Annual General Meeting (16th December 2021)

Minutes were approved. 

For: 44 

Against: 1 

Abstain: 15 

Annual Accounts were approved.

For: 45 

Against:1  

Abstain: 11 

Appointment of Auditors was appoved.

For: 37 

Against: 2 

Abstain: 17 

External Affiliations were approved/

For: 38 

Against: 4 

Savanna Cutts, VP Welfare and Communities led this discussion. She started by explaining that due to recent spiking incidents, they have looked into testing kits, stoptopps in SUSU venues and to provide personal attack alarms. Savanna also worked to create a student safety charter. After consultation it was sent out to local venues to sign. The charter includes checking bags when students come in, ensuring they have welfare spaces and that they look after students in their venues.  
 
Following on from this Savanna is launching a student safety survey to help with this endeavor and the results are currently being collected which will help inform work going forward. 

Where there are instances of sexual violence happening, she is working closely with the Violence against women and girls' reduction unit team at Southampton City Council and also Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner.  

Savanna then opened the floor for any questions on the matter. Matthew Smith, VP Sports, asked Savanna to mention some of the safety related initiatives of SUSU. Savanna responded by mentioning SUSU Safe campaign and the Safety Bus which operates 7 days a week and helps students get home safely around Southampton.  

Matthew Smith, VP Sports, read out the six sustainability goals which were drafted in October 2020 in collaboration with SUSU. 

Matt spoke about the COP26 UN climate conference, where himself, the Union President and Sustainability Officer attended. Since then, they had good feedback on presentations they delivered which can be found on the SUSU website under the Sustainability Section. Ben Dolbear, Union President and the Sustainability Officer launched a climate justice forum which will be launched in the new year, which is very exciting, and Matt mentioned he would encourage all students to be involved with this opportunity.  

Ella Foxhall, VP Activities, asked about what Matt learnt from COP26 and how he might want to implement his learnings within SUSU. Matt replied that it is a great question and as VP Sports it relates to a lot of transport for clubs and societies where a lot of people are taken to a lot of places, and it is important to consider there is over 6000 members involved with clubs and societies. He added that as an organisation at the moment SUSU is limited on advice given in terms of sustainable transport so he is hoping to work on that in the new year and hopefully offer some better alternatives for sustainable transport and maybe some of the initiatives for clubs and societies which used sustainable transport.  

 Ella Foxhall, VP Activities, led this discussion. She started by providing the context of the ongoing pandemic and explaining that students were initially engaging with online activities but this has declined. She proceeded to explain that students have struggled with their return to university and connecting with others which is a crucial part of the university experience. After having spoken to societies she established that many are struggling with engagement because there is anxiety towards returning to participating in activities. Speaking to people and general social skills have been lost over the pandemic so rebuilding student communities is something that she is passionate about. 

The plan at the moment is to help societies engage more people with a refresh project that they are working on. It would involve helping them with marketing and holding workshops. She proceeded to mention that there will be networking events and just after exams they will invite societies to network with students and to collaborate. Creating communities among societies as well as students so it would help rebuild those communities.  

  Matthew, VP Sports, commented that SUSU has a wide range of student volunteers and asked Ella about what is being done to help society and clubs volunteers with processes such as recruiting more members or doing an EGM. Ella responded that there is a struggle to recruit members and elect committee members as it important to have both and for the first term she had spoken to many societies that were still struggling. She added that it was great to hear that some have already recovered, and they knew who would be on the committee for the coming year which was fantastic and that they will support them through that process. But in order to get members for smaller societies it is important to give them the opportunities and platform to promote themselves and show what wonderful things they do to attract those in the student communities. 

No other matters of business were brought up after Matthew asked if there were any. Matthew proceeded to thank everyone for their attendance and for voting and wished everyone a restful winter break.