It is 30 years since the Education Act 1994 as we know it came into effect.
The rise of “membership services” was in part a response to students’ unions needing to prove their value to students in a legal move which enshrined automatic membership.
Without rehashing the recent history of student voice, development and advocacy, suffice to say the development of these services is in part organic and in part driven by the sector and the conditions and expectations of our memberships.
The expectations and needs are changing again, but so are our institutions and our workforce.
Switching up
We are in our ninth year of running Membership Services Conference – but we don’t need to wait for the tenth conference to switch things up a bit.
The conference was built up and out of the communities of practice across our unions. It was designed as a solution to give a platform to the talent we have, to strike a relationship with our wider sector that was more nuanced and less elite, and to do so without worrying CEOs about the cost.
We have always had a focus on keeping the door open for new voices. Each year at the start of every conference I ask how many would describe themselves as new to the sector or the movement. Almost every year, a third of the opening plenary put their hands up.
Last year though, that proportion constituted nearly 80 per cent of the conference. That is a lot. We can’t just put forward the same conference for that audience. That needs a new mix and it needs some new rules.
We know that budgets are ever tighter and that turnover, particularly of junior staff, is still very high compared to usual. So, we have looked at feedback and have a few proposals to make in terms of the shape of the conference. To add though, these are tweaks to try to influence the mix of content – there will still be the open front door for anyone with a good idea to share, to put it forward.
The Membership Services Show
We still want to try to support the pipeline of new talent and new speakers, whilst embracing the depth of experience that we hold. So Wonkhe and Counterculture have worked together to create the Membership Services Show, a podcast focussing on ideas and practice from within SU membership services teams. The first episode of a weekly show is available now.
It will consist of fairly quick-fire interviews which are focussed on practice and we will try to make our way through as many proposals for the conference as possible as a way into the podcast. Hopefully this gives a bit more breadth to the topics, gives presenters a chance to talk through their ideas and is just a bit more fun. If you have something you’d like to talk about on the show, drop the team at Wonkhe a line.
New ideas that haven’t got the results in yet
If you have come up with a new project which looks at an issue or a service in a different way, which really excites you – there’s no reason for you to wait a year or two until you have some results. We want to create a poster exhibition of new initiatives.
You have between now and the end of July to create an A1 poster which communicates the problem you’re trying to solve, what you know so far, what you are doing and what you think the expected results will be. What KPIs will you use? What will success look like? What will likely be the next question to ask?
For this, just tell us you are planning to send a poster and the topic you are covering.
Evaluated projects or initiatives
You and your union have been engaged in a programme of work or initiative that you have been able to evaluate in some way which others can learn from. For this, we would like to open a call for papers. You write approximately four sides maximum on your project, looking at the background, your approach, the results and what questions and next steps this resulted in.
We would cluster these where we can and share the papers in advance of the conference (so we would want papers submitted to us by the start of June) Each paper, the presenter should be prepared to speak for ten minutes to the paper and then engage in a Q&A, which depending on the clusters, might be with other presenters. Attendees will have been expected to read your paper in advance. We will establish a small panel to assess which papers are discussed at the conference.
For this, just tell us you want to present a paper and the topic you will be covering.
A problem to share and solve together
You have a topic that you think is important be discussed with colleagues, as you don’t have the solution but it’s absolutely time for the Avengers to assemble. These can be excellent sessions, but they need to be presented clearly. We want to get ahead of this by inviting you to propose a problem-solving session, where the work is actually in the room.
Ideally you would be prepared to facilitate the workshop and will have a method of presenting and taking fellow problem solvers on a journey to some potential solutions.
Training – new skills
We will more explicitly try to line up some core skills sessions. Popular ones each year might include Comms for Non-comms staff, Deputy Returning Officer briefings. We will programme these in, but if anyone has an offer of a particular core-skill they could offer, please let us know.
Quick-fire or speed-dating for ideas
Often we get proposals about a great initiative or version of practice in a particular area which probably don’t warrant taking up an entire hour, but would certainly be handy for some people to know.
We are normally quite reactive in creating these sessions, which always feels a little unfair on the presenters. This year we would like to be a bit more on the front foot with this type of session.
If you have an area of your practice that you would be up for describing in under ten minutes in a speed-dating format – eg what you recently change about your rep system, how you manage an election, your leadership training or how you use casework software, we are keen to hear from volunteers to see if we can create some “ways of working” marketplaces or Steal This Idea sessions.
So, with all of this in mind, do you, your union or a colleague have something to put forward this year? If so, please fill out a proposal here by Friday 10th May. If you have any questions about presenting or just want to riff on an idea, drop me a line.
