Your Ideas Board

A place to post your ideas and vote on other students' ideas.
A place to post your ideas and vote on other students' ideas.

Suggest improvements,
share ideas,
create change

 

BCUSU is a student-led organisation, so we need your ideas! By posting ideas here you can help to improve student experience, for yourself and others.

Student Voice

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  • 19 score
    19 voters

    Ideas board equality - improve the way in which the ideas board is assessed

    Rejected
      Throughout the ideas board - a variety of interesting, unique, and overall amazing suggestions have been put forward by students to alleviate or fix some of the most pressing issues they believe to be impacting BCU. Of the ideas that have been passed, however, there is a divide on what is actually considered and what isn't. Irrespective of popularity, some ideas (such as Neavan Lobban's idea to disassociate from the NUS; Henry Kingdon's idea to play scratch radio throughout campus; Jack Carson's idea to host a student festival) have been sitting for months passed the voting quorate without any action. The ideas that are taken into account appear to be prioritised by ease of implementation and, where this is not the case, the ideas have been raised, passed, and executed by executive officers, an example of which can be found through the NUS strike. This is blatantly unfair and biased against normal student members, of whom this forum was designed for. As a result - I am asking that we opt to change the way the ideas board system operates through a number of structural changes that would aim to bring more power to the ideas raised by students, allowing their voice to be heard regardless of how difficult this may be to achieve: 1. I am requesting that the byelaws be changed to implement a greater time pressure for BCUSU staff to respond to students ideas. I do not believe there is, as of yet, a time limit on this - and think introducing this would provide some certainty regarding when someone's claim is going to be responded to. 2. I am requesting the byelaws also call for regular updates on ideas, especially those that take longer periods of time to implement. Taking Neavan's idea for example, it would be useful to provide updates so that, after four months, it does not look like the idea has been acknowledged and ignored. In instances such as the NUS vote - where the time period at which this is passed is actually impactful - this also allows for a more critical eye to be cast on whether or not the idea is being considered appropriately by the SU, allowing for greater transparency. This is an amazing system that has lead to amazing changes, but to make it even more amazing - more power needs to be provided to the students. These changes do just that.
    Ed Bullas
    2:55pm on 12 May 22 I have to agree. The biggest flaw for anything is a lack of communication and transparency. Without this, for all anyone else knows, absolutely anything (or nothing, for that matter) could be happening.
    Naina Sumar
    10:20pm on 12 May 22 Excellent points made, I agree
    Grace Reynolds
    1:14pm on 13 May 22 This idea has passed the 16 positive votes required and will now be passed to the officer team for a decision.
    Grace Reynolds
    4:07pm on 23 May 22 This idea has been rejected by the officer team, this is due to the ideas system already being under review this year and it was felt that the inclusion of additional time limits with regards to the ideas board would lead to needing to add sanctions against executive officers for failure and could create a negative culture. There is a review currently underway with the trustee board so its certainly a priorty to improve the structure going forward.

    How it works

    Submit

    Submit an idea... anything that could improve student experience is a valid idea.

     

    • You must be a BCU student, logged in using your student account
    • You can choose to submit anonymously, so your name won’t be displayed.
      BCUSU staff will still be able to see your name and email to contact you

     

    Discuss

    You will be contacted by one of the Activities and Representation Coordinators to discuss your idea and make any relevant changes to it.

    Vote

    Your idea then goes live, here on the Ideas Board for other students to vote and comment.

    It will be live until:

    • it reaches 25 positive votes
      or until the end of the academic year (whichever comes first)
    • Students can vote with a thumbs up (agree) or thumbs down (disagree)
    • Votes and comments will help the Executive Officer team make decisions

     

    Action

    If your idea reaches the 25-positive vote threshold:

     

    • it will be handed over to the Executive Officer team for review
    • they will discuss the idea and decide what action to take
    • the comments section will be updated with the agreed upon actions

    If an idea is raised to hold an Executive Officer to account, and it gains 25 positive votes, it will be reviewed at Scrutiny Group.

    For more information, please review our byelaws.

     

     

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