If you’re interested in what the Student Union does, or some of the challenges that go along with working for the union, check out the Union Update in the opinion section of the Brunswickan this week: What does the UNBSU do, you ask?
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Ryan Brideau
VP External - UNB Student Union
Phone: 506-458-7164
Twitter: http://twitter.com/UNBSU_Brideau
Welcome to Part 1 of a blog series that we’ll be calling “Our Dirty Linen.” The idea is simple: we admit to areas we haven’t been doing so well in in the past, we talk about some of the ideas we have for moving forward, and you give us feedback to guide this process.
The first of this series is on communications – the backbone of any well-functioning student union. In the past, the UNB Student Union hasn’t been outstanding in this area. We’ve used expensive full-page ads in the Brunswickan, have been a footnote in the Student e-News, had a generally ineffective website, little-to-no branding, and though our meetings are open to any Student Union member, participation has been less than spectacular.
This year, we’re hoping to change that.
One of the things we have been working hard on this Summer has been a communications strategy overhaul, which has resulted in a lot of big changes to how we go about communicating with our constituents. The following are some highlights.
The Student Union Street Team
This year, we are hiring a team of enthusiastic individuals to do something that is almost revolutionary in Student Union terms: they’ll actually interact with people. It sounds crazy, I know, but it just might work. This team of people will take it upon themselves to find creative and innovative ways to get the word out about what’s happening on campus, so keep and eye out for them.
Consistent Branding
In the past, every poster we put up looked different, and as a result, it was hard to tell which events were being hosted by which organization, making it hard to know where to look for more information. This year, we are looking to have consistent branding across the board for the Student Union, so if you see something that looks like a Student Union event, you’ll know you can check our website to find out more about it.
Student Union Newsletter
Currently, in order to contact all of our constituents we must submit a request to the Student e-News, where we are featured at the bottom of an e-mail that many students simply delete. We think that needs to change. We have been working this summer to get the rights to send out a newsletter that will allow us to notify you of upcoming events, contests, services and issues that are directly related to you, in a format that is more interactive and pleasing to read than what is currently available.
Our New Website
If you haven’t had a chance to check out our new website, take a second to give it a glance. We have re-thought, re-written and re-everything’d this new website to be as functional and pleasing to the eye as possible. We’ve also integrated various forms of social media such as our blog, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube into the pages to make it more interactive than ever before, and have included Google Calenders so that you can sync our events to your Smart devices.
Though we think that the new unb.ca website is great for prospective students, we designed ours with current students in mind. If there is a section of the UNB website that is relevant to students already at the school, we’ve tried our best to link to it from ours. Furthermore, we’ve included links to your e-Services, Blackboard and Webmail at the top of our site so that it can act as a great default homepage for your browser (in fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I think this should be the default page for every browser on campus).
Social Media
As previously mentioned, we’ve started integrating social media into our communications plan as much as possible. The executive and a few councilors can already be found on Twitter, and we’ll be making major announcements via our UNB Student Union Facebook Fan page and Twitter account. The very page you are reading is our executive blog, where we intend to keep you up to date with the happenings of the Union during the year. We’ve also created a Communications Director position to replace our Multimedia Coordinator position we’ve had in previous years. Beyond doing poster design, the Communications Director will also be helping us make sure that our communications strategy is being rolled out smoothly, and that we are ahead of the curve with new methods of interaction.
Other Ideas
Currently in the works are a few other ideas, such as a Student Union radio show on CHSR, open and public forums for discussion of current student issues, public meetings to discuss possible directions for Student Union advocacy, and other seedlings of ideas that have yet to come to full fruition.
As always, we are open to feedback about ways to improve how we do what we do. If you have an idea or suggestion, or if you disagree with an aspect of the approach we are taking, let us know and we’ll do our best work your ideas into our strategy.
All the best,
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Ryan Brideau
VP External - UNB Student Union
Phone: 506-458-7164
Twitter: twitter.com/UNBSU_Brideau
So, bottled water, eh? Well I’ll kick off the dialog (keyword dialog, not necessarily debate; let’s be open minded here) with a few of my thoughts on the topic, and you can feel free to chime in with yours. This is by no means extensive, but it’s a start.
Some of my main beefs with bottled water are as follows:
o The fact that we are willing to buy water in bottles blows my mind. The geniuses who first made water into a commodity are also likely keeping the wool industry afloat, as they have seemingly pulled it over the eyes of the collective free world.
o Shipping water from Évian-les-Bains, France, to drink in Canada, is also a marketing wonder. When you consider the amount of energy it takes to produce bottled water and then ship it, it’s pretty ridiculous. Check out this article in the Economist.
o Does our water really taste all that bad? Having got giardiasis last summer from tainted water in Ghana, I guess my standards are a bit lower than most, but I’m still convinced that most of it is psychosomatic.
o The plastic issue: sure, it’s an issue, but it’s not one that has personally turned me against bottled water in particular. For the sake of focus, I’ll keep my sights on water as a commodity.
My current thoughts on an approach we could take (which is very much open to change if you convince me):
o Inform people of the issues regarding bottled water.
o Provide refillable stainless steel canteens at little to no cost.
o Support the initiative in any other way we can, and let people decide for themselves.
Thoughts?
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Ryan Brideau
VP External - UNB Student Union
