Reports to the Board of Management

Meeting 6 – 01/12/14

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:

On Tuesday Lauren and I went to St Andrews University for Northern Services and below is a summary of what I reported.

Bars to date are down 5% on last year to date, In Fresher’s week despite good pass sales the bars were down 31%. That week excluded we would be up 2 %. We have 4 weeks of intensive activity in the run up to end of term including 5 gigs with 3000 tickets sold by the booking agents. I would expect we claw the £10k Deficit Back.

Catering is 2% ahead of last year. However that is due to 3 large hospitality bookings and if these are removed then week on week our main Food Factory has dropped 11%.

Our Café Twenty 2 has now been in operation a full year and with good trade in the summer we are 9% up on budget and 18% ahead of last year despite the last two weeks showing a 14% drop.

Our Bar /Diner Scran had a further £8k spent on it and a significant over haul in the menu and drinks offer. We now sell Craft Beers mainly from the Drygate and we are currently up 98% on last year. The full year sales achieved last year we hope should be met by Christmas as we hope to secure significant Christmas Party Bookings.

Our smallest outlet is now our shop and it has really become a unit mainly used for distress purchases. Despite new clothing range sales are down 40% on last year.

We invested up to £10k in our new club night Magic changing the music, opening a second room and heavily promoting it against the competition. In general numbers attending have been good but this has been boosted by free passes and the income if we exclude Halloween is down 36 %. The next 4 weeks are critical to the plan we put in place as we review it in the New Year.

Last year we lost an external booking which brought in £40k per year. We saw a 40% drop in entertainment income despite increased costs and also we spent £32k on various repairs and upgrades to the building and invested £130k in redevelopments. As a result we incurred a deficit of £50k.

This year we are budgeting a surplus of £20k and that will be a lot of hard work to achieve. The QMU now houses the University’s Eco HUB run by GUEST. On 28th March 2015 we will be 125 years old and of course a celebration is being planned.

It was reported at the meeting that St Andrews has had almost £12million spent on redevelopment and is looking fantastic in terms of representation and commercial activities. Its coffee shop and shop have trebled in size and are doing very well. In Fresher’s week the shop sold £107k on their red gowns. Its clothing range is huge and a hoody is £34.99 up to £69.99. Interestingly food is not doing as well. They are now in their final phase which includes changing their main hall which is similar to Qudos in size. All of the other unions present reported that bar sales are doing reasonably well but with the exception of DUSA all reported massive drops in their regular club nights to the competition and students just staying in. St Andrews survives by doing a lot of external functions and bars such as the fashion show where 1500 tickets at £125 were sold in 4 hours and they expect to sell 600 bottles of champagne on the night.

We have agreed to host the conference here again in early June as the Art School GUU and St Andrews now all have building work affecting their venues.

This week I negotiated on our music licences with PRS and PPL. We have to pay fees on any live music and recorded music that we play including karaoke, quizzes, TVs, radios, juke boxes you name it last year these totalled nearly £6000. We do recover from all live acts the 3% of their gross revenue. One fact is the licence alone for 12 hrs end of term used to cost nearly £300 a night. With the decline last year in attendances, I think we will get the net cost down by £500-£1000 I hope.

Sky TV now costs £6240 per year (that is with us getting a huge SU discount) I do question whether this is something we really now need. To put it into perspective including VAT this needs 6240 pints of Tennents of £12480 to cover these costs.

I met with our Tennents Rep this week and they are keen to provide support for Scran in terms of Branding etc. And they were very pleased by our sales. They pointed out we are cheaper than any venue for Tennents often by more than £1 a pint now and many places £1.40 or more.. He gave me 2 tickets for the Celtic match which went in as a prize for the raffle at Red Ribbon Ball. At Northern services it became apparent we may reach a further tranche of discount from them and all Unions gave a commitment to push the various products they supply. He will give me an outline of support that we can call on from January before we break up for Christmas.

All late licenses have been applied for and on Friday I was advised it could again be the 19 th before we find out if any extension has been granted for the 19th due to the volume of applications.

Over the next 2 weeks I will be following up on the audit recommendations in their management letter and will have to spend a considerable amount of time meeting our legal obligations to establish a pension fund with the provider NOW Pensions.

Paul is back and in good health and we have begun to address a number of problems in catering that have built up. He feels we can treble the income in Scran in December this year and already we have 3 substantial Xmas reservations so here is hoping.

Is Scran working since we made the changes? We dropped breakfasts and pancakes which accounted for 448 sales and changed the menu considerably.Well from last year (in brackets) so far you have ordered 612 Burgers (373) 552 pizzas (69) 973 Bar Bites (271) 489 Tapas (0) 292 main meals (245) Beers 834 (77) Bottles of Wine 55 (21). In addition we have sold 888 soft drinks you have used 3569 toppings on build your own grub and 959 of our sauces.

Finally some snippets from our bar sales

2014 2013change +/- % change

Tennents Pints 25583.5 22384.5 3199 14.3%

Heverlee pints 3022.5 2263.5 759 33.5%

Hornsby’s bottles 1948 260 1688 649.2%

Eristoff 20175 24788 -4613 -18.6%

Jack Daniels 2713 3223 -510 -15.8%

WKD 1068 2038 -970 -47.6%

Messy Bomb 13347 8236 5111 62.1%

Bill B

2 President:

2.1 CSR Projects

I met with nearly all of the CSRs (just Julie, Rachel and Lesley to have a quick catch up with) and there are some great ideas to start work on. Please remember these are your own projects so you need to drive them forward, pester me and others to do stuff, set deadlines and make sure it all comes together. I am keen to offer any help and support I can but the drive needs to come from you guys.

2.2 Attitude Is Everything

Unfortunately our meeting with the representatives had to be rescheduled. I am still very keen to follow this up though and am working to find an appropriate date for the end of January. As soon as we have had them take a look at our premises and policies we will have clear direction on how to improve them.

2.3 Life Members

I was given an action point to start a Life Member connection tree! I have emailed past presidents that I know and asked them to get in touch with any contacts they might have. Hopefully I can then get in touch with those contacts and get them to give me a list of their contacts. AND SO THE TREE BEGINS! Let’s see if this works…

2.4 Refreshers Week

Is going to be called…..wait for it…. REFRESHERS WEEK! (some debate over the apostrophe to be had). It will run from Wednesday 16th until Wednesday 21st. The idea is to give our events a big launch for the term but also play on that new year motivation and try and get many more people involved.

So far we have plans for…Wednesday – BWNPQ (cash prize? GUSA round?)Thursday – GUEST EcoFair in the day / GUEST 60s Night / QM Live (Comedy? Named act?)Friday – Big Fat Quiz of The Year / Late Late HogmanaySaturday – Scran Beer Tasting (Do we want another event?)Sunday – Aaron CarterMonday – GUEST Film Screening in Qudos / QM Social EventTuesday – Unplugged (with a guest act?) (Cross Campus Debate at GUU)Wed – BWNPQ – (???)

There are spaces for more events to be added so get thinking about what we can do. We need events for committee and board publicity, maybe our own debate? These are discussion we will be having in the coming weeks so have a think and let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions.

2.5 Learning and Teaching Hub

The first of the University’s developments is going to be a Learning and Teaching Hub – A big shiny building (located Boyd Orr Car Park) that will house lecture space, group study space, chill out space, computer study spaces, café space.

With this building right next to us on campus we have the potential to generate much more foot fall but it does mean that we will be competing with hospitality services on coffee and sandwiches and the likes and with the hub on spaces for clubs and societies.

The development will not appear for a while but it gives some areas to make sure are in a good position ready for its arrival. There is also talk of some cladding work on the buildings that surround us and as I am sure the University wouldn’t want us to be the eye sore I am going to talk to the developers of this project to see if this is something we can jump on.

2.6 Christmas Magic

So unfortunately some of you will have to be on duty for Christmas Magic and that is annoying and I am sorry. But the rest of you please do give Tom and his team all the help you can to make sure this event is the best it can be! Try and get your pals down, maybe have a Christmas reunion with your FW Team, push it on facebook and if you can, volunteer to help with the decorating. It is going to be a fabulous night I am sure!

3 Honorary Secretary:

Apologies for a short report, and not much to update particularly from this last week. I spent five days in hospital with a viral infection, and the weekend with my parents being looked after, so have neglected my duties a little.

3.1 MembershipAgain, we ran membership sign ups at Magic this fortnight. Less per Friday signed up than in the previous fortnight; perhaps this means that the regulars are all members now. Huge thanks to everyone that has helped with this - it's made a big difference. However, this is not a sustainable solution so I'd like to discuss membership as a whole; its value, how we promote it, how we sign up people. As per last week's action point, I looked into temporary membership. It is highly inconclusive. The constitution points us towards Bye-Laws; Bye-Laws point us towards the constitution. It basically states that it is set by the Exec and the board, so this can be discussed at the CBP meeting where membership as a whole is talked about. With restraints of exams this realistically can't take place until after Christmas, but it's something I want to discuss as soon as possible afterwards. My other plans for this week involving life membership, emailing them all about 125 plans and starting to get tickets sold.

3.2 Clubs and SocietiesThere have been no major issues this fortnight, and people seem to be using their room bookings regularly and considerately. A few societies have been contacted this weekend about some issues duty board have encountered (taking chairs, not tidying up, breaking things), but at the time of writing I have received no replies yet. Again, I've not been in the union this week so can't confirm if there are more clubs and societies to affiliate. The ones we have are active in their use of the building, and most Sundays between now and Christmas are booked with society events and there are requests for other days too.

3.3 125One of my tasks for this week was to design a logo and a poster. I have not done this because the Western Infirmary doesn't have Photoshop. Give me another few days, please. Keep an eye on the board Facebook page and I'll upload ideas when they're complete.

Sorry for brevity; it perhaps proves that I've been ill as it's very unlike me. Thanks for your well wishes, I'll be back to my pint-drinking, office-dwelling, terrible-chat-distributing self shortly.

4 Honorary Assistant Secretary:

4.1 CBP Committee

4.1.1 The Last One

First off thanks to everybody who attended. I feel that discussion was productive and minutes will hopefully be sent out about it soon. A sweeping general statement of the opinion of the committee was that we should consider trying to create a new position for First Year Rep that is distinct and different from that of CSR. Whether or not this will prove practical is something that will be discussed and sorted out over another meeting or two. It will need to be carefully planned out and a job description that we feel will: a) be able to be done b) will improve the representation of first years in the Union and c) will actually have a positive impact of Union/Board operations as a whole so it is something we need to think about seriously. It’s not set in stone that this will definitely go forward as it still has to be passed at the AGM, and it may well prove impossible to draft something we’re happy with but I urge you all to think about this and any other alternatives you want to discuss. I am always free for a CBP chat. Literally always. Any time, any place.

4.1.2 The Next One(s)

Yes that’s right people, there will be at least one CBP Committee shortly after we get back from enjoying some festive frivolity. We’ll have a follow-up one on the issue of first year positions to go over that in more detail. We’ll also hopefully have another one soon after to try and put together an Equality and Diversity section for Bye-Laws. I’ll be getting in touch with the University’s equality and diversity team about their suggestions for what we should be including and the best way of wording it and so on and bring that to the committee for discussion. I imagine what they have will be good and comprehensive but we can have a look over it and see if there’s anything we want to add to it. Beyond that, following from the discussion at the last board meeting about membership and sign-ups we can have a committee to discuss that and see what we think we should do about that with regards to the value of membership and when we allow sign-ups.

4.2 Training

4.2.1 Fire Training

So, I forgot about Fire Training. I apologise for that. I can’t really fit it in just now what with uni work, and I don’t know how people would feel doing it during exams so I’ve asked Hinton to run it in my absence. It will be at some point this week. Everybody should attend because fire safety is incredibly important and we all need to know how to deal with the worst case scenario. Level 1s this may be of particular importance to you as you will need to be really switched on in the event of a fire when you’re on duty. I apologise for forgetting about this and not having sorted it out sooner.

4.2.2 First Aid Training

I have spoken to the Red Cross who have agreed to come in and do a simple rudimentary first aid training session some time in January/February. I may suggest to them we do it on Tuesday the 13 th of January before refreshers kicks off if that suits people? They’re quite flexible for dates so if that isn’t any good we can reschedule.

4.2.3 Duty Training

Again, I forgot to sort out a duty training evening for you guys and I apologise for that. Most of you should now have done your three training duties but if you don’t yet feel comfortable/aren’t 100% certain on what duty is about then do come speak to me. I’d like to meet with everybody that was elected in the autumn election if possible before the term is over just to see how you’re all getting on and what you make of training/board generally and so on. If people who were on before then have comments or criticisms of the way I’ve done things then let me know so that I can sort it out for the general election and we can improve things for the next bunch.

4.3 Christmas Magic Draw

The big one. There will be a draw for this. In the interests of fairness, what we’ll do is have a draw for level 1 from the level 1s (obvs), a draw for one level 2 from just level 2s, and then a draw for the other level 2 from everybody. If you are selected to do duty for this you will be exempt from duty for President’s dinner if you’re still on then. If you want to volunteer for Christmas duty then by all means go for it.

4.4 Social Convenor Election

Let’s start with the positives – congratulations and all the best to Chris.

Moving on to the less positive now. Turnout was 42 people. Given that our board is just shy of 30, this is extremely disappointing. I shouldn’t have to tell you how important it is that people vote in elections and to see that some board members didn’t is less than encouraging. We did not anticipate a high turnout for a variety of reasons but that doesn’t change how low it was. Hopefully we won’t need another by-election but if we do they need to be taken as seriously, if not more seriously, than the two regular elections. The reason we had an election was because there was an important position on the board left unfilled by a resignation, and therefore it is vital that we fill it. These elections are important. Vote in them and get other people to too. It doesn’t matter if it’s contested or not, we still need voters for our elections to have any shred of legitimacy or to be representative of the views of the membership. Otherwise there would be no point and we might as well just have the board elect people.

5 Campaigns and Charities:

5.1 Sederunt

5.1.1 - 17/11/14:Board Members – EA, PK, LF, LD, LH, CVS, JZ, JJ, CA, MS, CBarrett, JTMembers - 5

5.1.2 - 24/11/14:Board Members – Members –

5.2 Movember

Due to the excitement of Red Ribbon, I have been pretty awful at this. Apologies. I will have fundraising figures from Friday for you all at the Board Meeting. We sold glowsticks and Mo-ffins, and I believe facepainting happened.

5.3 Red Ribbon BallFor the Board Meeting I hope to have a full report on this event for you all to look at, which I will print off and bring separately. Having looked into the reports of past Convenors, it doesn’t appear that the event has been particularly well documented in the past, and I would like to set a solid foundation for next year. I also hope to have a review of the sustainability of the night completed as part of this. Hold tight for numbers.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, but please bring your questions:

- 2am close: Approximately 60 people remained at the night until close, and the atmosphere made this very 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. I will source numbers, but anecdotally I recall seeing quite a few new faces after the acts had finished. 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. 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. Cannot wait for the theme next year!

- 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.

To think about in the future:- 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.

- New themes: More. Bigger. Better. Amazing. Anything that involves more unique acts will go down a storm.

- Balloon Arch: Just saying, hot damn, that balloon arch was something special.

Thanks again everyone, peace out.

6 Current Student Representatives:

6.1 The one where I just talk about a bunch of vague stuff

CSRs have kept on being a very keen bunch of people. Everyone seems to be taking steps towards achieving their projects, and there is a great amount of collaboration between CSRs, which makes me unreasonably happy.

That said, and in light of the recent MAGIC crisis, I would like to remind us all that PR is super important and that we need to make a consistent effort to try and promote, not just MAGIC, but all union events. Sign-out sheet, PR, PR-Guide and list of buildings are all above my desk for anyone to get.

Massive thanks to Lucy, Rachel, Jonathan, Lukas, Kirsty McLeish (despite not being a CSR), Calum, Jack T. and especially Lesley, for having PR’d, thus making my life that much happier.

In other news, CSRs are due to have a chat about policy. This is projected to happen every other week, to on one had lighten the pressure of feeling like you have to have made some significant advances on your action points every week, and also to improve on the R on CSR. There was no P chat this past week, because the CSRs that did attend had previously been to the CBP committee, and it was deemed that holding said meeting would bring the total amount of P to DEFINITELY ONE TOO MANY. It will happen though. Promise.

Anyway, that’s me!

6.2 CSR Committee Sederunt

6.2.1 - 28 th November2014

Attendees: J. Taylor, C. Barker, L. Hornsby, L. Delius, K. Denholm, L. Fraser, J. Zerr, P. Khindria.

Apologies: C. Acheson, J. Jamieson, R. Dobson, C. Barrett.

6.3 Action Points for CSRs

Completed in bold

6.3.1 Lesley

LF – Investigate the logistic of PRing Café Twenty2 to Hunterian tour groups.

YL – Posters in committee rooms for Café Twenty2 (and club and society meeting tea and coffee deals).

LH – Produce banner for Scran opening times.

LH – Look to get some Café Twenty2 flyers printed.

LF – Contact SRC about advertising Café Twenty2 at the Welcome Point.

LF – Compile a list of food bloggers and local papers so that when Scran is all sorted we can have some reviews.

LF – Get email addresses for food bloggers.

LF – Work with T. Frost RE: 18th Dec. (MSA ceilidh).

6.3.2 Rachel

RD – Look into advertising the TV Room as a space for people to come and use. As well as the committee rooms as study space (often not used until about 5pm).

RD – Send available graphics for PCP to LH.

LH – Order flyers for PCP – done in house.

LH – Sort out alarm code – BB to contact alarm company/anyone who knows how it works.

LH – Consider better links between Facebook and website so that people who see the Facebook page also know a bit more about how we are run.

6.3.3 Celia

CVS – Consider some ideas for a promotion to encourage international students to come to MAGIC (rather than a specifically targeted clubnight).

CVS – 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 – Develop the idea for a Scran event for international students (both local and world dishes, on a Friday so they can come to MAGIC?)

LH – Try and find an appropriate date for Scran international event and liaise with catering department to produce a budget.

CVS – to share PR guide and list of buildings to PR.

CVS – to make PR rota and sign out sheet.

CVS – Talk to LH RE: officers@qmunion.org.uk

CVS – Chat to JS RE: Student Voice and email newsletter.

6.3.4 Jack

LH – Order appropriate signage for the 3rd floor gender neutral toilets.

JT – Ask GULGBTQ+ if they have any posters advertising their support services for this space.

JT – Obtain LGBTQ+ posters for display.

JT – Compile a list of photos of people for the ‘QM Wall of Fame’ (to include honorary life members, Janet Galloway, bands that have performed, photocopy of the alleged Cobain footprint, information about #qmu125 and life membership). (Come up with some snappy ‘be part of the QM’ line).

6.3.5 Calum

CB – Produce a feedback slip for events and services.

LH – Find suggestion boxes and have them mounted in appropriate spaces.

LH – Find an appropriate date/write a budget for a beer and a burger event intended to encourage those running in the election to chat to board members.

CB – To help LH with the plans and promotions of Refresher’s Week.

6.3.6 Chris

CBarr – Talk to BB to compare sales of priced items and reasons for more expensive choices.

CBarr – Chat to EA RE: condom booth and consent classes.

CBarr – Chat to SRC Mental Health Officer about providing materials for condom stall.

CBarr –Chat to Barclay Medical Centre about any healthy campaigns we can promote.

CBarr – Chat to LH about making committee rooms more home-y.

CBarr – Chat to CA and compile a list of items for committee rooms.

CBarr – Contact GULGBTQ+ and SRC to include our gender neutral toilets in guides.

6.3.7. Priya

PK – Chat to exec RE: big event to improve Board-Membership communication (w/ LD).

6.3.8 Lukas

LH – Talk to catering – must have veggie option for the meal deal. Meat free Monday.

LD – Talk to LH/catering RE: veggie/allergenic food (w/ JZ).

LD – Talk to exec about big event to improve Board-Membership communication (w/ PK).

LD – Talk to CVS about including info and contact with board photos.

LH – Find email address for CSRs to be included – officers@qmunion.org.uk

LD – Look into publicising third floor study spaces.

6.3.9 Lucy

LHo – Put together a list of things to be found in a scavenger hunt.

LHo – Put a rule page together.

LH – Talk to cross campus about making a joint event.

LHo – Put together week lineup flyers (w/ CS).

LH – Have a look for wee tokens and boxes (middle of catering).

LHo – Write a list of possible questions.

LH – Add a question to guestlist for MAGIC.

LHo – Design a committee board 2nd landing.

LHo – Email Erin at Sense about a walk in March.

6.3.10 Cat

CA – Promote Aloud zine to creative writing/GUAVA groups.

CA – Talk to LH RE: zine + artwork.

CA – Talk to disability services RE: what people want/need.

CA – Chat to LH about making committee rooms more home-y. (w/ CBarr).

LH – CC CA in to emails about attitude.

6.3.11 Jonathan

JJ – Look into improving QM website.

LH – Include Wednesday 14th ‘Music in Glasgow’ in Scran calendar.

JJ – Talk to Unplugged hosts.

JJ – Have a go at designing a poster.

JJ – Talk to MS RE: online ‘skills’ article?

JJ – Talk to LF RE: mature students; post-grad club RE: post-grads.

JJ – Consider home students engagement.

6.3.12 Julie

JZ – Consider home student engagement.

JZ – Talk to LH/catering about veggie/allergenic food (w/ LD).

6.3.13 Kat

KD – talk to EA about condoms at MAGIC.

KD – Help out with social events.

KD – Check CC in attudide is everything emails.

LH – Order a last orders gong.

6.3.14 Everyone

Consider ideas for feedback (online/physical).

Share Facebook events.

Look into promoting weekly events.

Approach MS if they ever need anything promoted in qmunicate.

Think about QM pool tournament.

Take down old PR/update PR in halls.

Think about HAVING A SOCIAL!!!

6.3.15 CBarr, CA, LD, KD, LHo

Look into messaging uni/GULGBTQ+ RE: promoting gender neutral toilets + making signs for gender neutral toilets poster holders.

7 Events:

7.1 Sederunts

7.1.1 - 2/11

Board Members: JJ, KD, PK, CS, TF and LF. 8 members.

7.1.2 - 25/11

Board Members: CB, JZ, KD, LH, JJ, JT, CS, MS, TF, KS and LF. 6 members.

7.2 Hello!

Hello Guys! Hope you’re all well – I’m sorry for the short report this week, I’m in deadline hell at the moment!

7.2 Glasgow Uni’s Got Talent.

I was really pleased with how this event turned out. We had about 90 people in the audience and a really good atmosphere. Chris did a brilliant job as host and our three judges were fabulous! There wasn’t quite as much variation in the acts as I would have liked (they were all music based acts) but they were all incredibly talented and it was a great show to watch. The night ran really smoothly, it covered its costs and it’s definitely something I’d recommend we keep going next year.

7.3 Magic

7.3.1 - 21/11/14

We’ve had a meeting already about this night. Thank you so much to everyone that came along, and for all your hard work you’ve put into pushing Mo – Magic. I don’t want to dwell on this night too much, for fear of repeating what has already been discussed. However, just to quickly recap- Magic dipped below our 500 minimum attendance. In accordance with our action plan the Board were called together for a meeting to discuss what action should be taken. The main result was a commitment to a huge push in PR and targeting students at Glasgow Caledonian University. Once more – an absolutely massive thank you to everyone who came along, pitched in ideas and actively gave magic that extra push this week.

7.3.2 - 28/11/14 Mo – Magic

I’m currently writing this report from the DJ booth before Magic begins, so I’m afraid I’ve nothing to say just now. I’ll give a report at the meeting.

7.3.3 - Christmas Magic

Christmas (and therefore Christmas Magic) is fast approaching! Everything is pretty much ticking over for this event. We’ve pretty much got down what we’re doing and just focusing on how we’re going to do it all. You will by now have seen that Ally McCrea has had to drop out. This is a shame, but he wasn’t our main act so it’s definitely not the end of the world. The second batch of PR (that doesn’t have Ally on it) has now arrived, and is all over the building. Please help to cover campus with it whenever you are taking out PR. We’ve finished auditions for the panto and I can guarantee it’s going to be an absolute corker.

7.4 The Future

I’ve spent part of the last couple of week’s committees thinking about what we’ll be doing next semester. This semester has been very focussed on Magic (which was needed to create the stellar night that we did). However, I’d like to see us planning a few other one off events next semester. It would be nice to see a few more projects coming out of the committee that aren’t necessarily club nights (although club night ideas are still more than welcome). My favourite ideas so are a Rocky Horror Picture Show Screening, a big Murder Mystery event and a QM Film Festival. We’re still very much at the drawing board stages however, so if anyone has any ideas then please give me a shout! Especially if you’re a CSR with some nice fancy project ideas!

8 Publications:

8.1 Sederunts

8.1.1 - 19/11/14

44 members including 4 board members: Cat Acheson, Lukas Delius, Celia Varela Sixto, Max Sefton

8.1.2 - 26/11/14

34 members including 4 board members: Cat Acheson, Celia Varela Sixto, Max Sefton, Lukas Delius

8.2 General Update

Issue 112 is back and it looks great. It is definitely the best magazine we have made so far. Content and design came together really well. Distribution is going well so far.

Sadly despite our successes, I did not get a budget passed for a fourth print edition this term so our fourth edition of the year will be online only, as it was last year. I intend to spend money on more Facebook advertising to promote this. Qmunicate still does not generate enough revenue so if anyone has any ideas or has been involved with marketing/advertising before, I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

We also broke the 10 000 hits barrier online this month, which is fantastic. There has also been good cross campus engagement on articles such as Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Submissions have begun arriving for the Aloud zine and I am assured that the standard is high.

We took a picture of all the editors dressed in the colours of the rainbow and are unofficially dubbing ourselves the cutest committee. Up your game y'all.

9 Social:

So, I’m Social Convener now. That’s pretty cool, right? My mum didn’t seem to care. The quest for her approval continues, as did the movement of the social sphere. Here’s what’s happened since I last reported.

9.1 Attendance:

9.1.1 November 20 th : 14, 4 Board Members: Kat Denholm, Priya Khindria, Chris Barrett & Jonathon Jamieson

9.1.2 November 27 th : 12, 3 Board Members: Kat Denholm, Chris Barrett, Jonathon Jamieson

Attendance is not high enough. I encourage all new CSR’s to get involved in Social Committee have they not already done so. It’s an easy going, laid back committee where you have the real opportunity to realize your goals you said you’d obtain when elected to board and to get stuck into projects. Feel free to come along with any idea you have, however little or small and we’ll try making it a reality. I’m a social convener who prides himself on being social; feel free to talk to me about anything.

9.2 Utilization of Champions Bar/Champion’s Champion

Whilst Jim’s Bar remains the priority for filling on any given day of the Social Calendar, the committee and I are seeking to get more out of Champion’s Bar. Granted, Champion’s provides a place of escapism, where members can have a quiet drink without having to be subjected to the goings on of the Union, but I feel like a bar which in name implies sports and victors should probably actively promote this philosophy. Don’t get me wrong, the bar does show sports - as every bar in

2014 probably should – but we do have pool tables as well as table football at our exposure, it shouldn’t be hard to organize application of them as aids for creating Social Events. The idea of a Champion’s Champion where each week the competition would change: pool, table football; ping pong (will have to be run through a budget) and potentially video games competitions would surely get people involved and allow us to provide something relatively simple to put together as well as free up Jim’s to be either the new casual bar (it’s a lot more practical to use Jim’s over Champions for this, at least in my eyes, I prefer the atmosphere of Jim’s) or to be used for functions and private hire. The variety of events would hopefully bring in a plethora of different challengers and give many people the chance of the distinction of being Champion.

This is not a fully realized idea, and I think this is a great potential opportunity for a CSR to work in conjunction with Social Committee to get some sort of weekly challenge/competition on the go.

Currently we’re place holding Monday nights, coming up with a variety of different fillers until we can properly launch a new night in Second Semester. This Monday (today if you’re reading in the Board Meeting) there will be bingo. It’ll be fun. Come….or else.

9.3 PR

Some news on the PR front; Hinton is helping me with the design of the universal PR posters. It turns out I’m useless at photo shop and she has very kindly offered to have a stab at creating our PR which will detail the weekly calendar of social events, lessening our abundance of Social PR and giving a clear outline to University students of what we’re doing on each day of the week.

I want to continue to utilize the chalk board next to Champion’s. I think this could become so beneficial that I have moved to get chalking of the board included in Duty Board’s responsibilities. That’s how much I value the need to internally advertise. It would take a minute or two for one of the Duty Board members to write up what the next day’s Social Event will be, and by having it done the night before it can be made more advantageous in exposing the event, as it will be listed from first thing in the morning up until the event takes place.

My committee also came up with the excellent idea of t-shirts for Social Events. There were requests for Unplugged T-shirts. We would originally order four for the purpose of the hosts wearing during the event as well as having two for PR purposes. Alternately we could also pursue the line of selling the t-shirts. It is no secret Unplugged is an event predominately occupied by regulars. They already feel part of the Unplugged community, I’m sure they would invest in a t-shirt which would explicitly convey this to any that catch the eye of their apparel. Aloud also has a dedicated following whom I’m sure would invest in T-shirts. They are also obviously very useful PR stimuli.

9.4 Unplugged

Speaking of Unplugged, I have been happy with its progress recently. The 18th saw high numbers in attendance, arguably because people moved upstairs from the screening of the Scotland/England game, but people stuck around anyhow which can only be taken as a positive. Disney Unplugged was also popular, with an upcoming Christmas theme on the cards as we close in on the end of first semester.

I am going to contact GUU’s Got Talent contestants to remind/inform them that we have an open mic night on Tuesday’s to potentially bring in new, talented acts for the event.

9.5 PC…..V?

PCP has no pianist. We know this. It could potentially have a violinist though. Aonghas Maxwell has offered to contribute towards the event with his playing of the violin as opposed to the previously played piano. This is a minor tweak but gives the show some definite direction moving forward. I am still not entirely convinced PCP cannot be further modified to better suit the needs of members interested in an alternative quiz. New name, new time, new day, new hosts, new features…all ideas I’ve taken into consideration, I hope that my committee and I can draw some solid ideas on what we’d like PCP to be by the time Refresher’s Week rolls round.

Thanks for reading, xox