Exec Reflect 2017
James Frith-lees (National SSAGO)
Tuesday 11th of April 2017
With handover at Bath Ball last weekend, we asked the outgoing Executive committee of 2016/17 to reflect on their year in office, and highlight some of their achievements and top moments...
With the annual SSAGO Ball, this year in Bath hosted by BUGS on the 1st of April, having come and gone, it’s time to say good bye to the SSAGO Executive committee of 2016/17.
With nearly 1000 members in 42 clubs covering over 50 Universities/Student Unions across the UK, The Student Scout and Guide Organisation has had a fantastic year with Anna, Ciara, Andrew, Lloyd and Oliver at the helm. From welcoming international contingents, to building on our relationships with The Scout Association and GirlGuiding, to putting plans in place for our 50th year celebrations, it’s never been a more exciting time to be part of SSAGO!
We asked the outgoing committee to reflect on their year in office, and highlight some of their achievements and top moments…
Anna Louise Duncan - Chair
- Spent a lot of time supporting HUGS rally
- Created the (soon to be revealed) challenge pack for the 50th Anniversary challenge badge
- Lots of phonecalls, emails sent, and meetings with both TSA and GG
- Overseeing updating of factsheets that needed it, all of which are now on the website
- Attended publicity events (Gilwell 24, Reunion, Evolve)
- Been looking at loopholes in the constitution to enable a future exec to be tighten it
- up
Ciara Billings - Secretary
- Minuted about 30 hours of meetings
- Updated lots of factsheets
- Collected lots of club reports, named and shamed those that didn’t send any!
- Sent and received so many emails
- Attended G24, Reunion, Evolve and all rallies this year
- Forced Manchester to run Greater Yorkshire Freshers camp this year in an effort to boost Northern Relations
Andrew Amey - Treasurer
- Did major surgery on the bunny!
- Ensured the accounts were up to date and as detailed as possible
- Argued with HSBC a lot and won £500 for SSAGO
- Tried to stay up to date with the events
- Ensured more interest in development bids
Lloyd Pearson - Members Officer
- Helped set up 9 new clubs in SSAGO
- Indie Membership - After the indie reps disappearance we had around 30 people on the waiting list. I stepped in to help get indie get back on track and start to rebuild the community that was left. Once Lorna was elected Indie rep I passed onto her hopefully enthusing her to make Indie great again.
- Wrote a Welcome Pack - Realised that when new clubs were created it was hard to give them all the information and found a lot of information was repeated in all the emails. The new welcome pack helps to give people all that information in a nice format with pictures.
Oliver Bills - Publicity Officer
- Newsletters - With the help of a great team, launched the Rally Newsletter, seeing a newsletter produced daily at every Rally in my year, filled with stories, pictures and jokes, and all published on the website for those not at the events to see, and hopefully to continue on into the future.
- Getting SSAGO out there - Used a combination of new publicity materials, social media advertising, new tools for club committees, general social media engagement and the creation of a new and easier 'Join' section of the website to get new people involved with SSAGO, more people than have signed up and reached National SSAGO than ever before!
- Project teams - Helped form Project Teams in SSAGO, with the start of the Media team, the Archive team and the Web Team to bring out the talent in SSAGO, resulting in a new promotional video for SSAGO, an initial exploration of the history of SSAGO and working with the web team to develop the first set of new features for the SSAGO website that weren't written by me
- Preservation - Placed a big focus on preservation and resources, in trying to create new resources that can continue to exist for future years, including ensuring photos and news articles and stories are kept and preserved in the SSAGO digital archive, something that I want to continue to grow as Webmaster next year, working with the new Archivist.
- Relationships - Worked hard to rebuild the relationships with Scouting and Guiding, showing how we could support and work with each other and helping both to understand what SSAGO is and where it fits in with Scouting and Guiding. This has in turn added to new opportunities for SSAGO, including adding new Scouting events to our volunteering lineup, such as Fundays, and setting up volunteering at our first National Girlguiding event at Wellies this year and starting the formation of the SSAGO Support team.
With the torch passed last week to the new SSAGO Executive committee of 2017/18, we can only hope the next year for the Student Scout and Guide Organisation will be just as fantastic as this one has been!
