Development plan workshops – General Information
This year, AUSA staff and sabbatical officers have been reviewing all activities development plans in order to put together workshops that can best support all committees and members.
We have split the workshops into the following areas to ensure that there is something for everyone:
- Wellbeing & Inclusivity
- Personal / career development
- Financial Sustainability
- Environmental Sustainability
- Coaching & Performance
- Events & Participation
All the workshops for February are now finalised, more information about each workshop is available in the subsections but please follow the below steps to sign up to any of them.
- As a committee, have a look at the sections below and discuss the workshops that would benefit your activity most from looking at development plan goals, then decide which committee member will go to which workshop (more than one committee member can attend each one)
- Sign up to the workshop by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and purchasing a free ticket for one of the below events
- You will then be sent a link for the event
If you have any questions at all then please email kieran.matthews@abdn.ac.uk
Committee development / support
When reviewing the development plans, it was evident that committees were looking for more support on how to both set and achieve goals both personally and for the activity overall. To help with this, we have worked with the careers department at the university to organise a careers workshop that all committee members can attend. This will be a chance to reflect on what experiences and skills everyone has gained already. In addition, this will be a chance to work out what individual committee members would still like to achieve to increase their employability skills and can then goal set accordingly. Full details can be found on the event at the bottom of the general page, the key details are below:
Workshop for committee development
- All committee members welcome, Tuesday 2nd February – 15:00 until 16:30
- Support with reviewing role successes / experiences so far
- Interview and CV support – how to articulate your committee experiences
- Signposting to careers resources at the university
- Will be interactive so that you gain as much from the session as possible
- Goal setting
- STAR technique
- To sign up to the session, please purchase a free ticket from the event at the bottom of the general page
Wellbeing & Inclusivity
In this area of the development plan, most activities said that they were interested in having a wellbeing officer in place. Taking this feedback in to consideration, we have created the following wellbeing workshops / training for February. If you would like to join one of these workshops, please sign up via the events on the bottom of the page.
Please note, the role would not have to be official at this stage so you wouldnt have to host an EGM, this period of time can act as a trial in order to see if the committee feels that its needed. If so, you can then vote someone in for the role at your AGM in March / April. The person that takes the role just now can be within or outwith the committee and this can last for the whole semester or just up until the AGM.
Wellbeing Introduction session - Wednesday 3rd February at 10am until 10:45am
- Please sign up via the events section on the general page
- Open to students / activities interested in undertaking / creating a wellbeing officer role either for this semester or for the following academic year.
- Will be about creating a role description for student activities to use so that the role doesn’t take on more than it should
- Feedback focused to understand what issues / concern have come up within activities previously
- All discussions / feedback will help to shape the training session later in the month!
- Collaboration groups will start to be formed at this session
Wellbeing officer training – Tuesday 16th February, 11am until 12:30
Main topics and details include:
- Please sign up via the events section on the general page
- Open to students who are currently wellbeing officers or are interested in becoming one (doesn’t have to be officially in the constitution at this time so you won’t need an EGM).
- Understanding what signposting materials and toolkits are available to students from the university and externally
- Role and responsibilities further explained from previous session
- Scenario session – what to do in various situations
- Brainstorming ideas around wellbeing campaigns / best practice
- Encouraging collaboration amongst student activities
Online engagement & participation
Over the past 6 months, you have all done a fantastic job in keeping members engaged through the various online activities that you have organised!
In order to keep up this up for the semester ahead, we have created workshops that you can all take part in to help you!
Please see the support available in February, to sign up to the workshop please scroll down to the event section at the bottom of the general page.
Online Events Team channel: Microsoft team available here containing:
- Online event toolkit and handbook to support committee members responsible for organising events, socials or fundraisers
- A central place where student activities can share ideas and events that were successful
- Packages and programmes that other activities have used will be made available here
- Its available to join now, the handbook is in the channel already but will be updated by the end of January
Online engagement workshop – 10th February, 11am until 12:30
Key topics / detail can be found below:
- Online engagement ideas
- Microsoft Teams support – new breakout rooms feature
- How to run an online event
- Creating a calendar of events
- Online election support
- Collaboration groups – Intro to semester 2 events competition...
Can sign up by purchasing a free ticket from the event section at the bottom of the general page, open to all student activities looking for support with online engagement / activities.
Environmental Sustainability
Although face to face activities aren’t possible currently, the environment is still an important topic both nationally and worldwide.
Looking at the development plans, most activities were looking to be more active in becoming more environmentally sustainable.
If possible, we would like to support you with this through providing you with toolkits and we have additionally organised workshops to support you this semester. Please see the below support that will be available in February:
Environmental sustainability Team: Open to all committee members / activities interested making improvements in this area
Microsoft Teams channel consisting of the below:
- Toolkit to support activities in this area
- Chance for all students in this group to share campaign ideas
- Committee members will be able to collaborate with others easily.
- Please join the team here.
Environmental Sustainability workshop – Thursday 18th February, 11am until 12:30
Full information is available on the event at the bottom of the general page. Key topics include:
- Reducing waste and recycling
- Support with becoming carbon neutral and eco friendly
- How to create charity links?
- Transport sustainability
To sign up, please purchase a free ticket from the event section at the bottom of the general page, open to all committee members / activities interested in improving in this area.
Financial Sustainability
From looking at all development plans, it’s clear that from an AUSA perspective we can do more to support treasurers, especially when it comes to completing end of year reports.
We realise that a workshop just now may not be relevant however we will be looking to organise a workshop for both current and incoming treasurers. This will act as a bit of a handover process so that the new treasurers have both the support from AUSA and from the current treasurer. Topics that will be covered are:
- How to budget? – basic and advanced levels will be covered
- Budget forecasting – looking to support you to forecast for 1 or 2 years in advance to support sustainability
- Peer support system in place in April for new treasurers and current treasurers to complete a handover
- End of year report – it’s strongly encouraged that all activities submit this in to AUSA by June.
- Union Brew – How activities can make money from this when it opens again
- Sponsorship – Supporting toolkit on sponsorship and how to create successful financial partnerships.
Please keep an eye out for more information about this workshop that will be out in February / March.
Coaching & Performance
More information be out soon.