Hello,

It is fair to say that you've had a lot of emails from me this year, so you may be pleased to know that this will be the last one! Today is my last day as President here at Salford SU, and I wanted to say thank you and goodbye.

This year has seen turmoil in the higher education sector unheard of in recent years; it has been punctuated by announcements and policy shifts from government, followed by demonstrations and campaigns by students and their unions up and down the country. We were proud as Salford students to take our place among the 500,000 others who took to the streets of London last November, and disappointed by the government's decision to cut funding and increase fees for students next year.

Away from the funding debate, my fellow Sabbatical Officers and I have dealt with hundreds of issues raised by students this year, some non-academic issues like car parking rates, and financial bursaries, and some academic issues like academic misconduct and feedback time. We drew up a 'Salford Bill of Student Rights' based on student feedback, and presented it to the University with a set of recommendations, which we are pleased to report, they have accepted and are working towards. A full report on our main campaigns and achievements can be found here: http://www.salfordstudents.com/voice/content/726363 so please take a look!

Finally, can I please say thank you to all of you who came to our events, responded to our surveys and emails, voted in the elections, took part in a campaign, or just stopped to say hello when we were around on campus! This is a great Students' Union, but it can only stay great with the support of students, and we need your ideas and input to move forward.

For those of you who are finishing University this month, I wish you the best of luck for the future, and for those of you here over the summer don't forget the new team start tomorrow so if you need anything do not hesitate to get in contact.

I wish Caroline and the new team the best of luck for the year ahead.

Regards,

Ricky

http://www.salfordstudents.com

I remember getting off the train at Salford Crescent, I remember attending my open day at the University, I remember the green campus and the proximity to Manchester was why I wanted to attend Salford.

Five years later I am still here.

Two years too many some would say, but my final two years have been as Vice President and President of your Students’ Union. I stood on the manifesto for President on the key points below:

Campaign to keep the cap on tuition fees 

Year round timetables

More Student Social Space

Longer Library Opening Hours Off Peak

Two Day Activities Fair and Fresher’s Ball

Promote religious diversity and interfaith groups

I am proud to say that as a team; including the officers I have worked alongside, Students’ Union staff members and students’ we have managed to achieve all of my manifesto points.  

This year has been different; not just about ticking my manifesto points off; honestly it has been the most challenging year of my life.

One of the proudest moments was at about 5:30am on the 10 November 2010 when a very tired and grumpy Ricky came onto campus to be greeted by 400 students to go on the National Demo.

It was an honour to march with thousands of students on the streets of London against an increase in fees, sadly we did not win the battle and it was heart wrenching to watch the vote go through, but also to watch the scenes of violence as the story unfolded.

The Union has certainly changed over the last five years, the Union I remember was all about the 15 hours, the Pav and that was about it. The Union now more than ever is actually delivering for students’ on a daily basis. Whether that is about campaigning and lobbying for change, training course reps, providing academic advice, getting involved in a student activity group or a cheeky pint in Yours Bar, the Union now means something to each and every student at Salford.

I want to say a massive public thank you for all the support, advice and guidance I have received over the last two years.

This does not just include the officers, and staff within the union but my close friends who have had to hear about it every minute I am awake.

It has been an honour to be your president over the last year and a truly amazing year it has been. I wish Caroline and her team the best of luck for the year she has ahead. Good luck to you all in your exams, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your time at Salford.

I certainly did!

Ricky Chotai

SU President 10/11

If you popped into the Students' Union last week you would have noticed that none of the Sabbs were about. We were all at the NUS National Conference in Gateshead.

Myself and Matt go automatically as President and President Elect, Jim, Joe and Alan Bailey came as they were elected delegates in March.

On Thursday was the election for the Vice President Higher Education and former SU President Usman Ali was up against six other candidates.

Below was his speech to conference how why he should be elected!

I have never seen Usman speak so well before.

There were late nights and early mornings campaigning for Usman during breaks and all the hardwork of everyone pulled off and he was elected.

I am really looking forward to working with Usman next year, on some of the key issues that will be affecting our movement nationally. The key one being the Browne review and the outcome of that.

At Conference, we passed policy to hold a National Demo and you can guarantee we will be getting involved with that.

The good news will hopefully set to continue as Alan Bailey is running unopposed for the open place officer for the NUS LGBT Campaign. 

It is awesome that next year we will have two former sabbaticals on the National Executive Council of NUS!

I am sure one of the others will be blogging about the full details of conference soon.

Original Post @ http://salfordstudentsunion.blogspot.com/2010/04/usman-ali-becomes-nus-vp-higher.html

The University has appointed Professor Huw Morris as its new Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic).

The full story can be read here.

I am sure many of you are wondering what a Pro Vice Chancellor Academic actually is? They are essentially the person responsible for setting the strategy for the teaching and learning experience here at the University. They really do have a massive influence on how teaching is delivered here at Salford.

The Students’ Union is looked forward to working with Professor Huw Morris over the following year, and really trying to tackle some of the key issues where you have told us you want see change.

These include E-Submission and the use of technology in your lectures and not just PowerPoint, to name a few. 

Professor Morris takes up his new role at Salford in July 2010.

Original Post is at http://salfordstudentsunion.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-pro-vice-chancellor-announced-today.html

Firstly please accept my apologies for not blogging sooner, things have been as hectic as ever but that is not an excuse.

The second is that back in December I posted about Does the Students’ Union really represent you?, and promised to do I follow up post, this will happen however I am just waiting for some of the election data.

Student Union Elections

 Left to right: Tom Doyle, Student Trustee Elect; Jim Dale, Vice President Elect; Christabel Brown, Vice President Elect; Ricky Chotai, President Elect; Caroline Dangerfield, Vice President Elect; Maros Kravec, Vice President Elect; Sophie Atkinson, Student Trustee Elect; James Walsh, Student Trustee Elect on the night of the win.

As you are aware in February and March the Students’ Union hold elections for next years trustee board and who is to go to NUS conference.

The Results were as follows;

President – Ricky Chotai

Vice Presidents – Christabel Brown, Jim Dale, Caroline Dangerfield and Maros Kravec

Student Trustees – Sophie Atkinson, Tom Doyle, Sylvia Joseph and James Walsh

NUS Delegates – Alan Bailey, Jim Dale and Joe Kirwin

The new sabbatical team is fantastic and I look forward to the all the challenges ahead and working on delivering our individual manifestos from the 1st of July. The team is a real mixed bunch of people some of whom I already know such as Jim who is one of the current Vice Presidents, and Caroline who I knew as the then Head of News at Shock Radio 3 years ago and is the current President of the Rowing Club. Others who I know less well, however I am sure this will change over the year, Christabel who is the current chair of Almost Famous and Maros Kravec who is Vice President of the Law Society. 

NUS Services Election

After the Students’ Union Election I vowed to myself, no more elections however as president elect last week I attended NUS Services Convention. NUS Services is owned by Students’ Unions and the National Union of Students.  Their mission statement is to; ‘Create, develop and sustain competitive advantages for member Students’ Unions – reducing costs and maximising commercial revenues’

To this end they provide three core services:

• Purchasing

• Commercial Development

• Marketing Services

The board is made of student officers and staff members from various Students’ Unions across they country and I decided to run for the position of Non-executive Student Directors.

The question I am sure you are wondering is why? During my time at University I did not study Politics etc, I studied Business and I have a real passion for it. 

Yes I am one of those sad acts, that gets excited when such shows as Dragons Den and The Apprentice is on. 

I was successful at the election for non executive student director, and therefore start my time on the board on the 1st July 2010.

General Election

For those of you may have been asleep over the last 24 hours, the date of the General Election has now been called for the 6th of May.

Check out all the details on our website www.salfordstudents.com/vote

We are supporting the NUS ‘Vote For Students’ campaign. Join us and pledge your support to vote for a candidate supportive of a fairer fees and funding system for UK Universities at the next General Election.

If the 7 million students in this country stand together in this campaign and pledge their support to protect our future, MPs and parliamentary candidates will have no option but to vote with us or pay the price at the ballot box.

Sign up at: www.voteforstudents.co.uk  A minute or two of your time could help make a huge difference.

As well as encouraging Salford students to sign up, USSU and other unions across the UK are lobbying MPs to support the following pledge:

“I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative”

Find out more about the Vote For Students campaign here. 

Make sure you check out the Facebook Group here.

On that I think that well and truly covers the topic of elections.

I will promise I will blog more regularly and maybe kick the others to maybe blog more often! :)

Original post is at http://salfordstudentsunion.blogspot.com/2010/04/elections-elections-and-general.html

It only seemed like a few weeks since it was the start of the new academic year, however students up and down the country are in the process of getting places for University starting in September.

Matthew Hemmaty USSU Election News package.mp3

(download)

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Matthew Hemmaty USSU Election News package.mp3 (4.8 MB)

Shock Radio News Package!