Glorious Leader Makes Glorious Blog Post
At midnight on the 1st of July I became constitutionally empowered as President of Maynooth Students’ Union. Now, a week on, I thought I’d share some of my reflections on the week just gone, and fill you in on what’s been happening.
The first few days in work were always going to be a little strange. Sitting in ‘Brian’s’ Office on my own was very odd. I’m still not entirely used to it now. Having been briefed and signed into office by Ian Russell (Student Activities Officer and Union Manager) I levelled my sights on the single most important event that is likely to happen to NUI Maynooth this year: the replacement of John Hughes as President. As it stands, the University Statutes make no provision for automatic student representation on either of the committees concerned with the selection process, so that problem aside, I’ll be spending a fair amount of time addressing that particular issue over the summer.
There was a huge volume of paper-work to get through on the first day, but while I was getting through that I also became a publican! Seriously though, I’m a licensee for the SU Bar, so I had to sign the license on day one and review and approve the safety procedures and provisions in place for the building.
The invaluable Mary Mac Court then trained Rob and I into how the Union works on a practical day-to-day basis. Things like phones, procedures, printing, binding, post, fax – vital information. I was also in contact with our friends in Crumlin (USI) over a couple of matters that we had discussed before the changeover.
On Friday, the work was much the same – documents to revise and preparation to be done for upcoming meetings, case-work, emails, and letters. These are the bread and butter of the job – identify a problem, fix it, repeat steps one and two. I contacted the entire exec to make space for them to drop by to discuss their plans for the year, and just to say hello. Finally on Friday I contacted the presidents of all the University SUs, and hopefully the seven of us will be meeting before the month is out to discuss University specific issues we can co-operate on.
Monday was fantastic, but rough. Liz was home from her holidays and the three of us spent five hours working through our plans for the year. We hope to compile a plan of work, based on this meeting in the next few weeks which will be available for people to check out once the website is online.
All the plans we had put together on Monday began to take shape in earnest on Tuesday, Liz is working closely with some really exciting groups relating to mental health stigma reduction, and Rob has already started nailing down the basics for the first year hand-book.
We decided to once and for all solve the problems in the constitution this year, and I’ve taken personal command of the project. I’ll be formally inviting submissions from interested parties soon, but if you have any ideas now, let me know at president@nuimsu.com and I’ll take them on board. I’m aiming for a referendum by October, which seems rushed, but if we do the job right, the practicalities are actually easier if we can combine the referendum with the First Year and Postgrad rep elections. So, I’ve been thinking deeply about what we need, and studying the constitutions of loads of other SUs to see how other people have solved the same problems we have. Serious thanks are due to the USI team for helping me out with documents for this process.
Then, as it was my birthday, the staff and sabbats threw me a little party. This was lovely, thoughtful, but more than a little mortifying as I really amn’t a birthday person.
On Tuesday afternoon there was a big meeting with Shay McNelis, our events co-ordinator, examining some of the plans in place for next year, and I can tell you there are some corkers in the pipe-line. Again, if anyone has any ideas for acts they would like to see us bring to the college then send in ideas to president@nuimsu.com.
I spent most of today working on internal communications with University personnel, and handling a bit of case-work, while also fitting in some work on the Constitutional Review. I’ve got a mental day tomorrow so I’ll be spending the next few hours preparing for the meetings that will be filling my morning, and making sure everything’s ready to go.
Now that I’m officially in office, I can finally finish by saying this. If you need anything, let me know! Call in or drop me a line or an email and I’ll get cracking on it.
That’ll do for now.
Much Love,
Aengus,
Your Union President.
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Oh and nice blog entry.
Words cannot describe the website win.
Rob is 1-0 up. Against what, I dunno.