Student Network Session: Student Representative Toolkit

so I I would like to begin um by acknowledging the country on which we are all meeting today and pay my respect to Elders past and present these lands um on which we are all meeting have always been lands of teaching learning and Discovery and I want to acknowledge any First Nation students who are joining us in the room today um my name is Ali Jack a I'm the director of support for learning at unq um you don't usually see a lot of me as I usually stay in the background of SVA but I've been with SVA since its Inception and um and it's been really wonderful over the last um couple of months to be um on the interim coordination team with Lisa Connelly um who's with us today as well um we we actually do have a new coordinator starting next week and it's a very exciting um announcement that I'll make um but um we'll just um have to um wait for that um it's my great pleasure to roduce this session today of the the students Network and the wonderful panel this session is actually a um it's to provide a jumping off point from the session we had last year at the student Summit so Jimmy bershaw talked about um you know being a student leader and the critical challenges of being a student leader so today we wanted to bring the student voice more fully into the room and um we wanted to continue building our leadership toolkits and our partnership toolkits um to share ideas about how we approach challenges and um what we've learned along the way um that might be useful for for someone else um so um to lead the discussion today we have Lisa Connelly um Lisa's a student at unq that I as I said have been lucky enough to partner with um she's a teacher and researcher and was the co-chair of the uniq students Senate last year um as well as the disability and inclusion student rep so as a neurodiverse person um with autism and ADHD um Lisa has issues with imposter syndrome I mean girl same um and perfectionism that lead to burnout at time so today Lisa is going to provide some tips and tools for new or returning student leaders to maintain good um mental and emotional health miles ion is completing a PhD in Psychology at curtain University in Perth and he works as an assistant for students as partners at curtain uni um he's served in various student support roles including residential advisor student Mentor tutor and volunteer um miles grew up in low socioeconomic rural areas of Queensland and wa and so he hopes to bring this unique perspective to improving tertiary student experiences and uh last but not least um Shay R is a trans student and activist who focuses on lgbti um QA plus rights and inclusion and they are currently the fenders University queer Collective president and the fousa queer officer um Shay centers their work around community building and Aid and bringing members of the trans Community to the Forefront of discussion um in sharing their experience um they hope to show you how to build and mobilize communities and lean on others for help so it's a really great panel um I've really enjoyed meeting um each of our panelists today but um I'm going to leave the chat um now just so that we can keep this a very student Le space I was just here to do the welcome um but I will say that um some of you in the room may be new to leadership um some will be more experienced um but I really want you all to remember that you all have unique insights and something to share and something new to learn so I'm really interested in what comes out of this session in terms of what SVA can do to support you to develop your toolkits So Lisa you're in charge now I'm going to hand the Baton over to you and you're also our first speaker so the structure is um your panelists will talk for about 5 minutes and then then we want to have um a bit of a discussion from everyone in the room um to share their their thoughts and ideas so on that no Lisa see you later so I've got sort of the jeel job today where I'm sort of making sure the SVA side is working but also speaking first so apologies if some technology goes a bit funny but basically like Ellie pretty much explained oh first of all I'd like to say that this is being recorded So if you're not comfortable having your face or your voice in the video that's completely fine you can turn your microphone and video off or on as you like and put anything in the chat if you prefer but I'll be having my camera on obviously as I speak so as Ally introduced me I'm neurod Divergent I've got physical disabilities but I don't know if it's because of or as was a result of but I tend to overload myself with a lot of work and I think a lot of student reps do that as well I've worked on building my own sort of toolkit to sort of you know make myself not have to work so much so I'm kind of sharing my ideas here but I also want to hear other people's ideas because I need some support as well I've actually got my autistic burnout t-shirt on today because just to sort of acknowledge that I go through that sometimes so First Technology check I have created a menty meter so if people can give that a go see if it works I've got the QR code we've got website there I've got a couple of questions and if it doesn't work we're just going to put it in the chat people can just speak up if you want but I'll leave this on the screen for a little bit but the first question is going to be how long you've been a student representative because I think that's good way to sort of figure out where we're placed some people might have just started this year might have just started their tone some people have done it for a year and this is their second year some people might have done it five plus years I don't know just G to check the chat waiting for presenter yep okay so I think that's where we can hopefully start so let me know if this is actually working I might have to go on the website to make it work I think it's working I think the polls are coming through y oh good the first time I've used ment meter actually in a PowerPoint slide before I've done it separately so I went okay they said it works let's see if it works so just a little h I just see ordinarily when I use it on the website it comes up the results yeah it's showing the results for me oh not for me though I don't know about everyone else in the room if they're seeing the oh there we go I just had to click the little person icon that gives us a little idea so already some pretty equal amounts of people less than one month and then over two years so people just starting and sort of might be all idealistic and yay everything's great and I'm going to stress people out by accident so apologies just a high strong person so I might go on to the next one now I pretty sure people can just follow along as we go but now I can't see what is so this one I wanted to sort of this is going to be a word cloud so this is what personal trait or attribute helps you in your role as a student rep so people are going to have different responses to this depending on how they view student rep and it's also how you view yourself I think so hopefully as well this ment meter is going to be up for a little bit so people who couldn't attend today can still add to it and I think it's going to be really valuable to see what people ring so for me I'm not going to answer it because I'd have to close different windows but I think one of my biggest things is empathy so after I've done this talking bit I'm going to go back and put mine in but my attribute that I bring to my role as a student rep is empathy trying to listen to people and take on their stories and that can be a positive or A negative sometimes for me but is there anyone that would like to share their response not just in the ment media but either in the chat or on the microphone now uh my responses were uh responsiveness uh experience and actually empathy as my last one yeah so I can see some responses already so communication yeah mediator yeah patience not sure if I've got that or not energetic I definitely don't have that I I need more energy probably need more coffee then time management see that's an interesting one for me because I am not good at time management that's the ADHD side of my brain but my autism side of the brain is Works overload trying to make sure that I have good time management consistency progress ambition o that's a contoversial one I think some I'm going to say this as a student representative not as a staff M but I think some staff would look at that as a tricky one I agree with it but it's yeah definitely one that I saw one pop up Rin okay I don't have that one I have a different one but is there anyone else that would like to share before we move on I just thought this gives a good snapshot of what people think student R roles really are okay so this one is sort of my Approach is always self-care which I struggle with so this one on mental meter I actually haven't used before so I don't know how it goes so let me know if it doesn't work we'll just skip this one but it's basically I look at student rap roles as you know we're students first and then we've got personal lives we've got our studies studies family social rap roles which take hours we got to look after ourselves too got to look after the house so I just wanted to sort of see where people spend most of their time so I think that says a lot about how we're actually looking after ourselves and prioritizing ourselves so I think it looked pretty fair at the moment studies I mean we're student Representatives right we should be studying we want to pass I'm pleasantly surprised so far so I'll say that I had a little bit of a research bias coming into this I was fully expecting myself to be put at the bottom and it's not so is there anyone that would like to discuss how they put the hours in this way so we've got studies number one and the student rep role then work then yourself and chores household I just sort of thought anything like that and then social life way down the bottom which is you know self-care so I think it's it's very interesting can I just can I include in that when we're in Brisbane we encourage our students that their studies come first they have to come first and then you've got your family your work whatever order that comes in for you and your student rep role drops a little bit lower than that yeah um obviously self-care is up there as well so just so that those students that are here from Brisbane um we don't want you making student your student rep role number two because your studies definitely come first in your families and your work and and other things that you have in your life like we down the food chain a bit so just I wanted to just reiterate that yeah it's a tricky balance and I think that's where a lot of like my autistic burnout comes from is trying to balance these so this one's a bit of a fun one this one's a little bit of a scale because Ellie didn't mention but I'm a bit of a career student my first degree Was A Bachelor of ucation so I'm a teacher that's why I thought I'll speak first because I'm used to talking to an empty room usually 8-year olds not paying attention but after that I did a master of education in guidance and counseling so I'm all about the the emotions and Regulation and all of that so I just wanted to sort of see you know how you feeling little bit of a check-in when I have the primary school kids it's usually they have a five fingers and you go okay how are you feeling one to five five means they're excellent one means terrible worst day of my life but we're we're a bit older we can do a bit more than that hopefully this crossed this is really interesting this this is going on a bit of a like average so positive and negative are pretty close complexities of humanity and I promise I'll stop with the actual you know scientific sign for in the next slide but I put those two slides together for a reason and I think I've frozen a bit just I'll just wait there we go so I mean you probably could already tell but when you've got your studies you've got work at putting most your time into that you're probably going to have a lot of stress and a lot of workload that's just taking too much of your time that I wanted you to sort of think about those two slides so is there anyone that wants to sort of talk about that at all like your experiences of how much effort you put into certain things and how that impacts you personally I'm happy too I find that I find that I'm a very extroverted person I find that being around people makes me very happy and so I feel like me putting my social life quite High means that even in time where I'm feeling overwhelmed or stressed and kind of feeling a lot of anger sadness from things happening the fact that I my social life quite high and make sure connected to people means that I'm also at the same time feeling happy feeling at peace connected that's great to hear and so you sort of like as a student rep you get to use that you know extrovert needing that social life so it brings you that happiness which I I imagine there aren't many student reps that would become a student rep if they didn't like it in some way but it's really good that you can prioritize that is there anyone that would like to put something in chat if they're not comfortable being on screen about how they sort of balance those things and how it makes them feel um I'm happy to speak a little bit on that um I think that uh recent Cyclone that came uh made me realize that I need to focus on myself first um I need to be complete in order to be able to allocate time and energy to all of these things because we all have very very busy lives and if we can't do 100% then uh things just start to fail that's my opinion yeah that's fair it's some small benefit to a big life life stress that you sort of evaluate things a bit differently so now I'm going to do the bit where we all share now practicing self-care so you know self-care is important because if we have no energy we can't do what we are expected to do like and that's even as simple as brushing your hair and brushing your teeth some days I get that where it's you need to do some things and all your energy is put into other things and not yourself it's going to get to that point where it's too much so this is my mind map you don't have to look at all of it but this is what I did for myself this is what's in my brain as of this morning all of these thoughts these are stresses I don't think there was a single positive thing here but I was just going okay this is what I struggle with with um how am I going to try and still like I'm here today is this SVA student partner a paid job I could easily just call up in a bow and not have turned up but I had to be here it's my job so it's a bit of a I'm sure everyone's got their own list of things that they've got to do and sometimes it's going to the shops and getting groceries and cooking dinner and doing basic Bic things so just another sharing thing it doesn't have to be real personal or something like that but I want everyone to sort of think of something you did just for yourself this week I sort of put this week because I wanted to be sort of close but something that wasn't because you had to do it or you were doing it for someone else's benefit or something that was just for [Music] you so cooked my favorite meal I love that because I'll I'll be honest I did the opposite for myself last night I ordered pizza because I was just done retail therapy um I'm a bit guilty of that listen to music on the bus see that's a good one because you're already on the bus because you have to get somewhere so listen to music that you like took a day after to sleep oh that sounds good I think I'm going to be doing that tomorrow a leader of my favorite ice cream I'm very jealous of that walked in nature singing a choir oh I like the first part I'm not going to do to attempt the second part made sure to eat good food this week intuitive eating yeah that's definitely one that's tricky for some people nature walk worked on my battle jacket you ban patches and made more studs okay that sounds really cool like the idea of battle jacket start to say no more yeah see that's that's something I need to work on I think so if anyone has strategies for that I would love to know that so this is where I'm sort of getting to also as part of this I'm going to have there is a folder on one drive that I've created that I'm going to make available on the website and everyone that's attended today has access to I'm putting these in there it's basically why you need to have selfcare so I'm not going to go into a whole lesson of it but basically it goes in different categories it will be different for everyone like mental selfcare is something I need to work on like I need it for myself but spiritual self-care is you know a bit more difficult for me not as personal to me so I I sort of you pick and choose what you really need so this is where I want us to have a good discussion so looking after yourself taking time for yourself you can put this in the ment meter you can put it in the chat um you can speak up now but this is the part where we're really trying to build that toolkit for each other so if there's something that you've done that you found really helpful for you that you think other student reps should know about what are some different strategies you think I noticed on the last slide there was a couple of nature walks so you know getting close to Nature see that's that physical I wonder if that's spiritual I think that's a bit spiritual in some ways so taking time to do things that's self-care so again feel free to join in with your microphone if you want to add something I was going to add to the uh to the walking I like to uh keep a track around whatever campus people are on but it's actually really nice to go for a walk around campus sometimes and and because we're here for a few years and and it's a good opportunity to see almost how the seasons change on campus as well like at the moment all the leaves will start falling off the trees at curtain um and it's just a nice excuse to to be present to go for a walk a bit of a nature Urban Walk and just appreciate the the campus that we're on as well yeah and it really works with that student rep role you can say no I'm doing this as part of this but it's also for me just to get some fresh air so make time for what makes your heart Happy whatever that may be allowing yourself to say more standing around letting things go worrying less about what others think about things you cannot change so enjoy a hobby yeah connect with friends I'm guessing yeah I have the bits on the screen I have to keep moving things but connecting with friends see that's I think everyone needs to take that because self uh social time was way at the bottom of that list um eat whatever food you want without worrying about the consequences so that's where part of my struggle is that I have some health problems that sometimes I go I got to eat whatever food I want because I just want to and then oh I'm sick now um just I was going to add too that sometimes especially probably for for us student reps sometimes self-care I think can look like doing study or doing your assignments over like your rep role as well yeah sometimes it can feel like a bit of a pull towards the rep roles and work roles but we are students first and so it is important I I kind of see it as a form of selfcare to put that stuff first at times as well um Al it comes second after doing like the the socializing and and looking after yourself I think yeah see I'm not particularly sharing mine at the moment because I've got a sort of resource that I'm going to share next so I'm not chiming in with my strategies yet but I think having some sort of idea is just a good starting point like just a couple of like really quick things if you just make a list that way when you're like okay I'm feeling burnt out here's a list of things that I can quickly try this and see if it makes me feel better but it doesn't always have doesn't always have to be really in-depth things like at full therapy yep Caroline um I just put in the chat um rosethorn bud so this is a a technique that um I use with my kids um so it's a form of gratitude um so the rose is finding something that you are really grateful for um in the day the thorn is acknowledging that you know things don't always go to plan and some things can be really not nice and that's okay that's life and then finishing with the bud is something that you're looking forward to um the next day so it's a kind of end of day gratitude um sort of ritual that's really good I haven't heard of that one before which someone who is all in the therapy and teaching that's that's good I think I might use that going forward actually because there's also as a teacher there's two stars in A Wish when you're giving feedback to another student say two things I liked but two one thing you could improve so I might go on to this bit so this is my example this is my last bit that I'm going to talk on and then it's going to miles so prepare yourself miles but the one on the left is one that I found online really simple like just having that printed out or on your phone or something around the house okay here's some ideas I probably wouldn't use all of them but just good examples you just Google it you can find lots of ideas and Always Bingo so try and tick them off and I find also if you do a bingo card for yourself give yourself a reward at the end all about that you know achievement if you put three things down to look after yourself for a day like making sure I drink two lers of water and eat a piece of fruit and don't have too many cups of coffee or whatever and then at the end of the day if you did it right you get to have a treat of some form the one on the right is one that I actually made myself so I'll give you the blank resource but this is how I I have it printed on the wall right in front of me right now it's I've got cost on either end low cost high cost and then time so low amount of time high amount of time so if I'm feeling like okay I just need a quick cheap way to make myself feel better might just put a scentered candle on and just sit for five minutes and enjoy something I an enjoyable smell but something that might have more time and more money for is the therapy session because this cost a couple hundred doll now and you have to book it and it may be a few weeks in advance and then it takes an hour to do it but it's there as a strategy so that's my sort of final advice is building your own toolkit of self-care strategies of just a couple of things two three however you need just when you're feeling low quickly find something and make sure you got your energy back up so oh so Miles I didn't have any slides for anyone else so I don't know if you want me to share or you want to share no that's okay I was just gonna gon to speak for a little bit um maybe I'll do a little just further intro about myself and then um had a few thoughts while we were going through all of that as well um so yeah as the as mentioned at the start I grew up in the country um country parts of Queensland and and wa and and moved to the city over here in Perth for University um and so really had to kind of learn how to be a student as well as learn how to live in a city and that came with its own challenges but I think it came with its own benefits looking back as well um and probably things that have played really well into being a student rep or becoming a student rep uh in my roles like I find that a lot of the time I've been student rep it's been having grown up in the country and having it be really easy to approach people and be really easy to talk to people I kind of didn't I came to Perth and didn't realize that the the kind of norms when you're living in the city is that people don't just like go up and talk to each other around campus or on the street and so I would just go up and talk to people around campus and get to know other students and you kind of hear about different opport unities and different ways to represent students there you learn about a broad set of students go up and talk to teachers and staff as well um but yeah and I've had to build up a kind of community around University and and that has really been I think Jimmy talked about it in one of his points in the the keynote is about just doing and acting and like being involved in things I always talked about um with my family and friends of like putting your hands out in lots of directions and being involved in things um and that has always been really good as a student rep but we all probably run into the the challenge as well um of taking on too many things so it's a it is a balance between putting your hand out and taking the opportunities and and balancing that with uh not taking on too much and still prioritizing us we talked a lot about self-care um I think gratitude practices are really good um The Rose Thorn Bud Caroline i' really love that that one I'm GNA take that as well um but I think there's lots of yeah lots of opportunities in our day and in our roles to uh take the time and and be grateful for the opportunities that we have and that we we're studying at University I think growing up in the country University can seem like this really far off thing that's like a really like a dream and unachievable thing to get to so it's always a good reminder to like or I find it helpful just to think oh we're at University we're at a place where we're learning we're students um there a really like great opportunity in itself um and the rep roles and Leadership opportunities that come from it as well um and so that always I think those gratitudes practices can really energize and there's a saying like I studied psychology and there's a saying that we that floats around I don't know where I first heard of it but you can't the saying is you can't pull from an empty cup and so all those self-care practices and that is actually what gives us the energy and the what we can B from to in our student rep roles and in their work roles um and it's always a nice little easy reminder you can't pour from an empty cup and go out and do those things that might be low cost low time or low time high cost I really like that diagram um having all the different strategies mapped out that you can use at different times um but yeah I've only I was really happy to see at the start of the mentimeter a lot of the people in the room have only just recently started student rep roles this like maybe the last few months or or a year ago and that made me very happy because I've yeah only really forly started in a student rep role in the last few months or the last half a year um and so it's a learning process for me still at the moment as well learning how to be a student rep how to kind of bring yourself to our rep roles our leadership roles um so I'm very much in the same boat is it seems like a few people in the room uh and it's nice to have the more experienced people in the room as well who've been doing it for a while um yeah that's pretty much I think all I was going to really say and and then just kind of open up to questions later um but yeah maybe I'll throw some questions out at the end if Shay wants to do intro sure so hi everyone my name is Shy and essentially um I'll tell you a bit about myself and what I do um I'm the lbdq representative on my student council I see I run a few lgbtq groups on campus and essentially the main thing that I want to talk to you about is how to actually engage with me because I feel like for me the biggest challenge coming into things is that I came in I had a lot of ideas that I but then people weren't necessarily engaging with and so kind of talking about how to reframe what you do how you interact with people how you interact with your community to number one find what people actually want from you and number two how to engage them with what you can offer so um my biggest skill that I have to tell people is that you have to make yourself accessible and available to other students I feel like a lot of the times we think oh I'm a student representative people can just come to me if they want something from me but I find that people just don't if I leave things be if I don't introduce myself to people I will be in a position that I am just isolated other student representative and I don't get anything from the people who I meant to be representing so my first tip is to engage with the community that you are representing the same as what Miles said go up to them talk to them introduce yourself and more than just introducing yourself ask what you can do for them I think the next thing as well in engaging students is the fact that you might want to introduce yourself in a way that is fun or introduce what you do in a way that is fun you know I feel like students are very busy we have a lot going on we have studies we have work we have friends we have family we've got a thousand different things and so I feel like a lot of the time we don't necessarily engage with the resources that we have available to US unless it's worthwhile and one of those things is just fun so I found that something that helped me a lot with engaging with students is actually introducing myself through social events creating social events were really easily accessible physically and then going to my university and asking them to please advertise in any way that they can as far in advance as possible and as frequently as possible to kind of get my face out there get students to know that I exist and also get them to realize that engaging with their community at University is something that is worthwhile and then my other thing that I will say which is a big tip I have for people especially people starting out starting out at a student rep again can be quite isolating and you can feel like you don't know what you're doing I feel that when I went into this I think three years ago now I kind of I had no idea what existed at my University I had no idea who did what and I had no idea how to achieve the ideas and goals that I had once I've engaged with my community and my tip is don't be afraid of being an annoying and asking for help because I feel like everyone needs help and I feel like I don't reach out for help because I'm afraid of annoying somebody who's higher up than me or taking up somebody's time or being a Nuance or asking a silly question and looking them but I feel like I don't know I would actually like to open this up to the room and ask do you like being asked to help other people if anyone is happy to answer that either poping the chat or see I I think of that as I don't know if it's my background as a teacher but when someone comes to me and asks for help it's a good thing because it's better than you going ahead and putting a lot of extra work into something that already exists or or doing something wrong and then you're having to go back and redo it so that where you're talking about that you know when you're comeing in new and you don't know what to do you might be trying to create something that already exists so asking questions is probably a good idea to just okay who's been here a little while have you thought about this have you got this already so I don't know if that's the sort of approach you're going for there so I think that is a part of it and I think another part of it is I don't know when I've asked for questions when I've asked questions even if it was a silly or stupid question I've noticed that nobody was mad people were happy to talk to me people were happy to explain I feel like I like to believe that most people aren't mean or most people have good at heart and good intentions especially in advocacy and representation roles so I'm just wanting to kind of remove a bit of fear that people will be upset or annoyed if you ask them for help or ask them questions because I think most people want to be helpful yeah and absolutely Caroline I agree I feel like have a lot of the time I felt like I couldn't ask something and then somebody else asked it and I was like thank God I was going to add I I can't remember who said it to me but someone reframed it as well of often when we get asked questions like we said like it's really we're really happy to help and it's actually really enjoyable part of our role and someone reframed as like if we were reaching out asking for questions it's kind of like you're giving the person the opportunity like they get to feel that way because they're often would be more than happy to help and so they get to feel really nice about it so it's kind of like asking questions and asking for help is actually kind of a really nice thing because you give someone the opportunity to help um which I found a very helpful way to reframe um asking questions as well oh and I'm seeing something here from Bailey actually which is on essentially finding a place to place knowledge which is something really important actually where I'm just wanting actually to open that up a bit to essentially ask everybody does anyone who maybe has a bit more experience with being a student rep or has been around for a while H how do you go about Handover and making sure that your knowledge is kind of passed on and yeah I'll just give a minute for the chat and then if in a minute I don't see anything I can share what my University does yeah because my biggest tip for this write things down stress home the point if you can or in your self practice writing down what you've done just because every system is different it's different for every University and systems change but having something written is so so helpful that people can look back on so to make sure that your knowledge isn't just floating out in Word of Mouth because that can get lost and yes that was mostly it from me so I think mil as well was saying if anybody has any questions or wants to talk to the group about anything this there also a really good chance for me as a SVA person to sort of hear what student reps need as well like especially we've got quite a few people who are new to that position it's how can SBA help how can we help each other like student Network is for students to talk to each other and help each other so anything that's sort of tricky or something really successful even okay so Roa I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right um University of Sydney so first one biggest one so they do it through talks for First Years or discussions for Mentor leaders and student ambassadors have events before any student rep program starts where we give talks and have Q&A sessions so that r that is good to have at the start of each term but it's also tricky like yes we should all have that but what about people who leave partway through I always worry about that like um yeah like certain positions like lgbtqia plus you probably have particular contacts in different communities so those are ones that you've personally developed that when you leave if you suddenly have to leave or for whatever reason someone else comes into it those contacts are lost almost so do you have any sort of ideas around how that would happen I can talk specifically from like an lgbtq perspective about what we've done yeah I think you're really big in that community and you that's your strength so that's really good to hear from so and I think it would be in a lot of communities that are more based around identity than about a subject or a topic yeah but again it's going to kind of leaving things written down we have created a massive Drive where we put down every single document and one of those documents we put down people's contact numbers people's emails what their positions are what they do and how we've worked with them in the past so that Future Leaders stepping in knows that that person exists yeah it's really good especially that part about what you've actually done with them I think that's you sort of get an idea of how you can help each other in the future as well some people might be good at one thing but not another so yeah since stress that's good because networks can be so important you're almost like passing along the network to the next reps as well that's really good yeah so an interface with someone to understand the student leader role a bit more feel like have a lot to offer as a second diploma student oh another career student all of the degrees Yeah I think that's that's the tricky thing that I'm not sure how anyone else actually how the system works at your University but like I was in the student Senate at unq it was very structured around just monthly meetings where we discuss everything and we really struggled to keep that continuing engagement between meetings because you know like I'm an online student so it's really hard to connect with students on campus and trying to you know get people to talk to you because some people are scared and like Miles said walking up to someone in the city they go who are you don't come near me but it's yeah it's bit tricky to try and keep that engagement going sometimes refined how did everyone else's like how do your roles go at the moment like what are your responsibilities I suppose with like meetings or talking to people Caroline did have a question in the chat that you might you might have some insight on Lisa about engaging with online students is there anything that you can think of being an online student or trying to engage with other online students look I have ideas but it's getting them implemented because it all comes down to the institution and that's probably like talking about oh building a toolkit for student reps it's we have grand ideas of things that honestly will probably work because it's students coming up with it but it takes work and effort and money sometimes from the institution I submitted a proposal to pay student Representatives at unq because they're not paid at all and it was well the word wasn't rejected it was um under consideration but you need to research and contact other universities to see if they pay their student reps and universities aren't going to tell me anything I'm a student representative at another University so it's a bit tricky that's just an example of you know what do I do there I didn't know what to do but like online students at my University I think it's like 70% of students are online and there's not a lot for them to social engage it's all the guild does some events on some campuses is orientation week they do a couple things I had ideas like okay the guild is running an event can we make it hybrid so people can attend over Zoom you know if you're having some sort of movie viewing night they did Shrek recently I think well why can't people have a thanks Bailey I will email you um but yeah why can't they just be like some sort of Discord chat or Zoom room where online students can watch people were doing that during lockdowns they were doing things watching movies playing games together online but when I brought that to the university I said well you'd probably have to come in and run that hybrid system like if something's happening in a room you'll have to set it up so you know like a lecture and I'm going well I'm an online student I can't get to all of the campuses and do that you need someone on campus willing to do that so it's definitely like I have ideas for it but it's really tricky I don't know how to get those things going I have a thing that might work for some universities which is engaging through clubs just because I know at least in lgbtq clubs that we always have very active online communities in things like Discord where there's then not only events being held online but also a mostly text based community and it's not the University or the Student Association engaging this events it's a student Club but maybe seeing if the clubs at your University any club really run something similar so that maybe then you can also reach out to those online students who are engaged in some way through clubs I think another consideration is like okay this is my personal experience and my observations but I would say online students are typically online for a reason because they're either parents or they work full-time so they can only do their studies at night so they can't go on campus all day or like me they have disabilities so traveling and being on campus is not a possibility so trying to engage with people from those groups probably does make it a bit trickier because they time po or unwell or don't have the capacity to engage in activities so I think that's where probably the university looks at it goes what's the you know return on investment for it Regional students as well a lot of time will be online yeah yeah getting International students International in this country so yeah I think it's I think we've gone off into a different tangent now but which is fine it's all good we're sort of yeah looking at it like couple things in the chat about people wanting to know how student reps get paid so I think that's important and then online students so yeah really got all different ideas of how we approach and take on these roles I'm going to note something as well from the SBA staff standpoint that Anna the previous coordinator was starting a survey that was going to be sent out to all institutions about if they pay those student reps and how much and all that sort of thing the reason I'm not fully explaining all of it is because now that Anna's gone to a different position the whole research ethic side of it may delay this for a while now so SVA as a organization is interested in that they do want to create a piece of work like a document saying look these ones pay their reps and these ones don't to make a bit of a competition almost like you know students universities trying to be the best one in Australia looking at the students quality of life is one indicator and I think like unofficially we could probably share that as students we can discuss that within amongst ourselves but yeah we are working on trying to get some official word on each institution so yeah yes thank you Bailey so Bailey's just sharing an email in the chat so feel free to email them if you want to know about anything and share your own information if oh cu Bailey's making a collation so thank you Bailey you're doing all the work for me but yeah I think it's I find myself as it's du I'm going to ask feel free not to answer if it's a bit personal but because money is a personal question but does anyone actually get paid for being a student representative because I I didn't yes yeah yes so I am technically I get an honorarium okay so I'm a paid volunteer and yes so it's something it's yeah it's definitely not a wage it is the it is my University saying thank you through a symbolic sum it's not a wage but it's very rare to get that so I'm very appreciative for it yeah it's it's something and that's because that's I would also say that's because of the University you go to blender's university is really yes game with students as partners so yes no blenders is quite Progressive and do come towards students a fair bit so yeah t Queensland unpaid doesn't surprise me yeah see Bailey's mentioning yeah they don't get paid but with two different groups so I think at fingard as well if you're on student council you do get an honorarium but if you're a topic representative representing your degree or your topic or your course they don't get paid see that's interesting I would like to know their reasoning for that but it's two different people doing yeah but it's why would one it's in Slender it's because we fall under two different bodies and one one body does and one body doesn't yeah okay makes sense I think the um the the guild reps at curtain I think they paid positions um but then the other rep roles and committee roles around the university I think currently are unpaid but I think there's a big push at curtain to at least get um some like reimbursement it might not be like a contract or a paid position but there trying to push out like gift cards and and payments to get some sort of payment moving for if you're sitting in on rep sessions like getting a gift card for sitting in on that which I think is a step in the right direction yeah I'm sorry as you were talking I read the chat and I laughed a little bit M immediately goes to that Meme wait you guys are getting paid yeah that's kind of that's um oh what's his name his name now the one who's in the Marvel movie well I can't remember the actor's name but yeah I I think that's sometimes that it's it's a strange system and sa funding now where 40% has to go to student Le organizations that's another thing that's going to be changing things so it's going to take even longer so oh position on some councils are so huge they have to take the year off their studies to do it wow is it if they're taking a year off are they getting paid for that or both yeah yeah well Bailey doesn't know 100% get paid I guess okay I've never heard of that sort of thing that you have a position on a council that you take a whole year off your studies that's I don't think I would do that and the next comment doesn't surprise me does someone else want to read that so I'm not talking the whole time one uni is oh sorry there you go okay so I have he that one uni is spending their entire 4% on a sports team so watch where your stff funding is going and no worries to anyone that has to go now because it's after the one o'clock so I know that if some people have classes feel free but yeah I think we're just having discussion at this point about yeah s funding it's um it's a bit tricky to like there should be regulations around that as well like part of it it shouldn't the whole 40% shouldn't go to a sports team their understanding of it is that because the team is a student-led organization technically it passes but yes universities do have to put their plans into the government so whether or not the government says yes at the end of the day is a whole thing but apparently that's what they're trying to do um but I don't know which university it is so I'm saying to everyone like just those financials should be online somewhere so just do some Googling and find out where your SE funding is going if not email the university and ask that's your money like that's your $20 whatever dollars $240 something dollars that you pay every year that's that money that's your money so yeah sorry to interject because we both go to un could you save me some leg work and just tell me where I could find that not off the top of my head I know if you Google it for UNC it does come up if you want to know specifically where our SEF funding is going um with this 40% this year 20% is going to the student Guild next year 30 the year after 40 um so we're doing it that way so that we don't go from having our last year it was %. so we're over doubling this year um and so obviously we've got to put on more staff and so we didn't want to like have to quadruple in like practically overnight so we were um yeah decided to do it that way but again the university hasn't put that into the government yet or if they have we haven't heard back yet so we're fairly certain that that'll go through no worries but because particularly because everyone agrees um but yeah we'll see what happens thank you for that Bailey yeah a lot of UN ities are treating that whole 40% thing very differently so it it's a big case of watch this space and just keep an eye on what what you universities are doing which is disappointing as a student to think that the institution just take all that money we're turning into America with disappointing but is it surprising disappointed but not surprised yeah B I would um from my understanding from unq at the end of each year they actually published their annual report of their like it encompasses everything so it would take a lot of weting to find the actual sa funding but unq actually had like a big document and S funding was part of that so I'm not sure if that's the same for every University but yeah it is supposed to be on every University's website feel free to discuss anything else we've still got you know until 1:30 I'm happy to stay on if anyone has discussion points um yes and Joel we're just talking in chat about um people who aren't doing who aren't enrolled in on Council or weren't doing a load to kind of give time to student council I mean uh yes I was just a little bit curious about you know comparing some of um everyone's experiences and seeing you know what sort of workloads they do what sort of um and if there's any um interent Crossing as well you know collaboration between um universities and institions I can talk about my experience unless somebody else wants to jump in just because I don't want to dominate that I feel like I might have done a bit okay I will just say that you know what I've done and I'm am on my student council it's lesso because of the council position itself and more so some other things that are happening that tie into my portfolio which is lbdq issues typically trans issues I've actually dropped to parttime of only doing two subjects per semester because I found that in my life at this point I I've just prioritized trans advocacy over finishing my degree and I know others on my Council who get paid significantly more than me because some people on Council get paid 10 times more than me I do know that they have a lower workload as well because of how time intensive their Council position is oh thank you very much for that I would say experience with um unq is we have well actually we just combined the student representative council and the student Senate so I was on the student Senate previously and the hours that people had to do it really depended on the group because student sen it we actually had in our terms of reference like we we wrote it and got it endorsed that you had to be a you could get paid work at the University but it had to be less than your hours as a student so you could be a part-time student and still hold a position but like the roles needed for each student rep position widely varied and that's kind of why I'm in Burnout at the moment because I took on co-chair role last year and that was a lot of hours and you know not being paid so it's really not consistent over universities I would say that from uni to UNI to group to group to position to position and then how you approach the role yourself some people are perfectionists and spend way too much time on it but yeah so I think it's yeah I think broadly you would have to be enrolled as a student in some form for the semester to Hold Your Position as a student representative but I'm not sure specifically how many hours you would have to be enrolled in so okay so Bailey's also sharing that I'm just going to prioritize one part of it that you know if you have to drop out due to medical reasons The Guild won't kick you out of your position but student Representatives will see again it's that different groups will have different priorities yeah pretty much um I was co-chair too though so that might have been a bit like made a bit of a difference um if you were just part of the group and went along to meetings they probably wouldn't care so much but yeah but just honestly I was being a pain in the ass so they trying to get me out anyway okay Bailey do you remember what you said at the 2023 Symposium on the panel your one piece of advice don't be a dick yeah that it was not long after that actually but that all that happen yeah I've got a bit of a reputation um yeah but anyway I think things have calmed down now which is nice but I still get obnoxious at times I mean I think that's another part of that student rep toolkit of you know where some people are saying their self-care is learning to say no sometimes the self-care is pushing for something and what is the effect of that mine was definitely that week was um was needing to say hey like I've had enough um this was disability related um specific specifically but yeah just had enough of the ableism and and all of the struggles in trying to get through my degree um that I am still very much having and it's still yeah but anyway that's a whole different thing but um I don't think it is I think I guess yeah topics topics differ but the things the same isn't it they don't want to change they're an institution um so so it's like how do you work within that to make change happen and make things better um Bailey I actually have a question for you because I'm seeking advice which is kind of finding a balance between I I'm facing some barriers in some things that I'm doing from some Deans things like that and some other people and I very much my go-to strategy which I'm trying not to do because I Fe that it will get me kicked off and then nothing will get done is generally being obnoxious and calling people out how do you balance it I'm not very good at that um okay I'm probably not the best person to give advice with that I think it's going to depend on your University and how they do things so like I've said there's two different kind of student areas at our University we have the student Guild um and I'm on their board as a board member and last week now I'm actually vice president for clubs don't ask me what that means I have no idea um and then there's also our student representative so that is under the university that's more a governance kind of stuff whereas our student Guild is more clubs and and that kind of area so there's a distinction there um so depending on I guess where you're trying to go and who you're trying to talk to what what I did was oh sorry this is long but might explain a few things the governance area did not have anything specifically for disability they did for other areas but not disability so we made that happen then I found that being co-chair of that group I am Aboriginal and I am autistic so I'm going to just go to the person I need to go to and have a chat right I'm going to have a yarn say hey this is what we need institutions don't like that you have to go up the layers right and that's where I've been getting into a bit of trouble so I'm learning that lesson slowly um with the student Guild we've just started a club disability Club because that doesn't have that institutional stuff going on so through the club now we can go straight to the person and say hey this is what we need can you make that happen and then the governance group can do things that the way the institution needs them to do it and we can back them up we can raise money they can't that's another distinction um so we can back them up anyways they have to play by those rules and I found that when you don't and the people who have come after me in that co-chair position are also finding the same they you're just going to get slapped down constantly right so the way we're going to try next is this club and see if we can make change happen that way so I like all right you're going to make us play by the rules we can do that but you know let see if we can find some loopholes somewhere and and work that but at the end of the day I found making relationships with people and saying hey do you want to grab lunch today and just have a chat about some stuff or hey I've got you for five minutes did you know that the bathroom at the pool is like really bad and and that could use some fixing like and next thing I know it's been fixed so you just kind of make those relationships um and do things that way kind of under the table if you have to as well because yeah um there is something to be said by standing up and being obnoxious but pick your time and place probably a little better than I do oh I am horrible at that I just I love to be obnoxious with it I did however get a little obnoxious at Herz out last year in front of a whole lot of VCS so that was awesome great um so if you have that opportunity go right ahead uh but with some of the smaller ones they do tend to get offended so yeah yeah yes but yeah I think think outside the box we have to keep thinking outside the box and just think of other ways to do stuff which is just giving us more work isn't it it is yeah it really is like it's like why can't you guys just listen yeah you're right about the work h I think it's also the difference between some students being student Representatives because they just want to be a representative others going into it because they want to be an advocate and that's that's fair enough to be one and not the other people approach it differently I would say people that are the representatives for LGBT qia Plus or disability or person Nations tend to be the more advocate so we're the ones that are a bit more obnoxious or is other people that is you know representing students I would say a big one is also finding a higher up that is like on your side so if you you're like the disability and inclusion representative finding someone from that staff who can speak with you is really helpful what I've done in the past but it's a bit tricky trying to figure out who's actually the good staff member to get and come to a lot of things like this and if you can any free networking opportunity any free like conferences that kind of stuff you're from fenders yeah yeah I may have a contact there for you if you want to send me an email I would love that I actually put down your email address from earlier so yeah it's a VC and we get along very well so awesome thank you so much yeah no worries we got to help each other out this way he yeah but um yeah I made that contact by going to a conference and being cheeky so yeah yeah I find you can get a lot a lot done that way as well I think this this discussion also just proves we need to have you know we have the student Network sessions that we have like four a year but we need to have some sort of way to just contact each other throughout like oh some advice or something like that so I think that I'm just giving myself more way I think we have Discord up but I'm not sure anyone's using it per se yeah I think we could get something functional on the website even to just yeah or cat I'll look into that can I just point out too like when I talk about this stuff I think I should preface it with something like I'm a social work student and I've been advocating my whole life and this is just who I am so like don't I'll say things like go to conferences like if that's not your think don't do it like I'm not saying everyone should do that because they shouldn't um yeah that there's a big difference between having something like this be a vocation and having it be something that you do on the side because you just like the idea and and that kind of stuff like and all of it is okay you know um yeah there's no part of that even if you're just doing it to put on your your reference that is fine that is okay I did an in shap last summer to put on my reference like you know it's all good I think that too like it's okay to a student representative because it gives you some working skills that you can take into a career and experience like you might have experience in running or chairing a meeting from being a student representative now you go into the workforce and you know how to do that so it's completely fine to come into it as another job that just because some of us are a bit more passionate but least burn yeah I actually learned the most I think from people who are new sometimes because they have the new ideas and the new ways of thinking about things and we can get stuck in a rut sometimes so yeah anyway I think we've done well with our time we've had a lot of tangents I think I might have to write a summary just because of like for myself that I might put on the website of like this is what we sort of discussed and people brought up in the chat that it's really important to us but does anyone want to bring up anything else when we've got three minutes left don't want to keep people any longer than that because Aon half is a long time for people uh I I just want to thank um everyone for hosting this and inviting me I thought it was really great to you know interface with all of you people and um I'm definitely Keen for any future events yeah yeah working on that with the new coordinator coming in we're sort of trying to figure out what future sessions will be so if you have any suggestions or interests in anything please email sbaa and just sort of give us some ideas of what you need that's what these Network groups are here for we need to help you so thank you so much everyone thank you so much Lisa you do amazing and thank you to the other people that were speaking as well thank you both so much really good session yeah so thank you thank you so much everyone as well have a good rest of your day have I don't know what time it is for everyone either have lunch or have a coffee but thank you bye bye