Guild Council + Redbrick
Redbrick + Guild Council
I attended Guild Council tonight and we elected new independent chairs and elections committee members. I was twittering the goings on under #Guildcouncil as a bit of an experiment on behalf of Redbrick to see how feasible it is and would be for the future.
When the independent chairs were giving speeches and taking questions the one reoccurring theme was that of accessibility. Everyone feels that Guild Council should essentially be more democratic – with better student representation and higher involvement. Now I am not commenting about the faults of Guild Council – it is under review (you can email Hannah Lazell vpdr@guild.bham.ac.uk for more info) and it is difficult anyway.
It did get me thinking about what role Redbrick should be playing in the process of communicating the decisions taken and actions decided upon at Guild Council on behalf of the student body. A couple of the candidates running for the position of ‘Indy’ chair suggested that there be a page or spread in Redbrick that sums up each GC. However I believe we at Redbrick could do so much more than that.
Guild Council would be the perfect time to ‘live blog’ and to tweet, this would allow people to connect and engage with the democratic process – sending in questions and being aware of decisions that are being made as they happen. It is probably one of the best opportunities we have to widen access to the process of Guild policy making to the student body. Making it available as a live event on the Redbrick website would remove a barrier to entry that many people currently face. If we really wanted to start pushing boundaries we could do interviews with proposers of motions or possibly with the officers themselves – instantly available on Audioboo.
It would also provide a fantastic record of each Guild Council, the merits of the debates around motions and open up the process of policy formation. It would also provide an opportunity for constituents to check that their Guild Councilor is representing them to the standard they expect and make the process of feeding back to the student body more straightforward.
The student officer group has started innovating with video reports (as well as their respective blogs) which I can only commend them for – we should be exploring all opportunities that we have to make the Guild more accessible to all students.
I would really like to hearwhat other people have to say on this and am very interested to hear what role people envisage Redbrick playing in the future.
The Guild of Students can be found @guildofstudents and Redbrick @redbrickpaper
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This is a great point Laura and i suppose one of the best ways around it would be the dummies guide to Guild Council – it could be available on whatever page the live information runs off and there could be explanation of the terminology and procedures. We could also use whatever live blogging technologies we are using to clarify any events at GC.
On Ed's point about the people not at GC – it might be just what is needed – removal of a barrier to entry for people to participate – people will be able to ask questions and make points / suggestions – something they might have been to shy to do in person.
Great idea Nick, of course.
Comment would just be on not only making it accessible, but understandable too. I think a lot of students might be interested, but really don't have a clue how it all works. Need to make what can be a v jargonated field mean something to people. Maybe space on the web or something to explain? Tweets from GC are great but I personally have no idea what an independent chair does (and I've been to a meeting before, too), or what exec approval is, officer groups, committee election nominations…I'm not being thick, but until I know what they mean, they're just words. And I have more of an eye on it than some; my friend said to me the other day something like 'I don't know what these people called 'sabbaticals' do, but I heard they have to take a year out of their studies or something?!' I hastened to point out that that was what the word 'sabbatical' meant…you see the point I'm making though? I recognise it was a first-time experiment, however, and would definitely encourage you to continue it next year for Redbrick.
Cheers Tom
Great idea Nick, am well up for it and if there's anything the guild can do to support you in this venture then do let me know.
I also think this would be a great idea- whilst the paper doesn't have the space to offer complete coverage of Guild Council, having it all online would be a great way of presenting the debates which most students may be interested in if they ever actually knew about them in the first place.
Reading the blog also made me think of how the BBC presents live action up-to-date coverage of, say, the Budget where they also covered the speeches by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and other opposition figures- Red Brick could provide quick, snappy sumnations of the arguments presented for and against a motion in GC and other relevant speeches/questions/suggestions. Ultimately if this idea goes ahead, Guild Councillors would be provided with a public platform other than the one they get from running in the Guild Officer elections.
Of course, there is always the possibility that not many students are actually interested after all, but there's no harm in testing the waters first.
Great idea! I've forwarded this on to Tom Guise (VpDR Elect) who is really keen to reform the system to make it much more open and efficient.
I think this could serve both Redbrick and Guild Council quite well, though there is of course a danger that the only people interested who werent there would be the Trotskyite anarchists.
xEd/.