Guild Catchup: September

Environment: Seren Wyatt and Hannah Smith

Hi everyone! Your Environment Officers have had a busy month, and have a few things to report!

First, as you may know, this month we held our Sustainability Week online, with posts on Instagram and Facebook, and some awesome interviews with incredible experts! We were honoured to interview Wiradjiri Nyemba researcher, Virginia Marshall on Aboriginal water rights, and Kate from Ethically Kate on Instagram about plastic! We are also so privileged to have had marine biologist, Sean Samer, create a presentation just for us on marine conservation, looking at issues such as overfishing. You can find all of these on the QUT Guild Facebook page! Also, check out the GLASS website for some articles that were uploaded during the week by students (including one of our own Enviro Officers, Hannah!) and experts on a range of topics, from fashion to diet to the ocean.

The second thing to report is that our e-book on sustainability is being designed now and will be released soon. Unfortunately, this has taken longer than we planned for a range of reasons that was just unfortunate and nobody’s fault, but we are pleased to announce it will be released in a few weeks. So please be sure to keep your eye out and download it when it becomes available for tips on reducing your waste and emissions, and reusing and recycling waste! It will also include some discount codes for eco-friendly businesses that have been offered specifically to QUT students!

Finally, we are trying to organise a final second-hand clothes giveaway, after the last one was such a success! If it can proceed, you will be updated by social media. Either way, please continue to donate clothes! Just knock on the Guild office door (level 2, C block) and we will gladly accept your donations! This time, we would like to raise funds for Half Cut – a fundraiser trying to raise money to purchase land in Queensland’s Daintree to return to Aboriginal peoples to save it from being deforested. This will be a great cause to get behind and support for as little as a gold coin donation, while also scoring new clothes and reducing your environmental footprint that way!

Thank you for a fantastic year. We have had so much fun trying to support students’ sustainability through posting tips on Instagram, creating an ebook, hosting a free second-hand clothing stall, and an online Sustainability Week! We hope all of these initiatives have been able to support you, and if you ever have any ideas or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to your Environment Officers at environment@qutguild.com

Student Rights: Ramisa Raya and Sarah Balmer

September has brought many exciting discussions about how we can use our unexpected SSAF increased funding to support you.

We are preparing our sharehouse-starter and care packs to be ready for distribution. We are investigating options around increasing accessibility of the food bank, including the establishment of a GP food bank.

Exciting Adulting 101 sessions continued into this month. Some highlights included our GLASS editor, Em Readman, delivering an informative session on professional writing including tips for resumes, cover letters etc., and our environmental officers, Hannah and Seren, delivering practical advice on living more sustainably.

In the spirit of exam-block, we continued our project of MOPP Mondays with an Adulting-101 exclusive on academic misconduct. We are especially focusing on contract cheating on a platform like Chegg or even getting a family member to complete your assignment. Both types of academic misconduct have increased due to online learning and students rarely know about the harsh repercussions (falling the unit entirely for the first offence, automatic suspension for multiple offences, etc) that apply, if it was for only one small question. We hope this series lets students know about exactly the types of penalties they can face or even their rights in general in short, snappy posts and live streams.

NewVote is currently undergoing a complete redesign to make the platform more accessible and easier to navigate. For the remainder of this semester, the issues we upload to the platform will be yours. We asked you about the issues that you found most pressing and converted them into issues for all students to vote upon. We have some updates on the NewVote page on issues as we continue to advocate for the student body.

If you need of any support, or if you have ideas as to how we can better support students, please contact us at studentrights@qutguild.com

Post Graduate: Nikka Turangan

Hi everyone! Your Environment Officers have had a busy month, and have a few things to report!

Second thing to report, is that our e-book on sustainability is being designed now and will be released soon. Unfortunately, this has taken longer than we planned for a range of reasons that was just unfortunate and nobody’s fault, but we are pleased to announce it will be released in a few weeks. So please be sure to keep your eye out and download it when it becomes available for tips on reducing your waste and emissions, and reusing and recycling waste! It will also include some discount codes for eco-friendly businesses that have been offered specifically to QUT students!

First Nations: Jennifer Barnaby

This month in my portfolio, I have work for the getting the RAP finalise and starting on the graphic in contribution with the graphics team, the RAP has been a slow process but am sure that it will be worth it. In other news the university is wanting to change the curriculum so it can better represent first nation peoples and better display culture responsibility at the university which is a good step forward for the university. Other than those things not much else has happened. See you next month!

Campus Culture: Megha Prasad and Jordan Dyce

Hi all! My name is Jordan and I have joined the Campus Culture team for the remainder of the year. This month we held the first of our monthly Club Funding rounds and have just kicked off our October round by opening applications.

In addition to this, Megha and I have continued with the projects we highlighted last month. Club Awards are still being planned. This week our Clubs and Events team was in consultation with an awards company to design a number of trophies for the proposed awards, watch this space for more info!

We have also continued to work on a comprehensive set of Club Regulations, a revamped Clubs Handbook, and an Executive Handover Guide to guide clubs into next year and beyond.

Look out for these events, publications, and lots more to come (including a couple projects I can’t reveal just yet!)

International: Dieu Linh

In September, International successfully collaborated with 2 QUT international clubs: QUT Malaysian Students Association (QUT MYSA) and Australia-China Youth Association (ACYA) to deliver our signature international hang every fortnight. It was our honour to have so many support form host clubs and participants. We reached our maximum capacity of 35 participants every time.

We continued planning for the International Christmas at the end of this year. This will an opportunity for International students to be matched with a local family, enjoy memorable Christmas time and make some new friends.

Last but not least, we started liaising with the Student Success Group and International Student Service to deliver better career support for students. We make sure that students are acknowledged and informed of available support within and outside QUT for the career development. We also want to get in touch with students on what they need and how we can help them in terms of career building.

Glass: Em Readman, Jasmin Graves, Anahita Ebrahimi and Ashleigh North

Glass has been jam packed! We launched our first ever Uni Writer’s Festival, a collaboration with UQ and ran a heap of workshops, panels, readings and events. We launched Issue 9 of Glass, Grit and Glitter in print and online and have closed submissions for our final issue for the year, Down the Rabbit Hole. Recent coverage online has been closely following the writer’s festival, executive updates and a fantastic article from Jessica Robinson-Turns about Assistance Dogs. Keep up to date with us online, there’s plenty of great things coming as we roll toward the end of semester.

Gender and Sexuality: Amy Sargeant and Genevieve Hitzke

This last month has been packed with great developments for the Gender and Sexuality portfolio.

We launched the Queer and Womens Collectives with two groups of wonderful and dedicated executives who’ve already boosted engagement and presence within the communities.

The Little Emergencies initiative has begun an expansion to include Emergency Underwear! We have started with sizes 8-16 and are holding them in the Women’s and Queer rooms on KG Campus (C Block Level 2).

In the Queer portfolio, we kicked off the month with our first Queer Collective Coffee Catch Up (…what a title!) and our Coming Out with Cake event – both great opportunities to expand our outreach at the university.

We celebrated Bi-Awareness Week with a Bi-Movie Night – the site of much popcorn consumption. Many thanks to our amazing Queer Collective executive bisexuals for their tireless efforts in running this event.

Your Queer Collective Executive has been hard at work on a new Code of Conduct. In September, we launched it in a trial feedback period. During this time, we sought queer students’ suggestions for amendments or additions to the code. These were submitted via our ‘QUT Guild Queer Collective’ Facebook group. By the time you are reading this, our final Code of Conduct v1.0 will be live! It’s important to lay out these ground rules for queer spaces – sites both digital and physical in our university of support, discussion and growth.

Sport: Harry Pie

At the time of writing social sport has reached our final/ semi-final rounds of Social Sport. Social Sport has exceeded the Guild’s expectations of lasting through the COVID pandemic. The Sports team remains focused on keeping players and the community safe through continuous upkeep of COVID regulations while we bring our sporting season to a close. Thank you everyone that have attended the games and treated our refs and convenors with the respect they deserve! It’s been a great season everyone and looking forward to bringing back our remaining sports next year!

Secretary: Cameron Mackie

This month has been relatively quiet in my portfolio. Some of my (and the Guild’s) key achievements have been:

Putting together a 115-page agenda for Guild Council
Successfully co-ran a Guild Council meeting discussing the Constitution and Regulations that did not go for four hours like the end of last year (yay)
Became official members of the National Union of Students
Busily organised the Guild elections over the past few weeks in preparation for our upcoming lockout and campaign

Next month in October, I will be taking time off for elections and am looking forward to getting back to work in the next few weeks. Hopefully, I will have much more to report then. I hope everyone has a successful last few week of university and does well during exam block!

Treasurer: Liam Blair

September was a pretty rough time for me, to be blunt. The last couple months have been filled with pretty big ups and downs, but September became the peak of it.

Because to this, I’ve been doing the bare minimum with the Guild, just managing things that can’t be avoided and preparing for the annual elections. Thankfully, I’ve had the support of the Guild too. My peers here have been nothing but supportive and flexible and I’m glad to say I’m relatively back on my feet, likely thanks to their unwavering support.

I would like to at least draw attention to some things of note, though, so as to not completely waste the reader’s time:

– The government passed their gross attack on university funding. Fuck the Liberals.
– We’ve become a member of the National Union of Students – a fantastic pathway towards contributing to the national conversation on student unionism.
– The pool tables are back open in the bars.

President: Olivia Brumm

We’re coming close to the end of Semester 2 and it’s been a very busy month for me at the Guild.

• Launched a mental health awareness and resources campaign called ‘not great, thanks for asking’ to support R U Ok Day activities. This included educational posts, the distribution of our Jacaranda mental health ally pins, stalls on campus to promote university resources such as the counselling and medical centers and broader community wide resources and of course cupcakes!

• Received news from QUT about changes to the academic calendar for 2022 to include a 5-day SWOTVAC period, something which the Guild had been advocating for since the beginning of 2019, and a two-week mid semester break.

• Starting work on establishing Queer & Women’s rooms at Gardens Point to provide safe spaces and support the collectives on both campuses.

• Planning and organizing SSAF funded projects and events with the executive

• Hiring two new permanent staff members to assist with the Guild’s operations in events, membership services management and constructing a volunteer program

• Planning to ensure that the upcoming elections are conducted in a COVID safe and accessible manner for all students

• Making minor common-sense adjustments to the Constitution including removing the Caboolture Campus Officer, introducing the Abilities Officer and changing the definition of a shared portfolio to ensure that if one officer resigns it doesn’t spill the whole portfolio.

• Beginning planning to ensure a comprehensive and productive handover process and induction for new executive