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Your Voice, Your Choice!

Vote in the Referendum 2010

15^th-19^th March 2010

The Guild of Students is currently reviewing its democratic decision making structures for the first time in nearly 90 years.  The aim of the review is to make the Guild more relevant to students by ensuring that they can easily and effectively influence the decisions that are made in the Guild.

Through market research, and consultation with students, the Guild has developed a proposed model for how students can engage in the decision making processes of the Guild.  The proposed model is designed to ensure that YOU can raise any issues that YOU may have with regards to life as a student at the University of Birmingham with the Guild in a safe and effective way, and that YOUR issue is acted upon by the Guild.  The proposed model is outlined below.

It’s now up to YOU.  For this model to be accepted we need YOU to vote Yes to the proposed model in the upcoming Guild Referendum. The Referendum will be held from 15^th-19^th March 2010 alongside the Guild Officer Elections.  All Voting is online.  To vote, you need to log into the my.bham portal and click on the elections link to go straight to the e-voting page.

For more details, please visit: www.guildofstudents.com

The Proposed Model for Decision Making in the Guild:

Open Forums

There will be Open Forums in the new model which any student will be able to attend and raise issues as well as question officers.

• Open Forums will be chaired by the relevant Guild Officer.
• Students can raise problems and suggestions in an informal manner at the most appropriate forum without doing anything before the meeting.
• Any issue raised will be actioned by the relevant officer where possible or referred onto Guild Council if it is too big an issue to be decided on at the forum.  This will be the responsibility of the Officer chairing the meeting.
• Any contentious issues can be voted upon in the forum to determine a steer for future action.  Before being passed on to guild council.
• These forums can also be used for two-way communication, getting feedback on activities, making announcements and giving updates.
• The forums can also be used to question Officers about what they are doing/ will be doing.
• There will be five forums covering the topics of – Guild, Welfare, University and Education, Sports, Student Groups
• Forums will occur monthly, but be on a cycle so that there will be a forum held at least fortnightly.

Steering Group

A student will be able, at any time, to email the new Steering Group (working title).  The Steering Group will determine whether an issue can be dealt with simply by an officer on the student’s behalf or if it needs to go to an Open Forum for discussion along with other relevant issues.  If neither of those solutions is appropriate it may be presented at the Guild Council meeting.  Throughout the process the student will be kept informed of the progress of their issue.   The Steering Group will be the Officers of the Guild.  Decisions made in the steering group will be presented in a report to Guild Council.  Any motion recieved will be presented in this report, making the process much more open and democratic.  Officers will have to make their decisions knowing that the detail will be effectively scrutinised by students representatives in a new and stronger Guild Council.

There will be a set of criteria agreed by Guild Council outlining how decisions are made as to where student issues are sent within the model.  These criteria will be used by the Steering Group to make a decision.

The Steering Group will present a report to Guild Council at each meeting outlining motions not accepted by the Group, and reasons for the rejection.  Guild Council can then hold the Steering Group to account if they feel that the criteria weren’t followed.  This may also enable policy not heard an opportunity to be given another consideration.

Guild Council

Policy can reach Guild Council for decision via two methods;

1)      An issue  raised in an open meeting that affects the student body as a whole, or is a decision of a political nature  would be given a recommendation by the meeting and passed up to Guild Council via the Steering Group.

2)      A student or Officer contacts the Steering Group with an issue to determine the best decision making body for that issue, and may submit it to Guild Council.

• The meeting will be chaired by an independent chair and vice chair both elected via cross campus ballot (at the same time as Officer elections).
• There will be 80 Guild Councillors elected from the following constituencies:
  • Academic Representatives – 1 from each School (27)
  • Society Representatives – 2 from each Mini-forum excluding the liberation forum (20)
  • Association Representatives – 1 from each Guild Association (8)
  • Residence Association Representatives – 1 from each Residence (13)
  • Cross Campus positions open to any student – 12 positions of which 2 must be 1^st year, and 2 must be Postgraduate.
• Guild Council will be an open meeting where any Guild member may attend and speak.
• Guild Council can hold officers to account and make decisions on Guild Policy via voting on motions that are submitted.
• Some decisions may be deemed too big to be voted on at Guild Council and instead be sent to Referendum.
• Guild Council shall occur once each term, but may be called more frequently than this by the President of the Guild if deemed necessary.

Current Sub-Committees of Guild Council

Some of the current sub-committees of Guild Council will still exist.  These are:

• Resident’s Executive
• Equality and Diversity Committee
• Elections Committee
• Student Group Committee

• These committees will become sub-committees of the Sabbatical Officer Group and can implement non-political issues or send political issues on to the Guild Council.
• Where there are currently members of these committees elected through Guild Council, this will still occur.
• All other committees will be disbanded and issues in these areas dealt with in open meetings.

Referendum

• There will be the ability to hold referenda each academic year.
• Guild Council will have the ultimate decision in which policies get voted on at referendum.  Ideally there would be no more than 5 issues put before the student body.

This model is designed to make it easier for YOU to let the Guild know how we can make life better for you as a student here at Birmingham.  It affects every student so you need to get out and have your voice heard by voting in the Referendum from 15^th-19^th March 2010.

For more information, please visit www.guildofstudents.com, or email vpdr@guild.bham.ac.uk

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