Reports to the Board of Management

Meeting 9 – 26/01/15

General Manager SubmittedPresident Submitted

Honorary Secretary SubmittedHonorary Assistant Secretary Submitted

Campaigns and Charities SubmittedCurrent Student Representatives Submitted

Events SubmittedPublications Submitted

Social Submitted

1 General Manager:

1.1 Annual Submission

We received notification on 20th January that our submission is due in by Friday 7th March 2015. It is to include up to 4 pages of narrative on how QMU adds to the student experience from the funding granted. Include our Audited Annual Accounts, Our Half Year Accounts and projection for the full year with appropriate commentary on variances. Plus any reasoning for increased funds and any one off project requests.

Our Grant this year from the total pot of £1.26 million was £234,090. The indications are that this year’s pot will be the same. However last year the SRC was given a specific one off grant of £15600 and that this year may be divvied up between us.

Prior to that date we do of course have our elections on 5th March and I have put it in as part of the consideration of how and when we are going to compile our submission.

The scheduled finance committees working backwards are stated below and if these are still valid I would suggest that we plan the agendas around this as follows

Wednesday 4th March: Final Review of Submission. Papers to be circulated Friday 28th February

Wednesday 18th February: Review of half year accounts and revised projection for full year.

Wednesday 4th February: Bill to have draft half year management accounts complete.

I would suggest that Paul come in on either 4/5/6 or 11/12/13 February to look at the half year financials. I am on leave 9/10th and morning of the 11th at the moment as it is half term.

I know Paul sometimes takes half term dates and as we know schools in different areas are at different times. I think this allows time for appropriate consultation and to pull together a vision to complement our funding request.

1.2 Management Accounts

Unfortunately the time I lost in taking ill for 4 days the first week back and then subsequent and currently continuing absence through ill health of the catering manager has led to a delay in getting

the accounts as far forward as I had hoped. My plan for this is now as follows to meet the timetable above slightly amended after Finance and events of Thursday/Friday.

Finance Staff input all December invoices Shop and Catering Stock Count by 23 January

Bank reconciliations for December completed by Wed 28 January

GM reviews all prepayments accruals etc. Monday 26 January

All journals input on Wed 29 January

GM complete MGD on Friday 23 and thus VAT return on 29 January and input final adjustments to be done on 30th

Draft Management Accounts completed Friday 30th January

1.3 Trading since the last meeting. (I will give an oral update of last week at meet)

Food Factory Week 25 Budget £3000 Actual £2934 Last Year £3800 a drop of 23%Week 28 Budget £1000 Actual £829 Last Year £1063 a drop of 22%Week 24 Budget £7500 Actual £6243 Last Year £7190 a drop of 13%

The FF has now dropped £1752 below last year last year and £9082 below budgetThe loyalty points system has been sorted at last and will begin on Monday in FF and ScranThere is a problem with Café 22 till and we need to spend £150 to install in the shop.

Scran Week 25 Budget £2000 Actual £2517 Last Year £568 a gain of 343%Week 28 Budget £500 Actual closed Last Year £88 Week 29 Budget £1500 Actual £2907 Last Year £1245 a gain of 57%

Year to date it is now £16431 up on last year but and £5290 above budget.

The planned sit down to conduct the quality audit using the Wicked Model has had to be postponed due to absences as has the one planned for Café Twenty 2. Date of 12/13 Feb to be confirmed.

Café Twenty 2 Week 25 Budget £2200 Actual £1565 Last Year £1456 a gain of 7%Week 28 Budget £500 Actual £368 Last Year £460 a drop of 20%Week 29 Budget £4000 Actual £4206 Last Year £4108 a gain of 2%

Year to date the Café is £6363 up on last year and £2049 ahead of budget.

An analysis of the till data confirms that the spend per head on sandwiches is down 73p on average. If anyone would like a copy please ask. I can give other data from other areas too if Qmunicate interested?

BARSWeek 25 Budget £14000 Actual £15948 Last Year £14065 a gain of 13%Week 23 Budget £1000 Actual £270 Last Year £246 a gain of 10% Week 24 Budget £10000 Actual £14157 Last Year £11641 a gain of 22%

Year to date the Bars are now £4149 up on last year but £9876, 4% below budget. If we were to exclude Fresher’s week then comparative sales are actually 8% up for the other weeks of term. We hope to put a real focus on the quality and quantity of our marketing from to promoting the sport that can be seen and a revamped social program. This includes the Superbowl and 6 Nations Rugby.

Bar sales in December were 45% up on last year. We sold over 6000 pints of Tennents compared to 4215 in 2013.

Champions bar is currently flying and accounted for 38% or our bar turnover to date this year.

The Shop.Week 25 Budget £2000 Actual £670 Last Year £802 a drop of 16%Week 23 ClosedWeek 24 Budget £2800 Actual £1902 Last Year £2853 a drop of 33%The shop is now £16802 on last year and £20082 below budget.It has been agreed to look at all aspects with a view to improving its look, products etc. over the coming months to revitalise it.

We are also going to produce better quality and increased internal signage and branding as soon as we can

1.4 Other matters

I have secured £400 from Sheeran’s to promote any activity around Pool in Champions.Their analysis shows a 20% increase in Pool income and 30% in Jukebox money.

I discovered that when they upgraded their ATM in 2010 no contract for revenue was signed with the Clydesdale Bank. The Clydesdale cannot find any record of any agreement of us having a machine. I have met with them and will follow up in February as they investigate at their end. They wish to offer a new agreement but their opening stance is no retrospective payment as it may be we asked for a new machine and it was only agreed on the basis there was a rent free period.

The President of Dusa informed me that they have an agreement with the Clydesdale and will send us some info. I will keep you informed of any progress.

Bill BlackstockGeneral Manager 25 January 2015.

2 President:

2.1 Refreshers’ WeekThis week has been largely successful for us. I cannot recommend enough that Refreshers’ Week is organised cross-campus again in years to come. This year we compared our line up plans and chose a selection of ‘main events’ for the cross campus poster. Yas put together a logo and then I put together the poster. We made a facebook event with all four student body pages as hosts. We posted descriptions of each of our events on this page and then Breffni used the same to send out in an email to all undergraduates. The reach that we

achieved with this collaborated effort was significantly larger than if we had done our own Refreshers week as we have in the past. I also hope that some of those that attended our events had maybe not spent much time at the QMU in the past. Over 200 in for the BWNPQ is brilliant (Sorry that you had to move rooms! That was down to me being pessimistic), Friday’s Magic had pretty good numbers and the Unplugged showcase filled up Jim’s. Hopefully the success of the week will reflect in our numbers in the following weeks. Please keep pushing stuff as you have been for Refreshers and well done to all who contributed to the events!The only changes I would make would be to make sure we got line ups sorted a bit earlier so that we could PR as soon as people came back to Uni. It all felt a bit last minute. A better way of dividing responsibilities and efforts between members of the cross campus committee would also be good. I would recommend a little bit more charity focus next year too – With an increased number of people in the building it would have been great to do a bit more fundraising and see some stronger campaign presence. It is also a shame that the events encouraging people to get involved were poorly attended. I think I presumed that these, because of the reach, would be as popular as other events we have held in the past but may have got a little lost in the more exciting things going on. I would recommend in the future that we push this under the Refreshers banner but also as a separate event too. Thank you to all who came along and helped out – especially Lukas for putting together the brilliant information pages. They will be extremely helpful to hand out throughout the year! I imagine that we will have a review discussion at cross campus committee. I will share our findings.

2.2 Professor GreenWell. This was an experiment and a risky one but something we can definitely learn from. By the time you are reading this we will have met to do a full review and can hopefully put together a formula that must be met if we are to risk hosting our own night again. Thank you to all who came along on the night and pushed it on facebook. If I am honest I was a little disappointed that more people did not manage to bring friends even when given free or discounted tickets. We agreed as a board that Professor Green would be a popular act but it seemed that many did not believe they could find friends who would want tickets. I think we were surprised that there was not a core Glasgow fan base (not necessarily the student population) that would turn up too. I will give a quick summary of any suggestions or recommendations that come through in the meeting.

2.3 Hippo Beers TastingWe sold 27 tickets for this event and many of these were just turn ups. I would recommend putting tickets on sale much further in advance for the next one. This was a complete oversight on my part. I asked duty board to hand out pieces of paper to the attendees in order to get some feedback on the event and suggest some new stock for the Scran craft beer selection. The feedback was all very positive and we will definitely be looking to host another tasting with the lovely team at Hippo Beers. We are hoping to work a bit closer with the GU Real Ale society who sometimes do craft beer events but there was also enthusiasm from some of the attendees to start up a GU Craft Beer society that would run the tasting with Hippo Beers. I will update you on this as things develop. By this meeting we should have made a 125 beer. How exciting!

2.4 Cultural Appropriation PolicyI met with Yasmine Abdel, the Race Equality Officer at the SRC about putting in place a policy on cultural appropriation at the QMU. Cultural appropriation is a vague term meaning the adopting of elements of one culture by members of another so will be quite tricky to define the guidelines but working with Yasmine I hope to put together a suggestion for an addition to policy. Yasmine is working on a document that will explain what cultural appropriation is and why it causes offence. One of her priorities is to raise awareness rather than just put in place sets of rules. I will update you on this as we get further and then we shall have a CBP committee meeting to discuss it.

3 Honorary Secretary:

3.1 Refreshers' WeekThe cross campus efforts towards this seem to have been successful, as all events run by all student bodies enjoyed decent turnout. It also helped foster some cross campus camaraderie, enhancing the student experience and hopefully boosting our reputation within the university. I am, however, disappointed with the lack of engagement by our Freshers' Helpers in getting back involved with the promotional side of the week. A few people volunteered and gave it their all, so I am extremely grateful for their efforts; however, there were quite a lot of flyers and posters left over. Board Members were brilliant in helping to promote events, so thank you all for your hard work.

3.2 125Five tickets have already been sold online, and there has been a lot of positive interest showed towards the event, so I am confident that we will get all the tickets sold. I plan to devise a way of informing people that if they wish to sit with certain people that they can book seats together, otherwise it will just be a free-for-all seating wise. Once the Catering Manager is back I will be discussing a menu with him, to further publicise the event. By the time of this board meeting there will have been a meeting to discuss other 125 plans, so I shall bring a verbal update on Monday. Something to think about in advance is who we would like to approach to speak at the event, perhaps people from key stages in Union history.

3.3 MembershipLast week's report said that I would be looking at the membership database and sorting it by a variety of categories, in order to send targeted emails. I am afraid I have not managed to do this yet, but it is at the top of my list and will be completed by the next Board Meeting. Lauren is meeting with the University alumni office this week to compare our life member data, and send emails out to everyone with details about the 125 dinner.

3.4 Clubs and SocietiesBy the time of this meeting I will have emailed the Google Forms survey to every club and society affiliated with us, and hopefully will have a decent number of replies by the end of the week. This email will also cover the system for ensuring people either turn up to, or warn me that they won't be turning up to, their block bookings, as well as highlighting the opportunities we can give them, such as tea and coffee for their meetings, training on minute taking and meeting chairing (as AGM season approaches...). The calendar is pretty jam packed for the rest of the semester, though. I'm glad that people see us as somewhere that can fulfil their needs.

3.5 Staff ElectionSince the staff election that happened in November wasn't successful in finding a new Staff Representative to the board, I'd like to call another one. I shall bring dates of nomination and voting

to the Board Meeting and hopefully interest will be higher than it was last semester.

4 Honorary Assistant Secretary:

4.1 First Aid Training

I’m sure you will all have seen by now but first aid training will be in Qudos next Tuesday (the 3 rd). The Red Cross seem to be very busy at the moment and this was the only date we could really fit in to both our calendars. It therefore seems unlikely that we will be able to schedule a follow up for people who can’t make that meeting, but if there are a lot of people who can’t then I will see if we can get them back.

4.2 CBP Committee

I plan on having a meeting to continue discussing the issue of first year representation a week on Friday (the 6th), time TBC. I urge you to come to this if you can. I apologise that it has been so long since the last one. The purpose of this meeting will be to discuss in practical terms what a ‘First Year Representative’ role would be. We will need to see if it can be made distinct from CSR and what sort of responsibilities they should have.

There will then be another committee on equality and diversity later on in the year. Following from Lauren’s discussion with the SRC’s Race Equality Officer, I have decided that it may be beneficial to discuss what we should do with people like the Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Age and Mental Health Equality Officers. I have already spoken to the University, but I feel we can only benefit from wide consultation on this.

Finally, we will hopefully have a meeting to discuss membership. Because of the importance of this, it may be beneficial to have the meeting after the election so that we can discuss it with next year’s executive and convenors as well. As ever though, if you have thoughts on anything to do with any of these issues then let me know and I will make sure they are brought to a meeting even if you can’t be there.

4.3 Election

This is sooner than it seems. If you know somebody who is thinking about running for a position, encourage them to do so and to ask for more information if they need it. Make sure everybody knows it’s going to happen and get everybody to vote. We had an excellent Autumn election, it was highly contested and that meant we had a higher voter turnout for it than for the General Election last year. We want to continue that positive trend and get as many people as possible running for positions and voting. We will be calling the election at the next meeting so if you plan to run for a position and won’t be coming off board at this next election then you will need to ‘resign’ by then so that we can fill the seat you leave behind. Feel free to come and speak to me if you want to talk about that. If you have any suggestions for novel ways of promoting or running the election, let me know. So long as it’s in line with CBP, I’m open to ideas. In particular Euan suggested a while back that we might want to incentivise voting which is a very interesting idea, but something that needs to be discussed (see membership CBP Committee above).

On a related note, I would urge the executive and convenors to start thinking about handovers. The more we can help prepare the next let for their jobs, the better everything will be.

5 Campaigns and Charities:

5.1 Sederunt

12/01/15:Board Members – EA, PK, CBark, LHorn, CVS, AS, JZ, LD, RDMembers – 12

19/01/15:Board Members – EA, LHorn, LD, CVS, JZ, CBarkMembers – 7

5.2 Upcoming Events

Friday 13th February (MAGIC): Flourish House Danceathon

Saturday 21st February: Mini Jailbreak

Saturday 28th February: Firewalk

Saturday 21st March: Jailbreak

Week beginning Monday 23rd March: RAG week

Flourish House Danceathon – As this is the closest event, I am looking to have this set up by next week, so that we have a ten day period to push it. The idea currently is to have a Hot Dub style music journey through the decades, and ask dance/music societies to get involved and contribute to the playlist. A poster will be made for the event this week.

Mini Jailbreak – Over the next week I hope to have instruction packs sorted and available at the porters box. We are sticking to the idea of University Union buildings across Scotland, and I will be emailing the relevant people this week to let them know what we are doing. A poster for this is also being made this week.

Firewalk – Gearing up for a big social media push, I would like anyone who is definitely getting involved to sign up and start getting vocal about it! This event doesn’t need a massive amount of work put in our end, but any liking and sharing would be appreciated.

Jailbreak – One month following the Mini Jailbreak we will be looking to hold our main Jailbreak. I am planning to contact some universities who have successful Jailbreak events, and will look at releasing the sign up packs in advance so that teams have time to find travel plans and sponsorship. Hopefully this will lead to greater profits.

Masquerade Ball – This is currently an idea for a big and fancy ball at the end of the year to raise money for Sense Scotland. Once the plans are in place for our February events (in the next two weeks) I will start looking at potential areas of businesses who might like to sponsor us for the event, and nailing down details of what we want the event to be.

5.3 Campaigns

I am hoping to hold an Elephant in the Room sub-committee this week to get fully up to speed on the campaign, with a view to kicking it off as soon as we viably can.

I am also looking to get in touch with the SRC to try and look into finding a campaign that all student bodies can take art in over RAG week.

6 Current Student Representatives:

6.1 The one where we did a meeting

On Friday 16th we held the first CSR meeting of the new year. Hooray. All the project ideas suggested in the past board meeting (namely poster-making and ensuring Champs is an actual sports bar again) got taken by various CSRs.

The list of action points is looking fantastic, and I am really happy with everyone’s progress and willingness to take on new things and help with other people’s projects. Jack S. tagged along to encourage people to read CBP and have a think about possible policies that the membership might want us to get behind, so hopefully we will be engaging with that aspect of the role a bit more from now on.

I’m currently making a more structured PR rota, which will hopefully make our PRing efforts a bit more consistent, but due to university getting in the way, I’ve not yet finished it.

6.2 Sederunt (16/01/15)

CSRs: C. Barret, J. Zerr, C. Barker, J. Taylor, C. Acheson, P. Khindria, J. Jamieson, L. Hornsby, K. Denholm, R. Dobson.

Others: J. Smith (Hon. Asst. Sec.), M. Sefton (Publications Convenor).

Apologies: L. Delius, L. Fraser.

6.3 CSR ProjectsDates of completion written next to the completed Action Points. All CSRs should notify me as soon as they can whenever they complete an Action Point so that it can be bolded and dated. This list has been updated as of 23/01/15.Completed Action Points in bold.

Lesley- Promoting Café Twenty2LF to investigate the logistics of PRing Café 22 to Huntarian tour groups

YL to think RE: posters in committee rooms for Café Twenty2 (and club and society meeting tea and coffee deals). LH to look to get some Café 22 flyers printed.LF to contact SRC about advertising Café 22 at the Welcome Point.- Promoting Scran.LH to produce banner for Scran opening times.LF to compile a list of food bloggers and local papers so that when Scran is all sorted we can have some reviews.LF to get email addresses for food bloggers.- Better engagement of mature students.LF to talk to MSefton about an MSA article in qmunicate.LF to chase MSA RE: article for qmunicate.

Rachel- Advertising TV room as a space to use.RD to look into this.- Improving the website.RD to chat to LH. LH to consider better links between FB and website so that people who see the FB page also know a bit more about how we are run.- List of things to fix around the union.RD to send version 1 to LH (09/01/15).RD to look into putting pictures of past boards in the Board Room.- Alarm codes. LH to sort out alarm code.BB to contact alarm company/anyone who knows how it works.

Celia- International students night.CVS to consider some ideas for a promotion to encourage international students to come to Magic (rather than a specifically targeted clubnight).CVS to liaise with international society to discover if they would be interested in running a tandem event rather than having theirs in the building / us putting on an international night.CVS to develop the idea for a Scran event for international students (both local and world dishes, on a Friday so they can them come to

Magic?).LH to try and find an appropriate date for Scran international event and liaise with catering department to produce a budget.- CCSRCVS to share PR guide and list of buildings to PR.CVS to make PR rota and sign out sheet.CVS to make poster for GN poster holders (13/01/15).CVS to make poster promoting members’ drinks prices (15/01/15).CVS to make poster promoting points system.CVS to make Jailbreak poster.CVS to make danceathon poster.

Jack- Gender Neutral toilets.LH to order appropriate signage for the 3rd floor gender neutral toilets.JT to ask LGBTQ+ if they have any posters advertising their support services for these space.JT to contact Iain French RE: GULGBTQ+ posters.JT to obtain LGBTQ+ posters for display.- Wall of fame.JT to compile a list and photos of people for the ‘QM Wall of Fame’ (to include honorary life members, Janet Galloway, bands that have performed, photocopy of the alleged Kurt footprint, information about #qmu125 and life membership) (come up with some snappy ‘be part of the QM’ line).JT to be put on duty with Hinton RE: Wall of Fame (09/01/15).

Calum- Improving feedback.CBark to produce a feedback slip for events and services.LH to find suggestion boxes and have them mounted in appropriate spaces.LH to find an appropriate date / write a budget for a beer and burger event intended to encourage those thinking of running in the election to chat to board members.LH to chat to BB RE: online survey.

Chris

- Cheaper drinksCB to chat to Bill to compare sales of priced items and reasons for more expensive choices.- Expanding the reach of condom boothCB to chat to Emma RE: condom booth and consent classes.CB to chat to SRC Mental Health officer about providing material for condom stall.CB to chat to Barclay Medical about any health Campaigns we can promote.- Committee rooms (improving looks, promoting a study spaces).CB to chat to Hinton about making committee rooms more home-y CB to chat to Cat and compile a list of ítems for committee rooms- Better publicising of 3rd floor.CB to contact LGBTQ+ and SRC to include our gender neutral toilets in guides

Priya- Membership – Board communicationPK to chat to exec RE: big event to improve board-membership communication.PK to set a date for this event.PK to make a poster for this event.- Film showings.PK to investigate film licenses.PK to talk to Hinton RE: Film Showings.- Promoting the Board’s progressPK to design a display cabinet with info about the Board and its projects and activities.

Lukas - Working on vegetarian Meal-Deals.LH to talk to catering – must have veggie option for the deal. Meat free Monday. LD to talk to Hinton/catering RE: veggie/allergenic food. (w.Julie)- Improve communication between membership & Board.LD to talk to Exec about big event to improve board-membership communication (w.Priya)LD to talk to Celia about including info and contact with board photos

LH to find email address for CSRs to be included – officers@qmunion.org.uk- Promoting 3rd floor.LD to look to publicising third floor study spaces

Lucy - Scavenger hunt.LHornsby to put together a list of things to find.LHornsby to put a rule page together.LHinton to talk to cross campus about making a joint event.[Scavenger hunt postponed to RAG Week.]- Magic feedback.LHornsby to write a list of possible questions.LHinton to add question to guestlist for Magic.- Improving committee attendance.LHornsby to design a committee board for 2nd landing.- Charity event.LHornsby to email Erin at Sense about a walk in March. [Possibly changing to a sponsored pyjama walk.]LHornsby to find a date for an event.

Cat- Aloud ZineCA to promote Aloud zine to creative writing/GUAVA groups.CA to talk to Hinton RE: zine + artwork.CA to continue to support Aloud editors in the selection and production of the zine. (09/01/15).- Specific needs.CA to talk to disability services RE: what people want/need. LH to cc CA in to emails about attitude.- Displaying art in the unionLHornsby, CVS, JT to help with this.CA to create a FB group for this.Someone to contact History of Art department RE: judging submissions.

Jonathan- Improving the QM website.LH to talk to Alice Chaliner about this.- Pool league.JS to make JJ admin for the FB page (15/01/15).JJ to make a poster.- Publicising benefits of committee involvement.JJ to talk to Max RE: online 'skills' article?- Better representation of mature students.JJ to talk to Lesley RE: mature students; postgrad club RE: post-grads.

Julie - Allergenic foods.JZ to talk to Hinton/Catering about vegan/allergenic food (w.Lukas).JZ to email vegan and gluten-free socs RE: brands they like (14/01/15).LH to get vegan/gluten-free food.JZ to look into getting gluten-free beer.-Home student engagement.JZ to email Alison Bowitt RE: events for Home Students that the University organises (14/01/15).JJ to help organise this event.Kat-Attitude is everything. KD to keep an eye on AIE.- Better promotion of condom service at Magic.KD to talk to Emma about condoms at Magic.KD to make a condoms poster.LH to tell cloakroom staff to put this poster up.- Improving social PR and feedback.KD to help out with social events- Last orders gongKD to find a gong for £20ish.- Food Factory salad bar.

KD to Chat to Hinton RE: Food Factory salad bar.

Collective projects- Champs as a sports barKD and JT to compile a list of possible sporting events to show.- Making committee rooms more home-yCB and CA to chat to LH RE: improving committee rooms.- Chalkboard wall to be used to promote events.CVS to organise a social to discuss this.- PR.CVS to create a structured rota.CVS to put up a Doodle poll to find out people’s availability (19/01/15).

7 Events:

7.1 Sedurents13/1/15Board Members: RD, YL, KD, LD, CBarker, JJ, LH, EM, CA, KSOrdinary Members: 8

20/1/15Board Members: PK, EM, LF, KD, JJ, CA, CBarkerOrdinary Members: 5

7.2 Magic

7.2.1 Where are we? Where are we going? (Part Two)Unfortunately I still don’t have a great deal to update you on here. Last semester we were ever so slightly up on attendance, but not by any significant amount. Owing to our new pricing structure we are understandably down on income (compared to last year). I’m not too sure yet if the money people have been saving on the door was spent in the bars, or if there has just been less spend per head than last year. We’re going as normal with free passes and guest list just now. Once the current stock of passes runs out however we may start only offering free entry through a guest list. One idea that has been discussed at both the Magic Meeting and in Committee is rethinking what we do with Jim’s. I hear a lot of great feedback about what we’ve done with Jim’s bar, but this doesn’t seem to be reflected in the amount of people actually using it as a club space. Whether or not we can use the space more efficiently/in a way that brings more people into Magic is certainly food for thought. If you’re at Magic, please take a minute every hour or so to pop in to Jims and see how many people are in there. Try to work out how many people are in there for the music, and how many people aren’t really bothered by it.

7.2.2 Late Late Hogmanay!A Fabulous success to start of semester two! Around 770 people battled through the awful weather to celebrate Hogmanay in true QM style. Thank you so much to people who helped out with balloon

blowing/tech/popcorn/promoting. We were marginally up on numbers compared to last year, and significantly up on income, which is always good news. There were parts of the night where we had a queue, and for the first time in ages we had to open up a second cloakroom (although the snow can probably take some of the credit for that). I think that pushing the event through Refreshers really helped to get the word out and bring people down.

7.2.3 23/01/2015Our first ‘regular’ Magic of the Term! This hasn’t actually happened at the time of me writing this report, so I’ll comment on how it went at the meeting. As I mentioned above we’ve had both guest list and free passes for this event. We decided not to spend money on an inflatable, both to save the money, and because the committee noted they were becoming a bit repetitive and were mostly an individual rather than group experience. To try and fill the space we put a shot bar in Qudos.

7.3 Battle of the Bands.We’ve popped a date in the calendar (23rd March) and it’s top of my To-Do list this week to get the foundations of the event in place. It’s a cracking event and should hopefully be well attended/contested if we get some PR out in the next couple of weeks. As always if you’d like to be involved with the planning or running of the event then come along to committee, or just give me a shout! Moreover if you know anyone in a band, tell them to keep a look out for applications opening.

7.4 Tech TrainingI’m so sorry! The last two weeks have just absolutely flown past me. I’ll make sure there’s a doodle poll up on the board page before this meeting, and I’ll confirm some times at the meeting!

7.5 ElectionThe Election is fast approaching! I’ll be banging on about this at committee too, but Events Convener is REALLY FUN. And rewarding, and lots of other positive adjectives. If anyone is interested in the role then please feel free to come and chat to me! Likewise if you know anyone who is interested then send them in my direction!

8 Publications:

8.1 Sederunts

14/1/15 - 45 attendees including Max Sefton and Cat Acheson

21/1/15 - 41 attendees including Max Sefton, Cat Acheson, Lukas Delius and Celia Varela-Sixto.

8.2 qmunicate magazine

First editing weekend is January 31st. Content is coming in at a good rate.

We have had two very well attended meetings and a social.

Online stats for January are a little disappointing. Still well on track to get 5000 hits but I think we can do more. I have instructed all my editors to have all their material prepped for online so that we can build up our hits again as people get further into the term.

8.3 Other

Hopefully by the time you read this the Aloud zine will have been sent to print. Submissions were all excellent, congratulations to Cat, Alice, Calum and Syd.

Scott Wilson and I represented qmunicate at the SRC’s Intro to Student Media session. There were 7 attendees, which is absolutely atrocious. Most of them came to the qmunicate meeting the following day though. I’m going to email the SRC on behalf of qmunicate to ask them how they felt Refreshers week went, however in a personal capacity I was disappointed with some aspects of how Refreshers was promoted by the SRC.

9 Social:

9.1 Sederunts

22/01/15 – 15 attendees including Board Members – Jack Taylor, Kat Denholm, Jonathon Jamieson, Julie Zerr & Rachel Dobson

15/01/15 – 17 attendees including Board Members – Kat Denholm, Alice Stearn, Euan Murphy, Jack Taylor, Priya Khindria, Jonathon Jamieson, Celia Varela-Sixto

9.2 Refresher’s Week

Refresher’s Week was a resounding success, especially regarding Social events. The first Big Wednesday pulled an incredible 220 people into Qudos with 44 teams. (The GUU’s big quiz had 39, lol) I had not anticipated it being any near this busy and was delighted at the numbers. The cash prize seems to have been a driving incentive in getting attendees, so I will be asking for more cash prize BWNQ’s this semester.

FUQ was put back a week in order to give us adequate time to plan, which I will go into detail about in the below section, and had not been included on the QMU’s Refresher Week’s PR therefore I did not want it’s launch to become a victim of being poorly promoted and subsequently lost in the shuffle.

There was a mix up with Karaoke regarding starting times, so the first hour was quite quiet. However it picked up and two contingents of Pub Crawlers came in and really enjoyed the karaoke. At the peak of karaoke, there were roughly 40 people in attendance. It’s something that I would consider taking a punt on and perhaps putting on as a monthly event as these numbers were acceptable but not amazing.

On Tuesday, Unplugged scored an impressive 120 in attendance. Again, more than I had anticipated. Hopefully this allows us to pull in more regular performers and attendees.

The second BWNQ of Refresher’s Week was moved to a 6:30 start to accommodate the comedy in Qudos. Obviously this had a negative effect on the momentum it had built from the first quiz and was only attended by around 40 people.

Overall Refresher’s Week was a monumental success and I would thoroughly recommend running with it again next year. Call me Captain Obvious, if you must.

9.3 FUQ

The Friday Union Quiz launched on the 23rd of January. The name change and rebranding has definitely helped gauge interest. The old PCP Facebook page now has more likes than ever, and 58 attendees at the first edition was a promising early sign. The show’s format has six rounds; music, film/TV, sci-fi, picture, bizarre news and a specialist round. It’s not unlike PCP, as we were wary about moving too far from the original format and straying into the unknown. Alexia and Callum will continue to host. Already in committee we have a number of potential spin off ideas derived from the new name, concepts such as FUQ Buddies (committee members who would team with friendless attendees) FUQ Fests for bigger prize editions and FUQ My Life for exam time quizzes were all suggested.

The PR has been attracting interest, I think as stupid as it may sound; people are amused by the name and are at least having their interest pricked. The show will continue at 5pm on Friday’s with MAGIC drink prices being a main selling point.

9.4 Ideas Going Forward

A few quick things, I have taken t-shirt designs for Unplugged to Hinton. We are also looking at doing a competition this semester again but this time with either a cash prize or a music instrument as a prize as opposed to studio recording time. We are also looking to record the second Unplugged Sessions audio for upload to Soundcloud at some point.

Aloud will be back on the second of February and will have a competition. This will coincide with the launch of the Aloud magazine.

There has been talks regarding holding a ‘bring your unwanted things’ for charity event at the QMU. This will enable people to get rid of unwanted clutter and make a donation to the QM’s charity, the same way they’d donate to charity shops, but this time we keep the donations and hand them back out as quiz prizes. It may not work at all, but it’ll cost us nothing and we really have nothing to lose from this. Storage may be a problem if it’s successful.

That’s all, a little shorter than usual. If there are any glaring omissions, please do ask.

Cheers. xox