in the upcoming Freshers’ Week, and it generally ties in well to many cross campus campaign initiatives such as Good Night Out which we have taken part in this year. Hydration Station: This has been a fantastic initiative as it has provided income from donations as well as being a great method of aiding our members to get home safe after a night out. Free sweets and lollipops as well as water have proven particularly popular, and seeking donations of water from our suppliers has allowed us to run this campaign at no cost. 4.9.2 Elephant in the Room This has been an initiative by the committee which has been created by a subcommittee lead by Priya and Lucy. The basic premise of the campaign has been established in such a way that allows the information of services provided to be tailored to the specific and changing requirements of the student population. The online presence of the campaign has been met with a great amount of engagement from the student population, and has helped to mutually spread the online presence of the C&C committee as a whole. The physical presence of the campaign in RAG Week was also met with positive engagement from passing students, who were on the whole keen to contribute their #MyElephant. I hope that this can continue and become an institution of the C&C committee. 4.10 Still To Do

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4.10.1 CBP During the coming semester I am looking to meet with Bill and members of the outgoing Exec to create a written document for CBP on the running of the C&C Committee, as the processes by which we run have never been included in the QMs governing documents. 4.10.2 Finance The charity side of the committee is currently close to financial autonomy which I am hoping to look into, as I feel we could benefit from extra support either from the Union or an external donor. I am hopeful that I can secure some resolution for this before the new academic year. 4.11 Thanks I cannot believe how quickly this year has flown by. Being C&C convenor has been an absolute blast, and I feel that I have learned and done so much. There are so many people to thank for their hard work and dedication, which has kept me sane and motivated even though at times this year has felt like an uphill struggle. To my fellow convenors: Kat, Patrick, Chris, Max and Tom, our collaborations over the past year have been fantastic, and I have loved being on this crazy adventure with you all. To Bill, Lauren, Yas and Jack, thank you for trusting me to run with the ideas of the committee, which have often been unsupported by previous experience and were occasionally a total trust exercise, it has really paid off for us and I hope that this can be a lasting legacy. To my beautiful, wonderful, eclectic, charitable and downright awesome committee, this is your success. We have made a thing that every one of you should be ridiculously proud of, because we had a goal and in aiming to achieve it we have managed to go further than any previous committee. I adore you all, please don’t be strangers. Finally, to my wonderful lefties: Leslie, Priya, Andrew, and my brilliant successor Lucy, you have helped me more than I can ever possibly express in a report. You have had to work overtime to make up for all of the skills that I am lacking in, and are responsible for a lot of the jumbled ideas that have fallen out of my brain being fully formed into actual plans. Our relationship this year has been a beautiful metaphor – every time I have pointed to a height I want to reach, it’s been you guys who built the ladder. I couldn’t be more grateful.

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5. Report of the Convenor of Current Student Representatives 5.1 Submitted by Claire Dobson 5.1.1 Hello. Reading over my last AGM report, I see so much encouraging positivity and enthusiasm. However, as many of the previous Board probably know, I didn’t exactly complete my time as CCSR. Due to personal reasons, including but not limited to the general stress of university, and to be honest, complete disillusionment with the Board and the Union, I handed the reigns to Jack (Hon Asst Sec) in order to take some time out, and it remained that way until I came off Board. Therefore, this report is likely to be considerably less enthusiastic or positive, short, and lacking much useful information, but I will try my best to deliver to you what I learned from my short time in the role. 5.1.2 Role as CCSR/CSR committee I chose to continue CSR meetings in the same manner that Emily had in place before me. I believed the informal set up worked well and helped new CSR’s feel more comfortable and able to express ideas in an accepting and open environment. This is sometimes quite daunting at Board meetings, especially when you’ve not quite settled in yet. As it always has been, it was often hard to find a time suitable for everyone, but the meetings were generally well attended. Shout out to Lesley here, for her fabulous minute taking, saving me typing it up later. The CSR’s expressed wishes for a star chart in the same fashion Emily had set up before. I remember this being discussed at the last AGM with mixed feelings, along with CSR ‘projects’. I had intention to continue this as it heightened morale and acknowledged work done, but I chose not to employ the system as I did not believe it was my responsibility to so closely monitor CSR participation. (CSR’s received stars for PRing and for completion of tasks in a project.) I felt at the time that if you take on the role of CSR, you know what is expected of you on the PR front and your duties to the union, and you should do them without prompting. This is perhaps an idealistic opinion, as some people do need a helping hand or a push in the right direction, but I wanted to offer that in a different, less spoon-fed way. I wanted the CSR’s to take more individual responsibility I suppose. As far as I was aware, the CSR’s continued their duties and maintained a good level of enthusiasm for what they wanted to achieve in their time on Board. Some projects really took off- the first that spring to mind are the Battle of the Bands and the new and improved Comedy nights thanks to the hard work of Alex and Chris. Some other CSR’s chose to focus more on the general upkeep of the Union and do more for committees rather than a strictly implemented ‘project’. I was more than happy with this as committees (bar Pubs which is always loaded) really needed attention. I like to think I provided a good help and enthusiasm which is needed for this role of motivator/guide/whatever it is (more on this comment later), before I left. I will not deny that towards the end, my disillusionment with the Board likely created some negative vibes, but after discussions with the CSR’s, I learned that my feelings were shared by several, particularly amongst my generation of Boardies. 5.1.3 Morale/Communication The best example of shared feelings of disillusionment amongst the CSR’s came during the planning of Magic. The decision to keep DJ Toast was made by the Exec and Convenors with no regard to CSR opinion (something I understand, has long been a problem within the Board). I actually found out from a CSR that the decision had been made. This shows the lack of communication within the Board: a huge failing that needs addressed (only one Exec-Cons meeting was arranged and seen through in my time as Convenor). Before the planning of Magic was underway, the Board asked for CSR input. I rallied the troops and we discussed it in detail with some fantastic ideas coming out of it. The primary feeling was that a new DJ was needed. When

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this did not happen, with no discussion with the CSR’s directly or via myself, good vibes about what was to come were quickly deflated. 5.1.4 Problems Found/Solutions for Future On this note, the biggest issues I found during my time as CCSR were 1, a lack of communication within the Board, and 2, the position of CCSR is kind of redundant. The first issue I discussed in one example above, but more on the second. I felt at the time that my role was reduced to ‘middle man’. I did my job as it stated in CBP and I offered help to my CSR’s whenever and wherever I could, but more often than not, all I could do was say ‘speak to X’ or ’you need Y’s go ahead first’ etc, which was nothing the CSR’s did not already know. I also felt it was sometimes expected that I do the job for them which is not what the CCSR is for. I could help, but there needed to be give and take. Poor communication did not help this and neither did poor support from the rest of the Board. CCSR is an important position but I do not feel it currently works, or is even taken seriously enough to work well in the Board as it currently is. I’m not sure I have a solution to this issue, or have the energy or desire to find one, but I hope Celia did not face these issues and I hope this is resolved in future Boards. I also felt that previous members no longer on Board had too much input at times. Yes, the QM is about its members, but it is SO resistant to change and the overly ‘Hack-y’ presence/attitude does it no favours and is detrimental to current CSRs and members who want to see a move forward. I brought this issue up with the previous Exec who shared in my worry, and the current Exec, but all I could do was register concern. 5.1.5 Ciao Clearly I had my ups and downs as CCSR and I perhaps could have achieved more but it felt like I was hitting a brick wall (see resistant to change section) and I decided with a heavy heart that it wasn’t for me. I’m grateful for what the QM has given me and what it can offer and I won’t forget the good or fail to appreciate its incredible history. As I say, I just fell out of love. Soz. What I will say is that the CSRs were good beans and I was proud of them all in what they achieved, big and small. Cheers guys. Love to y’all.

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5.2 Submitted by Celia Verela Sixto 5.2.1 Projects I decided to continue using the ‘projects’ system to organise the work of the CSRs. I met with all newly elected CSRs to discuss their manifesto points and give them some brief guidance as to where to go with their projects, who to get in touch with to make them a reality, etc. I also met with continuing CSRs to discuss how they would continue to work with their projects. This was very useful. One of my main priorities when I came on as CCSR was to promote collaboration amongst CSRs. Sometimes one can get stuck with their project, and not know how to proceed any further. This is why it is so important to foster an environment where CSRs feel confortable enough to ask for help from their peers, and where people can feel valued for the abilities they have. I felt like this was a particular success. Most people took to their role with enthusiasm, offering up their time not just to their own personal projects and ideas, but to those of their colleagues, and to the committees. In collaboration with the President, we devised a system to report the process of the CSRs to the Board of Management. This consisted of a list of action points that would be bolded as soon as they were completed. As good as this idea is in theory, it proved somewhat impractical, since the sheer volume of action points made the CCSR’s report too long to be practical. My successor has improved on this system by keeping the updated list of action points between the CCSR and the President, and reporting on any major developments on the CSRs’ projects. I think this makes the process that much smoother and easier, and I would recommend that it is continued to be used, going forward. 5.2.2 PR I started out with quite strong intentions of creating a comprehensive and cohesive PR rota that people would adhere to, and penalising people for not doing their minimum shifts. As the time went on, however, University workload and personal issues got in the way, and I ended up not dedicating the time and effort necessary to produce and enforce this. I hope my groundwork (a list of buildings where to distribute PR) has been useful for my successor. 5.2.3 Committees I started out my term as CCSR with the idea of holding regular weekly meetings, alternating between meetings dedicated to updating and discussing projects and meetings about possible changes in policy. I found that such a constant stream of meetings was not only a lot for CSRs, but quite difficult to organise, considering that CSRs have to attend enough convenor committees to make quota, Board Meetings, and everyone has University and work, etc. The meetings then became less regular, and I tried to substitute this by making a greater use of the CSR Facebook group, where I would post updates and ask people how they were getting on with their projects. I was asked by the President to hold meetings where I could ask CSRs whether they knew of any campaigns or policies that our members would like to get behind. This proved to be quite tricky to chair and think about, and it felt a bit redundant once the Elephant in The Room Campaign was set up, which was led by a separate sub-committee. 5.2.4 Exec-Cons In my position as CCSR I attended Executive-Convenor meetings, with the aim of trying to ensure

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that the voices of the CSRs were heard, and to bring information back and forth between CSRs and Exec-Cons. This was quite nice, since this year’s Executive and Convenors had a fantastic working relationship with all CSRs, so I never saw myself in a position where I had to call either of the parties out, or act as a mediator. Thanks everyone for being lovely. 5.2.5 Support As outlined by the job description, I tried to be supportive of the CSRs, ensuring that they were aware that theirs is a volunteer position, and that they should never feel like they can’t deal with the job. I felt like people saw me as an approachable enough person to come talk to me about their issues, and to comfortably letting me know when they couldn’t attend meetings, meet quota or when they just needed some time our for personal reasons. I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to be aware that the role of CCSR has to be a supportive one. It is crucial to make our volunteers feel at home and cared for. They are the driving force of this Union, and making it clear to them that they are respected is incredibly important. 5.2.6 Looking forward I enjoyed my role as CCSR, it is a fantastic opportunity to take responsibility and have some organising fun. I look forward to working closely with the next CCSRs. I strongly advise that they encourage CSRs to create a close knitted group, and that they foster an environment that promotes collaboration. However, the role would benefit from a bit more discipline when it comes to PRing efforts. Thanks everyone!

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5.3 Submitted by Priya Khindria 5.3.1 Introduction Becoming the next convener of CSRs was both an exciting and challenging task and I apologize in advance if this report is much shorter than others. As I am sure has been the case for ever CCSR taking over just before Easter it is difficult to establish a routine before the holidays and then exam season however I am trying to do this as best as I possibly can. I would like to thank the CSRs for being very communicative and involved even in these busy times. As always it is hard to find a time that suits everybody to meet but what I have done is tried to have meetings fortnightly and for those that cannot make it I meet with them separately. 5.3.2 PR PR is a constant battle we are always facing and is regularly brought up in CSRs manifestos. In my opinion we started off strong with PR at the beginning of this year but then it started to descend as university work piles up and people are a lot less enthusiastic. What I think is often forgotten among CSRs (I include myself in this) is that it is part of their job description to take out and update PR. After the first meeting I held with the CSRs I made a fixed PR Rota where two people go out each day of the week and do specific buildings on campus. This was working well before the Easter holidays and now as we are in exam season I understand with trying to meet quota every week, revising and staying sane people aren’t as readily available to do PR. I will be keeping a PR Rota into my next term and I would advise it continues as I feel it makes CSRs more accountable. 5.3.3 Training CSRs have all started their training for duty board and health and safety with some of them having finished it. I have made efforts to speak to everyone to ensure they feel adequately trained and they all seem very comfortable with their roles in the building. Another training aspect is tech training. Wiktoria and I were discussing the importance of at least one duty board having enough tech training to be able to set up for a quiz. Once we can get a date organized that most of the CSRs can attend we will be setting up tech training for the CSRs and any other members of board that would like to join. Tech team are great but I do not think we should rely on them too heavily as they are a group of volunteers. CSRs should be able to complete basic set up incase a tech team member cannot make it, is late or if they have no one signed up for that event. 5.3.4 Membership The CSRs have their email address set up and we are checking this at regular intervals. We have been brainstorming a few ways to try and engage our membership more. The suggestion boxes are used as rubbish bins essentially in food factory so the committee agreed that there is no point issuing any more of these. Online surveys were set up by past CSRs but never sent out – so this is something we will be doing in the upcoming weeks. It is the project of some CSRs to hold a feedback evening with some incentive to encourage members to come and discuss any questions, complaints or (if we are lucky) praises they have to CSRs. 5.3.5 Projects Most CSRs have been very enthusiastic with points from their manifestos and turning these into realities and I am really impressed with their motivation to go out and do things independently. The main focuses of the CSRs are artwork, PR of scran, home student engagement and membership interaction. Even in this busy time frame most CSRs remain enthusiastic and I cannot wait to spend the next few months working with them and seeing their projects come off of the paper and into the union.

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5.3.6 Reports and Action points for CSRs Previously it was common for CSRs and CCSRs to have an action point list and this was relayed to the board of management at board meetings. In my term I decided these action points didn’t need to be seen by the whole board and they also didn’t give enough description about projects to the board. I now complete reports with a summary of each project but have an action point list that’s shared between myself, the CSRs and the President. 5.3.7 The Rest of My Term The personal goals I have set myself until I come off of board in October include a variety of things (some of which have already been mentioned in this report). As soon as exam stress is over I would like to have a CSR bonding night to keep morale up and make us feel more united like a committee. I would also like to maintain the PR Rota- I will make sure I bring up the people that do not contribute to PR. These things can’t be put into place and then not followed up on as it becomes too easy for people to be lazy. As I already mentioned I would like to have the CSRs tech trained which will be collaborated with events. Most importantly I want to be here to continue to help CSRs complete their projects in anyway I can.

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6. Report of the Events Convenor 6.1 Welcome Hello! Well done on making it this far through the reports. I’ve tried my absolute best to cover everything we’ve done this year and my advice for going forward. I’ve started by talking about Magic, describing the creation process and evaluating the night. I’ve then discussed other one off events before going on to talk about the committee and Tech Team. 6.2 Magic By far the biggest change I oversaw during my time as convenor was Magic, our new Friday Club Night. I hope to make clear in this report the process we went through in designing and launching a new night, as well as why we made the decisions we did. I will finish off by giving my own personal evaluation of Magic and my advice for moving forward. We chose to change the way we approached themes this year, making them more ‘additions to the night’ as opposed to changing the night in any way. For this reason they are discussed together, with the exception of Christmas Magic and Spring Break Magic. 6.2.1 From elections to launch. From the beginning of my term (and before), ‘Friday Nights’ were a hot topic around the union. There had been a number of discussions in Board meetings and Events committee about the failings of Snap Crackle and Pop, with everyone agreeing that some sort of change needed to take place. To give a little more context, the flagging attendance of the previous two years resulted in a 15% and then 35% decline in year-on-year revenue. Taking on board the many concerns people had raised about Snap Crackle and Pop, myself, the Events Manager, the General Manager and Executive met weekly from the 5th of June to discuss ideas and construct a business plan. For ease of reference I will refer to this group as the ‘Magic Committee’ throughout this report. From the very beginning the Magic Committee all agreed that no matter what decision was made about the night, the approach we took in development and execution needed to change. By reviewing the transition from Cheesy Pop to Snap Crackle and Pop, we found that the process had focussed only on music and branding, with decisions being based on anecdotal evidence and opinions, spending as little as possible and a few meetings of a closed group. To improve our approach, we therefore focussed on: fully researching our competition, creating a business plan, involving the Board and Committee in all aspects of research and decision making, considering investing money into ways of making Qudos smaller (rather than making do with what we had) and looking in to flexible financing of the night (considering a change in the entry price). Making sure everyone was involved in the research and decision making was the most crucial of those points. Our board and our committee members represent the membership of the union, and it was by involving everyone that we could develop a night that people wanted. Moreover, it was important that the committee felt the Friday club night was their night, and that they were invested in it themselves. Keeping everyone involved in the process proved difficult, as half of the committee/board had went home for summer. However, I’m proud to say that the process remained transparent, with everyone being able to have their say through meetings held in the union, conversations online, and surveys sent out throughout the summer. We initially considered three options. Returning to Cheesy Pop, launching a new night or running Cheesy Pop and a second Club night. Each of these options were put through a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) by the Magic committee, Board and Events Committee. From the outset the Events Committee unanimously agreed that launching a brand new night was our top priority. In addition to this, our competition in town was thoroughly

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706 658568

762

599

1100

618689

349 304

72 86

411

0.00

200.00

400.00

600.00

800.00

1,000.00

1,200.00

Magic Term 1

Magic

analysed, with surveys conducted on their genre of music, drinks prices, entry prices and methods of promotion. Initially there was some support for bringing back Cheesy Pop as a secondary Club night, hoping that it would prevent us from losing Cheesy’s ‘core followers’ whilst also being able to appeal to more of our members. However, as discussion continued we became worried as to whether we could actually sustain two club nights, whether we would actually divide our audience and the potential for Cheesy Pop to remain damaging to our reputation. In the end the Events Committee/Board unanimously agreed that that launching a new club night was the way to go. As discussions continued the committee agreed to launch a night that played more mainstream music, had a second ‘indie’ room in Jim’s, focussed far more on free entry with the use of free passes and guest list, and made more use of cheap drinks and promotions. When I ran for election, I promised that whatever we did on Friday nights would be designed by the committee, and I’m proud to say we’ve achieved that. Regardless of any opinion on the successes or failings of the night. 6.2.2 Numbers 6.2.2.1 Numbers from Magic Semester 1

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484

261

378

319 322

218

334

297

351

477444

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11

Magic - Term 2

Magic

6.2.2.2 Comparison of Magic and Snap Crackle and Pop for Term 1. Note that week 6 was Halloween this year, explaining the large difference.

6.2.2.3 Numbers for Magic Semester 2

706 658

568

762

599

1100

618689

349304

72 86

411

588630 597

788

514

251304

370

560464

288

149

638

0.00

200.00

400.00

600.00

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1,000.00

1,200.00Magic vs SCP Term 1

Magic SCP

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484

261

378

319 322

218

334297

351

477444

750

836

421385

489

592

492

572

279 262

432

0

100

200

300

400

500

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700

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Magic vs SCP - Term 2

Magic SCP

6.2.2.4 Comparison of Magic and Snap Crackle and Pop for Term 2.

6.2.3 Analysis As you can see, Magic did not achieve the numbers we wanted. Instead it mainly just carried the trend of declining attendance seen in the previous years. Generally performing at similar attendance levels to Snap Crackle and Pop. We got off to a relatively strong start (although with pretty much matching numbers to SCP) but this quickly declined as the semester went on. Many features of the night were well received, in particular people loved the giveaways we bought with our launch budget (t-shirts, tattoos, badges, stickers, foam fingers) and the free popcorn which remained popular all year. Moreover people loved our Magic Experience offer, which allowed societies to book in advance for free entry, free cloakroom, some giveaways and a free drink. Initially people responded very well to Jim’s bar, people were up dancing and giving great feedback about the music. Unfortunately as the numbers dropped Jim’s grew quieter. Eventually we shifted our focus towards getting society DJs in, something which really helped to fill the room and I’d definitely recommend for the future. In the first semester we ran an inflatable (bucking Bull, surf board, gladiator fight etc.) which people loved and worked really well in shrinking the dancefloor. Unfortunately this added an unsustainable amount to our expenditure, so in second semester we replaced it with a shot bar. We ran our themed nights slightly different this year. The Events and Magic committee agreed that consistency was important – people should always know what they’re getting. Therefore, themes should manifest as additions to the night, rather than changing the night to any great extent. These went down with varying success. Pizza Party (free pizza) was loved by all, definitely something worth doing again, as was our Laser night (lots of lasers in Qudos). Beat a Maxx was also well received. Our Mexican Magic which was done in collaboration with the Mexican Society, unfortunately didn’t boost numbers, nor did our Vegas Magic in Week 12 which we hoped might have pulled in people who couldn’t stay for Christmas Magic/Daft Friday. Rainbow Magic saw a lot of the LGBTQ+ soc fill the dancefloor, but Fem Pop Magic didn’t really see any jump in numbers. Personally, past the first few weeks, I don’t think the themes made a massive change in numbers (with the exception of Rainbow Magic). Had we not done them, I believe we’d have seen a very similar number of people through the door. For the future, perhaps shift the focus away from a

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‘theme’ and just spend the money on some extras. Buy some more giveaways, an inflatable, something different to add to the night rather than what – as is may be seen by many people – is just words on a poster. Anecdotally the feedback on atmosphere has been much more positive than the previous year. Even on our quiet nights people have still been having a good time. This was often shown in committee, where week on week committee members had perceived the night as being busier than it actually had been. With SCP it was much more obvious when it was quiet. The use of drapes, inflatables, our stretch fabric and new booths also worked wonders in shrinking Qudos down and making it seem busier earlier. I would say that the use of Paid PR staff has been effective at helping bring people in this year. Particularly because it gave us confidence that PR was still getting out there when the committee were unavailable. If I could do it all again, I would approach the way we financed the night differently. Initially we believed that greatly increasing the opportunity for free entry would encourage more people to come down, in addition to people spending the £3/£4 they saved on bar. In reality, whilst I do believe the free entry was a good draw (and it was highlighted in our research that it was much easier to get in for free everywhere in town) it ultimately hindered our financial stability. Naturally our increased free entry has driven down our income from door money, but whilst bar sales have increased overall, this seems to be down to external bookings rather than sales at Magic. Often it seems a lot of people arrive late after pre-drinking, get in for free and only buy one or two drinks (often messy bombs). Whilst the increased free entry was incredibly important in our first few weeks, I think it would have been wiser to reduce free entry after this point, enabling us to better support our financing with intake from the door money. This is especially poignant when reflecting on our quieter nights, where bar sales were naturally down and unable to be salvaged from the door takings. 6.2.4 Christmas Magic (411) The loss of 12 hour licences was a big blow to our end of term events, and meant that we had to somewhat rethink our approach. The committee discussed what they felt the most important features of the event should be. It was decided that, since the GU would still run a successful and big Daft Friday, we needed to offer a cheap and simple alternative. There was no point trying to replicate what they did. We decided not to go with a big act so at to keep the entry price down (we were also aware that a lot of good cheesy acts don’t cost too much – but a lot of good mainstream acts do!). We stuck with just a ‘Christmas’ theme to make it clear what we were doing, and ran extras throughout the night (That Drummer that DJ, Christmas Panto, Santa’s Grotto, extended license, mulled wine etc.) Numbers were down on the year before, which perhaps suggests more people are willing to pay extra for a bigger act, although it’s worth noting that higher ticket sales the previous year still struggled to cover the higher cost of the event. For the future, perhaps go back to thinking big, and plan the event in the first five weeks of the semester so you can push it right through the second half. 6.2.5 Spring Break Magic (444) Much like Christmas Magic, the thinking behind this event was to put on an event without greatly increasing our expenditure. We settled for a Spring Break theme because we felt the idea behind Spring Break (getting drunk/having fun) was clear, and we could make some additions to Magic on a relatively low budget (red cups/beach ball drop/late licence). Whilst we didn’t see the increase in numbers we would have liked, people still seemed to have a really good time, and the beach ball drop was incredibly fun (although we could perhaps have done with a fewer of them). Looking back I now feel that we should avoid themes unless we are able to commit more money to them,

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as when done on a budget it often seems like the night doesn’t really match/live up to the theme. As I suggested earlier in this report, it is worth considering spending the money on fun additions to the night that we can advertise. 6.2.6 Going forward Ultimately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to consistently increase attendance. Whilst we had accepted a change in student clubbing habits (seen all across town) meant that we were unlikely to ever see incredibly high numbers, we still didn’t reach our targets. Looking towards next year, there are obviously some decisions to be made. Personally, this year of Magic has been an eye opener for me. I often hear people say that a club night is integral to the experience we offer students. I no longer believe that to be true. Rather, I would suggest that consistently falling numbers suggests our members no longer look to us to provide a weekly club night, and not that they just don’t like what we’re putting on. There is only so long we can justify something as being ‘integral’ when our membership aren’t actually using it. I’m proud to say that Magic is strong brand. The PR looks great and on its busy nights people thoroughly enjoy it. I would love see the brand continue, but suggest that the Board and Committee strongly consider the idea of moving away from a weekly club night. The Events committee is full of people with brilliant ideas, and there’s any number of new events we could run on Fridays (or any other night of the week). In particular smaller events that do not require upwards of 600 people to be a financial success/seem busy. I’m not writing this with all the answers, I cannot suggest a line-up of events that would be certain successes. However, I firmly believe that we need to consider exactly what our membership wants. 6.3 Other Events 6.3.1 Halloween (1100) This year Halloween fell on a Friday. This was an exciting opportunity, because it gave us a chance to showcase Magic to the wider audience we normally pull in on Halloween. As a result of this, we decided to keep the main features of the night (two rooms of music/music style) the same, but with some themed decorations. We also set up a ‘Blood-Bath Corridor’, originally the intention was for this to be spread all along the back raised area of Qudos, with people being given ‘guns’ full of red paint and set loose to cover each other in ‘blood’. However, due to a last minute hiccup it ended up only being a section of the back area where a volunteer sprayed the red paint onto people. We also ran a £100 cash prize for best costume. This night was a success. For events such as Halloween people still seem to like what we do. The £100 cash prize was well received as always and is definitely worth doing again. The Blood Bath wasn’t used as much as we had hoped but made a nice addition for the people who enjoyed it! When planning next year, try to work out exactly why we always draw bigger numbers at Halloween, and focus in on what it is people enjoy and exactly who is attending. The bloodbath being downgraded was a blessing in disguise, as it was much easier to manage. If done again – locate it at a dead end to avoid people just walking through, and make up less paint 6.3.2 St Patrick’s Day. (565) Based on the success of last year’s St Patrick’s Day, we decided to run another T-Shirt party. We kept the concept very similar to how it’s been in the past. 300 branded T-shirts went on sale before the event, live bands played in Jim’s bar from early evening onwards and we opened with a 3am licence. Unfortunately we didn’t quite see the numbers that we had last year, however the bands had a much larger audience, which is a plus. Having used a similar formula to the previous year, we conducted a review in Events Committee to try and pinpoint why less people showed up. The main

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points highlighted were that the GUU were better at PRing their event as an all-day event this year and that the events we put on were very similar, so people day drinking in the Beer Bar just stayed put. There were also a number of complaints on the night with people not really understanding/appreciating the point of the T-Shirts. For planning next year’s event, the committee advised that we try to put on something different to what the GU offers. They suggested an ‘Irish Festival’ with more focus on live music and culture running throughout the day. 6.3.3 QMU Live The Events Manager and I were both really keen to get the organising of our live band nights back into the hands of the committee. We put a number of dates into the calendar for the first semester, and I took to the committee for band suggestions. Unfortunately the committee only had a couple of suggestions for bands, and no one had an interest/strong enough knowledge of the live music scene to investigate and suggests acts. This was a large oversight on my part. In retrospect it would have been sensible to ask the committee if anyone wanted to get involved with gig organisation before committing them to doing it! Ultimately this meant I had to source the high majority of acts myself, something that I managed at first, but soon became overwhelming. The pressures of uni/other Convenor responsibilities/a very limited knowledge of the music scene myself meant that live music unfortunately took a back seat in semester 2. That is until W. Muryn took over the organisation. The events we did run were of mixed success, with attendance ranging from 70 to 7. Band popularity was a decent but by no means consistent indicator of how many people they would bring along. We made the event free this year, which I think was an effective move. Free entry helped persuade people to come down and also encourage people already sat in the bar to stay and listen. 6.3.4 Glasgow University’s Got Talent I was very pleased with how this event went! We ran our (now) annual talent competition in first semester, bringing in an audience of around 90 people. Entry was £2/£3 for members/non-members and first place was £100 cash prize. We filled all our slots, however I would suggest getting the word out earlier next year, so that more people apply to choose from! It would have been nice to have had a little more variation in our acts (most of which were acoustic singers). 6.3.5 Battle of the Bands. A true success! We got the word out in good time and had a great mix of bands apply (we filled all of our slots and then some with 10 bands!) We managed to get some sponsorship from Relentless for a £200 cash prize for the winner. They also ran a mini competition for the audience on the night as well. We ran the event with free entry to encourage people to come down. The night was pretty empty to begin with, which led us to pushing the start time back half an hour. However, we had around 140 people by the end. Advice for next year would be to get Judges confirmed much earlier, think about ways to bring people down for the first bands and consider making the competition even bigger. 6.3.6 Battle Royal Screening. This was a simple concept that we’d done before. Screening a classic film full of blood and violence on the most romantic day of the year. We ran the screening in Scran and charged £2 entry, with hotdogs, popcorn and Scran’s drinks for sale. We pulled in 30 people (which fills the space in Scran nicely) but I think if pushed more it could pull in a bigger crowd. It also showed that Scran is a nice place to screen films for a smaller audience, which is something to consider moving forward (although the chairs get a bit uncomfortable after a while).

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6.3.7 Professor Green At the end of last year we were approached by another student union about the possibility of joining in on a Professor Green union tour. The idea was that a number of Student Unions would negotiate a series of Professor Green gigs at a discounted price. The idea gained the support of the Events Committee and the Board, as well as myself and the executive. Ultimately ticket sales were incredibly poor, and shortly before the gig Professor Green cancelled because of illness. The key problem was that we had overestimated his current Glasgow Audience. We had relied on the anecdotal evidence that he had not too long ago sold out the 02 ABC, only finding out later that it was secretly moved to the ABC2 because of poor ticket sales. In comparing us to other student unions (some of which did poorly, some did very well) our ticket Price was also quite high. We couldn’t have charged any lower however, as we needed the budget to balance. In the future I would suggest thorough market research, and considering alternative ways to finance the event. 6.4 The Committee Chairing the events committee has been an absolute pleasure this year. Attendance has been fairly constant at around 10+ people, although we have had some quiet weeks during exam/deadline times. We certainly asked a lot more of the committee this year than we had done previously. Whereas in the past the role of the committee was largely the planning and PRing of events, this year we needed a lot more volunteers for the execution of events. The whole committee put a lot of effort into Magic, not just in planning but also volunteering on the night to deliver free popcorn, take surveys and manage various additions to the night as and when (for example running the blood bath corridor on Halloween. Whilst I’m incredibly grateful for all of the time volunteers put in, finding enough people to cover the shifts was incredibly difficult. I was happy to fill all of the empty slots myself, however this led to me only having 2 nights off in the first semester. The obvious solution here is that more volunteers are needed, for it is entirely understandable that people are unable to consistently give up their time that late on a Friday night/in the early hours of Saturday morning. My only regret with committee is the significant proportion of time devoted to Magic. Looking back I don’t believe things could have been done differently, we agreed from the start that we would need to pour everything into Magic, and that’s exactly what we did. However, looking forward to next year I would suggest spending more time an energy on one off events and live music. This is something I tried to begin in second semester, encouraging the committee to think potential events other than club nights. The main result of this was the formation of a Film Festival – ‘Exposure’ – which is being planned for this October. 6.5 Tech Team I came into this role with only a small amount of Tech experience, however my knowledge of how Tech had ran for last the two years encouraged me to implement a change in the structure. I believed that the running of Tech Team needed to be delegated so that a) I could focus all of my attention of Events Committee, b) a designated Tech Team leader could focus all their energy on the team, and c) it was incredibly important to have someone with significant experience leading the team. I had noticed that in the previous years, a lot of pressure had been placed on the leader of Tech Team, with low attendance leading to them covering an awful lot of shifts themselves. In order to combat this, I held discussion with the team and implemented a threefold structure. We elected a Head of Sound and a Head of Lights, both of whom shared responsibility for the running of the team, delegating shifts, and holding training sessions in their area of expertise. To back this up, we then shared the responsibility of filling empty shifts between the three of us, so that the pressure was taken of just one person. Unfortunately poor attendance throughout the year (an average of five people) meant that a

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significant portion of the leader’s time was taken up on covering shifts, far more than I had hoped for. Additionally, the fact I was covering Events shifts most Fridays meant that I was unable to help with Tech shifts as much as I’d hoped. Again, the obvious solution is more volunteers are needed, and I would suggest that recruiting volunteers be a top priority from day 1 (and before). However, even with a small pool of volunteers the Team has made excellent progress this year, which I’m really happy to see. Our QMU live band nights for instance are now completely ran by volunteers, as was our Battle of the Bands (a very, very Tech heavy night). It’s been great to see the team take full responsibility for our events, and I’m proud that as a union we have been able to offer those opportunities. Looking forward I would suggest that the structure of Tech Team be formalised in By-laws and Policy, something that I know my successor is currently working on. 6.5 Thank you. First and foremost I would like to extend my unending gratitude to everyone who has made up my committee. I have enjoyed every second and its all down to working with such a wonderful group of people. I am also incredibly grateful to my Head Sound & Light technicians Wiktoria and Chris, I cannot begin to describe how lost I would have been without them. Thanks go to my fellow convenors, and the rest of the board of Management for all of their support over the year. I’m also exceedingly grateful for incredibly hard work put in by our Events Manager, Alice, who has worked tirelessly to realise the visions of the committee. To my wonderful, fabulous lefties, Chris, Leslie, Lukas and on occasions Lucy and Rachel, thank you so, so much. It has been a pleasure to work with you, and I wish you all the absolute best. Last but not least I would like to extend my thanks to the executive committee. Launching and running a new club night was massively daunting, but the level of support they gave made it all possible.

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7. Report of the Publications Convenor 7.1 Introduction Publications committee has had an enormously successful year and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as a member of QMU board. So much so in fact that I couldn’t tear myself away just yet … In my manifesto I promised to 1) increase the focus on student and campus related material, 2) overhaul our online presence and 3) expand feedback and development of writers. Most of all I believed that Publications committee should be ambitious. There is always scope for bigger and better things. 7.2 Handbook 36 pages, 5000 copies, A5 full colour In 2013, 4000 copies of the 2013 handbook were published and many were not shifted. This year we published 5000 with 3500 going into the SRC freshers’ week bags and the freshers helpers doing an excellent job of shifting the remainder of the copies. There were also a handful of copies left over to give out on open days. The handbook was not freshers’ week specific, instead it was designed to highlight the activities we run all year. Producing the handbook served as a good primer for learning many of the skills and practices the convenor needs for the year ahead. Despite the larger print run I negotiated a lower price than the year before (£1160, down from £1300), and this price was entirely covered by advertising. Printers took significantly longer to print and deliver than initially promised but this was also partly because we were waiting on MAGIC branding. 7.3 Freshers’ week 5 issues published, £450 for the week The daily editions were a mix of showcasing what the QM offers (journalism experience, committee intros etc), hyping Freshers week events (previews, interviews etc) and in-jokes to boost helper morale. Helpers were phenomenal this year, shifting every copy every day. Making the daily editions is a great bonding experience for the new editor team and I was proud of the issues we put together. In particular the agony aunt column with Prince Harry and Queen Margaret was great fun and the articles for and against Scottish independence written by the respective student campaign leaders were an interesting and engaging contribution to the discussion of a very important political issue. Advice to new editor: ensure your planning of the daily editions is comprehensive and that you have plans for what editors can be doing when they are not reviewing/writing. I have also suggested to my successor that it might be fun to produce an issue of the Aloud magazine over the course of freshers’ week to showcase Aloud and draw some freshers into the QMU. 7.2 qmunicate magazine 7 issues published [Issues 109-115] (approx. every 3 weeks), full colour. Recommend keeping current printer: Forward graphics 7.2.1 Editors There were over 45 applicants for editorships this year (a record?) including several from people who had not attended committee before, making choosing editors a real challenge but overall I am happy with the team I selected. I abolished Science and Tech as a distinct section because I felt the content could easily slot into the news and Features sections. All the editors performed admirably, coming up with pitches and engaging new writers and I like to think our Wednesday afternoon committee meetings were a highlight of many people’s weeks. When Jo Reid was unavailable as

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features editor for a number of weeks, the wonderful Cat Acheson ably deputised. 7.2.2 Attendance This is probably the aspect I am most proud of. Committee attendance averaged around 40 (double the previous few years) with a peak of 52 attendees. I like to think that attendees recognised that my editorial team and I strived for a welcoming, ambitious atmosphere that really highlighted what people could get out of committee attendance and this paid off in a band of dedicated, excited contributors. We held several socials and always invited contributors to the bar after a committee meeting, which I believe contributed to the close knit atmosphere. This has added benefits for the QMU as significantly, a number of people (myself included) who initially joined Publications committee for the journalism experience now find themselves on the board of management. 7.2.3 Design and Layout Design editor, Celia Varela-Sixto, and I redesigned some aspects of the magazine (using a signature red colour scheme across issues, standardising and reducing the number of fonts, making a lot of the page designs cleaner and simpler) to give the magazine a cleaner and more consistent identity and make the most of full colour. After Celia stepped back from qmunicate, I carried on the bulk of the design work as I did not think there was time to adequately prepare a successor. In particular the covers of issue 110 (Glasgow to Hong Kong protest) and issue 112 (Assisted Dying) drew praise (even from the first minister!) 7.2.4 Content My vision for the year was for an entertaining and engaging magazine that talked about issues that are important students and was not afraid to take the lead when necessary. There is no point qmunicate trying to break global news that people can easily get from the BBC. What qmunicate should specialise in is student-centric commentary and events that directly affect students on campus, and I feel that this focus has been thoroughly vindicated by many of the most popular articles we have published this year. It was a bit ridiculous that before this year qmunicate was not even on the list for press releases from the university itself. It improves articles dramatically if we can get quotes from relevant academics or university figures and this is something that qmunicate should carry on developing as it moves forward. With such a high committee attendance the flow of content was extremely high, allowing many writers to improve their skills and gain valuable experience. I encouraged my editors to offer feedback to writers to help them improve. Some editors have been better than others in this respect, but partly this can be attributed to the sheer volume of content qmunicate has generated this year as well as the pressures of their own degrees. In particular, Ally Shaw wrote an excellent style guide that will carry on being a valuable asset for years to come. 7.2.5 Columnists I changed the format of columnists this year, appointing one print columnist (Floraidh Clement) and three online columnists (Anna Molnar, Bethany Garry, Tara Fitzpatrick) who published on a rotating weekly basis. Marking out the columnists with their own custom graphics gave each columns its own identity so that readers would hopefully come back looking for more by the same author. This new system was hugely successful with all four columnists regularly being among the most popular articles on social media. 7.2.6 Distribution In the past this has been a bugbear for qmunicate and a source of personal annoyance: what’s the

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point of producing a magazine if people will not help to distribute it and get their work read? To solve this I made a comprehensive list of distribution locations, made distribution compulsory for editors and took a distribution rota at the start of each committee meeting. This paid off dramatically with a large increase in uptake, shifting 1000 copies of almost every issue. Advice to successor: carry on the arm-twisting tactics 7.2.7 Cross committee/QMU content Every year someone asks for more cross committee collaboration and this year I have done my best to deliver. The QMU content was more consistent and engaging this year, especially with an increased focus on the work of the C&C committee, including the cover story of issue 111 which focused on the fundraising for Sense Scotland. If I have one criticism it is that I generally found that I had to go and pester others to get QMU content rather than board members bringing material to me. I also introduced a news-in-brief column on page 4 that offered more insight into the work done by the student board to improve the QMU. As a team tried to collaborate more closely with some of the groups and student societies that use the building, notably with GUEST on the Green issue which was fairly productive. QMU elections were plugged at every opportunity, though I was conscious that as a participant in said elections I could not always run as intense coverage as I might have liked. In the future I would like to see a more intense grilling of candidates by qmunicate. Liveblogging events such as hustings was very popular however. I would like to recommend to my successor that a significant focus be placed on the 125th anniversary of the QMU (perhaps a theme for an issue?). I would have liked to have included this in one of my issues or as a standalone publication but alongside my dissertation it proved a task too far. 7.2.8 Advertising I had not anticipated how difficult selling advertising for qmunicate would be. Throughout the year I pursued potential advertisers to little avail. Even with advertising rates significantly lower than qmunicate has charged in the past, firms have so many outlets for advertising nowadays that student media is a low priority. Moreover, the companies that qmunicate can offer advertising to is severely constrained by not being able to promote services which rival the union’s own, while firms such as Bacardi and Red Bull prefer to contribute sponsorship to other QMU events. I suggest the logical, if dull, solution to this is for the future Publications convenor and I to spend a day phoning companies and trying to speak to someone in person at organisations such as grad schemes and taxi firms. All of that being said, with help from Bill Blackstock, qmunicate did manage to sell £1500 of advertising (approximately five times as much as the previous year), covering approximately 40% of its budget. 7.2.9 Online Online was a big focus for me the year. Online editor, Scott Wilson, and I came up with a plan for making every article available and when it became apparent that this was too much work for one person, Louisa Burden was appointed as a second online editor. With this strategy in place and a lot of hard work on the part of the editorial team we have dramatically expanded qmunicate’s online footprint. This year our online traffic came to 75,000 views, triple the previous year’s online traffic (in one month we were up 700%). On two occasions a backlog of features built up, but Cat Acheson and I were able to assist with editing and soon every article written by qmunicate writers this year should be available online, offering all our writers the opportunity to include them in

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portfolios etc. Very pleased with this. The most popular articles of the year online were as follows:

1. Spotted: Glasgow Uni’s shame

2. Swag, sexism and Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon speaks

3. GUU homophobic chanting

4. Hozier EP review (I believe we were the first media outlet outside Ireland to cover Hozier!)

5. What the Rock is cooking (an exercise in surrealism; I believe qmunicate could benefit from

a little more irreverence at times)

6. Radio 1 Academy lineup announcement

7. Halloween Slut shaming (topical and student focused)

8. Loki vs National collective (a feature on divisions in the Glasgow arts community)

9. Taylor Momsen interview

10. Umbrella Revolution: students protests from Glasgow to Hong Kong

Sadly, our current version of the wordpress platform does not allow us to host advertising, nor does it allow Facebook comments to be integrated into the page itself, both changes that I would have liked to have made. Likewise, I would like to have seen the launch of a revamped website but the technical skills to do so elude me and I never found the right collaborators to drive this forward. While it is not necessarily a hugely complex project, there were always more pressing and tangible matters to occupy my time. 7.2.10 Social Media This year we more than doubled our number of Facebook followers, as well as launching qmunicate on Instagram and Tumblr, offering new platforms for readers to come across our work. These are works in progress but I am pleased that qmunicate is able to engage consistently across a number of platforms and people now have more ways than ever to share their work. 7.2.11 NSFW edition In the autumn term we published an online edition. As the previous online edition was not hugely successful, I came up with the idea of theming the issue as “Not Safe for Work” and challenged contributors to come up with articles around this theme. This produced a number of interesting, funny and engaging articles and pushed contributors to think a little more outside the box. This was one of our most consistently popular editions online with many of the articles racking up significant numbers of hits, despite the odd issue with Facebook not being keen on 18+ rated content. 7.3 Aloud magazine 3 issues, 500 copies To complement and promote the Aloud open mic, this year we launched a creative writing magazine, publishing poetry and prose. The first three issues were put together by various combinations of Syd Briscoe, Callum Bannerman, Emma Ainley Walker, Alice Stearn, Ross McFarlane, Cat Acheson and myself, offering somewhere for Aloud attendees to see their work in print. The response to this has been positive and the first three issues got around 30 submissions per edition and I feel that the Aloud magazine offers something really original and interesting that the QMU has not offered before. At the moment the benefits to the union itself are a little obscure but with an increased focus on using it to promote the Aloud open mic and focusing on members

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contributions I believe it can continue to thrive as an exciting and original addition to the Publications output and a source of valuable experience for union members. 7.4 SRC Media Week The SRC’s various introduction to student media talks were hopelessly promoted and attendances were poor. It is worth qmunicate attending because we tend to pick up a handful of new writers from each but there is a huge opportunity here for future collaboration and expansion. Likewise media week itself was hugely underwhelming. I would have liked to throw our own event in media week, perhaps some form of panel debate, but sadly I was too busy with my dissertation for the necessary forward planning. This is another future avenue Publications could look into in the future. 7.5 Awards There is no longer a Herald Student Press awards and the Guardian Student Media awards do not take place until the third term. However, Karen Cheung’s article on student protests in Glasgow and Hong Kong picked up an award for outstanding community engagement from Wordpress. This mean we can carry on using the sobriquet “Award-winning” for another year. 7.6 Thanks It has been a huge privilege to be convenor this year and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading. Special thanks to Celia, Cat, Chiara, Jo, Emmie, Ally, Scott, Louisa, Caitlin, Michaela and Emma for their wonderful work as editors this year and Lauren, Yas, Jack, Emma, Tom, Patrick and Chris for being a cracking exec-cons. Best of luck to Scott Wilson and his team for the year ahead. Finally, if I have a lasting legacy as convenor I would like it to be this: THE UNION NOW PAYS FOR PICK N MIX!

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8. Report of the Social Convenor 8.1 Submitted by Patrick Macdonald

8.1.1 Fresher's Week This will be fairly familiar to some of you: what follows is a brief rundown of the events run during last Fresher's Week, with comments on what worked, what didn't, and suggestions for next September. Monday The Really Useful Quiz Approximately 70 people in attendance. The prizes were well received and I think the concept of a quiz with useful rather than strictly “fun” prizes went down well. Having the event on earlier in the day (immediately after the Fresher's Address) worked well for encouraging people to stay in and around the union for more time during the day – a number of people stayed around after the quiz to go to the first Speed Mating session. I would suggest that a quiz like this be done next Fresher's Week. Earlier searching for prize support could have meant better deals on supermarket essentials. Speed Mating 1 Not as busy as last year, but the attendance over the two events was decent, with around 110 people in total (60 on the Monday, 45-50 on the Thursday). Another successful event, and for me one of the most personally satisfying we ran – seeing people throughout the week with the people they had met at these events really sums up Fresher's Week for me in a lot of ways. Definitely run this event again, and although I wasn't present the first time we tried Speed Mating, my understanding was that it was packed – having two sessions I think again would ease up on space, and lets the people at the sessions mingle a bit more. Tuesday Unplugged Showcase Unfortunately low turnout, though it was remarked by many people that the campus as a whole seemed quiet on Tuesday, so that will have had a knock-on effect. If a musical showcase of local talent was going to be put on again, it could work. However so early in the week, and so early in the day, probably wouldn't bear repeating. Perhaps between 5-7 instead of DJ's was suggested. Wednesday Big Wednesday Night Pub Quiz A tour de force by Jack and Reece (as well as the full supporting cast) with 220 participants filling every available seat in Qudos. Given that the BWNPQ is one of the most consistently well performing events run by the social committee, and how well the format lends itself to special event situations, definitely should feature in a big, central way during every Fresher's Week, so long as it stays as popular as it presently is. Buskathon It was a nice idea, but it was too ambitious by half. A large number of dropouts and half-promises meant it didn't run continuously, and when it did was thanks in a large part to long performances

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by the few contributors. Although a bit of a damp squib, I speak (I hope) for everyone who was there when I say it was really fun, and seemed to make a nice impression on those passing by. If it was decided that the C&C wanted to do something like this again, a smaller duration would be essential. Unplugged Suffered, as did the showcase, from being on rather earlier than an event of this nature really should be on. The turnout wasn't spectacular, though a high percentage of performers signing up to go on stage was encouraging, and gained Unplugged more than a few regulars for the rest of the year. Unplugged was difficult to schedule for Fresher's Week owing to the events every night occupying its usual late night slot. Since the open mic wasn't run on the usual day (Tuesday) it's possible it could be tried out as a weekend event. Thursday A Taste of Scotland A high proportion of Helpers to Fresher's was noticed, but everyone enjoyed the food a lot and the event was well reviewed by GUST. Definitely a good idea to do something like this again, if only to put Scran on the culinary map for the Fresher's. Who's Line is it Anyway? Luckily didn't get hit with a cease and desist (as I had nightmares about after we printed the PR). A crowd of about 50 people in the middle of the day, who all had a good time and enjoyed themselves. The improv society only became independent of STAG this year (starting just before Fresher's Week I think) so will possibly have built up some steam over the year. A good contender for a filler event, and something a bit different to say the least. Friday Pool Tournament 13 players and one Helper to make up the numbers. A nice small addition to the week, and suitably chilled out for the end of a rough week. If Social are planning on continuing the pool league this should definitely be repeated, Pop Culture and a Piano PCP had poor attendance. This I feel was symptomatic of wider problems with the quiz which I will go into in the next section. 8.1.2 Weekly events Again I'm going to go through these day by day and give an overview of my experiences with running each event up to my resignation as convenor. Monday – Bored? Games! We continued BG for the full duration of my convenorship but I think it's fairly safe to say that it was never close the level of success we had hoped for it. Contacting GUGS turned up nothing. If I was to pin down why the event had such a massive and sharp decline, I'd say that most of the regulars left, and a good number of them were in the same social circle. I think that their presence gave a slightly unrealistic notion of the popularity such an event might have. The games are there,

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and we can consider them as a resource for future events (perhaps one-offs – but that's for future convenors to decide). Tuesday – Unplugged Open Mic Unplugged has had it's ups and downs, with some nights having fairly paltry numbers; but it's always come up on average, and the special events brewed up by Aonghas and Chloe I think show that Unplugged has a long future at the QMU. There's not much I feel needs to be said about Unplugged. It was fine when I left it, but there's certainly plenty of room for it to continue to grow so long as it's looked after well. Wednesday – Big Wednesday Night Pub Quiz BWNPQ was always strong. Consistently high turnouts, good responses from the audiences, and the quality of Jack and Reece's patter steadily improved as they became more and more experienced at hosting the quiz. The Facebook shout-outs in particular I'd like to commend them for, as it really helped build a sense of community around the quiz. The Big Wednesday Night In The BWNI was one of the things I was most proud of about my time as convenor. Barring a few hiccups, the BWNI was a success – which I'd consider a win for a totally new event format. There were a couple of problems enoucntered. The format of comedy performances inbetween rounds didn't work too well – there was something of a clash in what was expected from the crowd, who had to switch between being attentive and interactive every 10 minutes, which was slightly jarring. There were a lot of people in attendance however, and the performances and quiz went down well. I think the format could be perfected, but I'd love for the BWNI to be something that becomes part of the BWNPQ stable of “special” events. Thursday – Aloud and Comedy Aloud steadily gained in popularity. I'm so proud of the accomplishments of Syd, Heather and Calum, who have given the QMU something I feel to be unique on campus. The event was a little shakey at first, but no more so than I would have expected from any new event. The comments on Unplugged applies here as well. Aloud became great, and has every likelihood of becoming even greater. Chris spearheaded the Monarch of Mirth comedy night. As you would expect from discount comedy, some of it was a little more miss than hit, but Chris was sure not to book twice someone who went down lead-balloon style. I wasn't in my position for more than a few comedy nights, but the ones I saw Chris put on went very well. I think there's room on the QMU social calendar for comedy in the future, in whatever form that might take. Friday – Pop Culture and a Piano Rest in peace, PCP. The Friday quiz's decline was a long, drawn out one. The reasons for why this happened have been hashed out over and over again at countless committee meetings. In brief:

By the time of my convenorship the quiz was on it's 3rd generation of hosts. For something like the BWNPQ this might be fine, but PCP originally was very much driven by the personality and close friendship of the two hosts. Not to malign the efforts of the subsequent hosts, but the further and further the quiz drew away from that, the less the quiz seemed to really be working.

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The numbers were in slow decline, and a quiz with no-one at it is hard to sell to people. Suki made a decent stab at getting people back with some specially themed quizzes, but the numbers only just made it above what we set as a necessary for the quiz to not get cancelled.

While at the end of my term PCP was still running and considered just about worth the effort of doing it, I'm not entirely shocked that it's been re-branded. I think lessons can be learned from PCP and future convenors should take it as an example of a very successful event but one that unfortunately ran out of steam, and was maybe allowed to struggle on slightly longer than it should have been allowed to. I think a re-branding is an idea that should probably have been entertained earlier. 8.1.3 That concludes my report. (If it's appropriate) I'd like to add a short note of thanks to Yas, Jack, Lauren and Rachel, for all their help and kindness while I was struggling, and to everyone of my hosts for giving their all and putting on a bunch of great events.

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8.2 Submitted by Kat Denholm 8.2.1 Introduction Hello there! I wasn’t expecting to be writing this report until next year, but I suppose it’s good practice. My report will look into the performance of each of the social events over the past year, and also my hopes and intentions for the coming year (a luxury my current position gives me!). I will cover the events from when Patrick MacDonald vacated his position and Chris Steven took over. During this time I was the social lieutenant, so I have a deep insight into the social committee’s workings. 8.2.2 Committee performance The social committee has had consistently between 10 and 16 attendees every week, with a slight increase in overall attendance after the November By-Election. Many of the regular attendees this year are new comers who have since become heavily involved in the hosting and organising of the events. The regular attendees are a balance of board members and ordinary members, all of whom are dedicated and were quick to volunteer to help out. Week on week there have been individuals who are always prepared to step up and write quiz rounds, design PR and mark quizzes which has made the organisation of events much easier. The hosts for the various events this year have been very reliable, and the running of the events has been left almost entirely to them (with administrative help from the lieutenants, Rachel Dobson, Jimmy Donaghy and myself). Though committee attendance on the whole has been good this year, it has been slightly lower than the other three committees (substantially lower than Publications, but that’s just a whole other kettle of fish). I believe the attendance of committee could be boosted by pushing the things that can be gained or contributed by joining Social Committee more during freshers’ week, to both freshers’ and helpers, having clear explanations of what the committee does in any documentation about it (for example, the QMU website) as people who have not been involved in QMU before do not necessarily understand what Social Committee covers (since it’s quite a vague title!). Also, by continuing to advertise the committee at the events, it may be possible to attract regular event attendees to join the committee. 8.2.3 Unplugged The attendance for this event has been consistent all year. Attendance is usually between 30-50 week on week, with around 10 acts signing up to perform each night. Below is the numbers of attendees each week from week 4 of term 1: 0

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The attendance dropped in week 5 of term 1 as this was reading week for many students, hence this was expected. The increase in weeks 6 and 10 was due to these weeks being special’s. Week 6 was a swing special, and week 10 was a Disney special. Week 9 saw an increase too, however this was due to a football match ending and people coming into the bar to listen, rather than more people coming to perform. The numbers of attendees and performers remained fairly consistent in term 2 as well. There was no Unplugged in week 8 due to the election hustings. The large spike in numbers in week 2 was due to this being a refreshers’ week showcase, and week 10 was a St Patrick’s day showcase. These big showcases are good for spreading the word about Unplugged and also give regulars a chance to perform to move people. However, in the future I would like to keep some of these big dates open and allow anyone to sign up to perform, rather than booking people in advance. I believe this would be better for encouraging more regulars to come to the regular Unplugged events. A continual concern for the Unplugged hosts has been the lack of performer sign-ups earlier in the night. I would like to look into encouraging earlier sign-ups in the next year, possibly by providing incentives for the first 5-10 acts to sign-up. The provision of incentives for performers at open mic nights is also common practice around Glasgow, and since a Tuesday night is a popular night for open mic in the West End and City Centre, it is something we should be doing to encourage more performers. Another issue continually brought to light is that performers do not remain in the bar after they have performed. Incentives may be a good way to encourage people to stay. There has been interest expressed by performers on several occasions to use the piano in Jim’s Bar, however the piano is old and damaged and impossible to tune. Because of this I hope to replace the piano with an electric keyboard. This would hopefully serve to open up Unplugged to a whole range of new performers, something I am keen to do in the coming year. Overall, though Unplugged has been a consistent event over the year, I believe it is capable of becoming far more successful with a little TLC. Focus areas are the overall identity of the event, the social media and PR presence and performer engagement. 8.2.4 Big Wednesday Night Pub Quiz This has been a consistently performing event all year with numbers rarely dropping below 50. Here are the weekly numbers:

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From the chart it is clear BWNPQ has maintained a steady attendance of around 50-70 almost every week. In week 6, the numbers dropped drastically low due to a last minute time change due to an external booking the committee was not aware of until very close to the event. The same thing was an issue in week 2 of term 2, where BWNPQ was moved two hours earlier to accommodate a refreshers week act. Though it is unlikely these two weeks in particular would have been as highly attended as the regular ones, it would have been possible to spread the word about the time change had the committee been aware sooner. This is simply an issue with the communication between the committee and the Events department, which is something which needs to be improved in the coming year. The drop in numbers in week 11 of term 1 was put down to the fact the quiz was during exam week. This week will undoubtedly always be a problem for attracting attendees, however it should be possible to attract more people than we did through better advertising. The huge spike in numbers in week 1 one term 2 was due to this being the Refresher’s Week quiz. For this we had a £100 cash prize draw which always attracts a larger number, however no one foresaw how busy the quiz would be with 210 attendees and 44 teams. The success of this event was attributed to the £100 cash prize, but more significantly the SRC’s daily Refresher’s Week events emails which were sent to every student. This was presumably the same reason for the success of the Unplugged showcase during Refresher’s week too. It shows the value of cross-campus coordination of events. A couple of Wednesdays, excluding the ones not already mentioned, were not as successful as we would have liked. The final quiz of term 1 was intended to be a BIG Big Wednesday Night Pub Quiz, but as you can see, it was not all that big…drawing only around 40 attendees, despite a £50 cash prize. This was due to a lack of PR for this event. There was very little advertising outside the building and I feel that what PR there was was brought out too late. This is a theme which seems to have led to the downfall of several events this year, and is something which needs to be focussed on next year. The £50 cash prize advertised for the quiz in week 11 of term 2 helped draw in a good number of attendees (70). This event was held in Jim’s Bar rather than Qudos as BBWNPQs tend to be. The number drawn in was a good number to fill Jim’s, but would not be enough to fill Qudos. This suggests quizzes with only a £50 draw are best held in Jim’s and bigger events such as Refresher’s Week are held in Qudos. Overall, BWNPQ has been a very successful event. One thing which needs to be focussed on next year is the difficulty of rounds, as it has often been fed back to the committee that questions are too difficult or niche. 8.2.5 Pop Culture and a Piano (PCP) Sadly this event did not perform well in term 1. The main reason for this was the lack of a regular pianist. Those who had done it in the past were unfortunately too busy and we did not manage to find a replacement. This led to the event carrying on without its title feature. The committee kept it going by assigning a new “P” to the specialist round every week, which had limited success. This combined with the vague PR meant that numbers were consistently low and it was decided that a rebrand was needed. Here are the numbers of PCP attendees in term 1:

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The one big success story of PCP this year was Pop Culture and a Potter, the quiz’s Harry Potter special. This brought in 65 attendees and proved that themed quizzes were a gateway for success. But from the ashes of PCP was born…. 8.2.6 Friday Union Quiz (FUQ) The name of this quiz was suggested by the executive and Chris Steven and it was agreed upon by the committee that it would hencefore become a thing. The title “Friday Union Quiz” left the committee with freedom to change the content of the quiz in future, and the acronym “FUQ” made people laugh. Win win! The committee decided the quiz should remain a pop culture quiz, and so FUQ adopted the successful aspects of PCP along with new rounds to engage attendees. It was also decided FUQ should take place at 5pm, not 4.30pm, to allow the late classes to finish and hopefully draw people in afterwards. FUQ launched in week 2 of term 2 and was off to a great start. Here are the numbers for term 2:

Though numbers fluctuated slightly, FUQ has been largely more successful than PCP and I hope to see it become even more successful over the next year. In weeks 8 and 11 we held special themed

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quizzes. Week 8 was a Simpsons special, and week 11 was a Game of Thrones special (which was the most successful of the term with 90 attendees). This again shows that appealing to everyone’s inner nerd with quizzes themed around popular fandoms is a great way to bring people in, and FUQ’s pop culture base made it a great platform to do this. As FUQ is still in its infancy, the next year will be focussed on establishing its identity further and hopefully attracting a new group of regular attendees. One area of concern is the quality of the prizes. As FUQ has a smaller prize budget each week than BWNPQ, the prizes tend to be less well received. This is something the committee has considered this year, but so far nothing has been done and this is something I would like to look into in the near future. 8.2.7 Aloud This event has been a great success all year. Occurring on roughly a monthly basis it has attracted numbers of 60-80 on a regular basis, and 100-130 on special events. The success of Aloud is attributed to its hosts, who organise the events virtually independently. One of the aspects which I believe gives Aloud such a dedicated following is the online engagement. The hosts are constantly engaging followers through the sharing of photos and videos, and through event pages for each Aloud, targeting spoken word and poetry enthusiasts around Glasgow. The chart below showing Aloud’s attendance includes the numbers who “went” to the facebook events and shows how the online engagement helps the actual turnout:

This event has grown in popularity and developed a larger following over the past year, and I hope it will continue to do so. It benefitted from larger events such as the Glasgow Student’s Slam, the birthday party and the themed edition “Words which changed my life”. Putting on events like these throughout the year will help increase its following, as will the continuation of the Aloud Zine (thanks Pubs committee!!). Next year Aloud will be adding to their Wordpress blog with a section written by Alan Cunningham, a journalism student, in which he reviews poetry shows around Glasgow. This will help to attract the word about Aloud to a wider community of Glasgow poetry enthusiasts. 8.2.8 Monarch of Mirth The return of comedy to the QMU was a popular idea, however this event has proved quite hit or

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miss this year. It started strongly with around 70 people at the first competition, however the rest attracted a much smaller audience of between 20-40 people at the other events. I believe a large factor in this was the lack of PR after the first event, and an absence of committee involvement in the organisation of this event. The concept of comedy in QMU is one I am very keen to keep alive, however I believe it needs to be considered what the best way to go about this is. For example, do we keep it as a competition, do we have it purely as a show, how many professional acts should be present, should it take the form of a student comedy open mic…all this discussion will be had by the committee in the near future. 8.2.9 One Off Events 8.2.9.1 Bingo A bingo night was planned for late in term 1, however there were 0 attendees. This was due to poor timing (it was scheduled around exam time) and lack of organisation: the PR for the event went out on the Friday before the event (which was on a Monday) and was only distributed within the building. 8.2.9.2 What a Lovely Pair This was intended to be a Valentine’s day special event based on the idea of competition in pairs. There were only about 10 attendees. A major problem with this event was it was confusing. The committee spent a long time deliberating the formula for the event, but it eventually turned into something too complex to advertise clearly to potential attendees. Again, this event was advertised quite late. The only advertising was by way of a facebook event which was created 6 days before the event. I believe that if one off events are to be successful, they need to be PR’ed well in advance and extensively to attract attendees. Both of these events sadly failed. The concept of What a Lovely Pair was possibly too cringe-worthy to attract a large crowd, but a Valentine’s event is something which is worth considering again, so long as it is planned out further in advance. The same with bingo; it has the potential to be popular as a one off event, but considerably better organisation and advertising would be needed. 8.2.9.3 Board Games This left the social calendar at about week 6 of term 1. Each week only 0-5 people were turning up to play the games and it was decided that it was no longer substantial enough to include in the calendar. This was partly due to the fact the games were made available in Scran 24/7, so there was no longer only one day when they could be played. Attempts were made to engage various gaming societies, however this proved fruitless as they hold their own events. Suggestions for improvement included the introduction of an aspect of competition, however this was never explored. The removal of board games from the calendar has left us with a space on Monday nights which has not yet been filled. 8.2.10 Moving Forward There are several areas of the social committee which need to be focussed on in the next year:

Social Media: Currently the quiz hosts keep their social media pages active and engage

their audience, and I mentioned earlier this is something Aloud utilises a lot. I believe that

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events such as Unplugged and comedy (whatever form it may take) will be heightened by

engaging more people online. One way this could be done are sharing photos and videos of

Unplugged performers more regularly.

Mondays: since the start of term 2, Monday nights have simply been left as a blank space.

Further discussion about what to do with this time is required in the next few weeks. It is a

good space to have open owing to the fact it is available for clubs and societies to book out

Jim’s Bar, but it would be good to have something in the social calendar.

Inter committee collaboration: I would like to focus a lot more next year on working with

the other committees. For example, engaging more with the Publications committee

regarding the Aloud Zine, and working more closely with the Campaigns and Charities

committee to put on events surrounding their campaigns and fundraise (I believe a charity

comedy show would be a particularly good opportunity for fundraising).

PR: I would like to look at the way the committee PR’s for events (currently fairly minimaly)

and look at adopting a more hands-on approach. I would also like to look at redesigning

some of the PR to be more eye catching and up-to-date.

8.2.11 Finally…. I’d like to thank all the hosts this year for their ongoing dedication: Jack Taylor and Reece O’Hara, Calum MacDonald and Alexia Labouvrie, Chloe Robertson and Aonghas Maxwell; you guys have been absolutely fantastic! Also, thank you Calum Bannerman, Emma Ainley-Walker, and the rest of the Aloud team for all of their hard work and initiative this year. And of course the rest of the committee! Particular thanks go to Ralitsa Petrova and Morgaine Das Varma for their continued enthusiasm across the board during committee and always being ready to help out. Thanks to Kenny Anderson for his valuable input in committees and top class karaoke skills! Thank you (almost everyone I swear) to all the board members who dedicated their time to the social committee, in particular Jimmy Donaghy for his ongoing lefty awesomeness, and Rachel Dobson for just being amazing. FINALLY, thank you to Patrick MacDonald and Chris Steven for their great work as convenors this past year! Ok that’s all the thank you’s over… I have high hopes for the next year. Already we are moving forward with a brilliant group of hosts: Aonghas and Chloe will be continuing their work with Unplugged, Ross McFarlane and Cat Acheson will be taking the reins of Aloud and Jack Smith and Fraser McAdie will be taking over as the hosts of BWNPQ. Next year, FUQ will be hosted by Calum McDonald once again, alongside two newcomers: Katie Fannin and Maggie Brunker. Having three permanent hosts will be an exciting new turn. It has worked in the past, and opens up a whole load of new possibilities. now would normally be the time I’d be giving well wishes to the next convenor…so, um… good luck to Kat Denholm for the upcoming year…see you all next AGM!