Your Ideas Board

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.