Greetings Xaverians,

First off, Congratulations to the LA Kings on their Stanley Cup victory!!! Now that the best season of all has come to an end, it's time to begin the countdown to the LONDON OLYMPICS!!! The games are the only reason my roomies and I are still paying for our cable right now. I hope everyone is also counting down to My Generation - Frosh Week 2012. The Student Orientation Committee has been hard at work planning events for throughout the week, to keep all the first years active, excited, and cheering.

Frosh Week is not the only thing on my radar right now! I have begun work on the Co-Curricular Record, something last year's executive were very passionate about. I plan to continue the progress, and in the coming weeks will look to put together a working group to discuss the logistics of the record at X. The CCR is essentially an official University document outlining your extra curricular involvement during your time at X. I will keep you all posted on the CCR status, and would love to hear your thoughts!!!

Another endeavour I have begun work on is 24 HOUR STUDY SPACE!!! This is something that Nick and I campaigned on, and I am very committed to implementing for students. I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Please email me su_vp@stfx.ca, tweet at RachMitch30 or TheUOfficial!!! One of the options I'm exploring is repurposing Gilmora Gym as a study space.

Last week I went to Fredricton for a conference on Inclusion in the Education Sector. It was run by the Atlantic Human Rights Centre, and was a wonderfully orchestrated conference, unfortunately for me it was not as tailored to post secondary schools as I had hoped. I still learned lots, and heard some incredibly inspiring stories from individuals.

Ok friends that's just a wee update on a few things I have been working on. I hope course registration is going well for all returning students. I'm still waiting on an override, as per usual for me. Well we are now more than half way through June, my One Direction obsession continues, but has taken a backseat to my new interest in exploring X yearbooks in the spirit of Frosh Week My Generation theme.

The Great Antigonish Beachcrawl continues, as my roomies and I embark on a different beach adventure every weekend. Hope the weather cooperates... To all the X students out there, keep on registering in courses, enjoy the summer days, and get excited to welcome the newest class of XAVERIANS!!!!


Stay tuned for more updates from my office! Thanks for reading my blog and feel free to contact me with any comments, ideas, or thoughts.

Rachel Mitchell

Services Update

I think it's on Wednesday's that I just miss everyone and feel like I need to blog.

Things have been very busy lately! I was away at a conference in Toronto last week with Sean Ryan for The Campus Trust to discuss health and wellness opportunities on campus, and mainly our Health and Dental plans. The Campus Trust was formed in 1998 by Acadia and Western University students' union/council who were sick and tired of the poor service and benefits they were receiving for their students' health plan. In a long story short, many student organizations from universities all over Canada are now working together in a formed legal trust that allows ownership of our own benefit plans! The Campus Trust allows us to provide the best quality of benefits at the lowest price possible. (To check out more about The Campus Trust you can go to: www.thecampustrust.ca and to check out information regarding YOUR benefits you can e-mail me any time, or check out www.studentbenefits.ca)

So while we were in Toronto, we discussed as a board, what works for our school, what works for other schools and combined on ideas on how to better our benefits offered for you! We had presentations from a nutritionist, a pharmacist, and mental health organizations that I will mention below. Toronto also provided us with great entertainment and LOTS of great food, which was a nice, fresh change of scenery compared to the lovely Antigonish! I am glad to be back though :)

We had a whole day dedicated to presentations and workshops in order to raise awareness and minimize stigma of Mental Health. We're looking to bring in some cool campaigns to campus this fall that were created by Partners for Mental Health (http://www.partnersformh.ca). Every one has days where they don't feel like themselves, and for people dealing with mental health issues, that can feel like every day for them. A neat campaign they are doing is called "Not Myself Today" so you can go online and read really inspiring stories that people have shared about their own personal mental health.

Aside from being away in Toronto, I've been doing a lot of Off Campus Housing inspection and website ads. So again, if you're still needing a place to live in September- check out www.theuhousing.ca, there are some lovely new spots added to the website and landlords waiting to hear from you!

I will leave you with a lovely picture of Mr. Sean Ryan and I at the Blue Jays game last week against the Nationals! The Jays didn't win unfortunately, but it was still a blast!

I will write again soon!!! Have a happy Wednesday,

Tessa

talkin ‘bout my gggggeneration

HEY GUYS,

This week has been one of great excitement – on Monday we had the big reveal of the Frosh Week theme!! If you haven’t heard, this year’s Frosh Week’s theme is My Generation! We’re going a little 70s with design, bringing back the bubble letters, etc – super fun! Be sure to check out the OFFICIAL FROSH WEEK FB PAGE AT http://www.facebook.com/MyGeneration2012 to get all the deets on what is going to be THE BEST WEEK for all the first-years arriving in September #74dayz!

The theme came out of discussions of the great community spirit of StFX and the feeling of the Xaverian family. We came across some great pictures in the old yearbooks and wanted to bring that nostalgic feel to this year’s frosh week! Here’s a little throw back to O-Crew in the 80’s (they were called X-Plore X! at the time haha).

 I’ll be uploading more yearbook pics over the next couple of weeks to the FB page!

Other things that have been going on in the Comm office since my last post include working with Kris (The Inn bar manger) and Wylder to firm a few more dates for events at The Inn. I also have been busy with our web developer Han getting the Frosh website ready to go live (hopefully in the next two weeks!) and putting together the Frosh Week mail-out which will be mailed to all First Year students with their FYI packet in the next couple of weeks!

On Friday, Wylder and I leave for Montreal to attend the Canadian Organization of Campus Activities (COCA) National Conference. I’ll be making a post next week to tell you all about that!

For now, happy Wingsday, and be sure to stop by the My Generation FB Page!

Latress on the menjay,


Kaleigh

VP Comm

Check INN From the Event Kid 

Show Me The Money

Hi Everyone,

I am Patrick Carruthers, VP Finance for the Students’ Union and your secondary delegate for ANSSA --- which is a Provincial lobbying group for Post-Secondary Education.

Some exciting news from the Inn….Sean Ryan, Kris MacSween and I have been working diligently reviewing a few bids to replace the non-existing audio equipment in the Inn. After thorough evaluation with bids from Tour Tech, Glubes, Long & McQuade we decided to go with local players Shannon Aubrecht and Matt Cameron at Impact Sound. Our new equipment will enable us to have great sounding live music and a booming in-house DJ. One major benefit of this project is the sound is going to be evenly disbursed throughout the entire bar, as we won’t be killing everyone’s ears with 125 Db near the stage. Prior to our acquisition of this equipment we had to pay a fee every time for every show that wasn’t based on a compact disc. It will definitely pay dividends over the next fifteen years, and plus it is going to sound amazing!  We all can’t wait to show you on opening night at the first Wing Night.

As Nick mentioned in an earlier post, we are very involved with the Alliance of Nova Scotia Students’ Association. It has been very helpful for our team to develop relationships with other Executive Teams to see what their Universities are going through. On the lobbying front, we are looking at a few initiatives to pressure the NDP Government to improve the plight of students’ in Nova Scotia – it’s not going to be easy!

On another note, our auditors are coming through at the start of July -  should be a fun time……

Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Go Leafs!!!!

Patrick

Wingsday in the 'nish

Alright, my turn here on the ol' summer blog. My name is Jessie and I am pumped to be your VP Student Relations this year! Summer is the 'nish has been quite the treat so far, great summer weather, great company, and busy  days that seem to be flying by. Not to mention, campus is absolutely beautiful! Aside from work in the office, I am doing classes (done on Monday!), watching Grey's Anatomy (first time ever... no spoilers please), indulging in The Rolling Bricks Pizza, visiting the Farmer's Market, tweeting, and frequenting Tall and Small.. not too much out of the ordinary really.  


As for the Monday 9-5, my position is a lot different in the summer than it is during the school year. I am lucky to have the opportunity to work with 30 amazing house presidents, vice presidents, off campus leaders and house council coordinators in my position...but unfortunately they aren't here until August 27th! To fill this void I have been meeting bi-weekly with the Residence Life Coordinators (RLC's) to coordinate our training schedules and review frosh letters, frosh shirts, and prepare for the arrival of the frosh! Until the house presidents are back I will keep busy planning training week, putting together training manuals, developing a house council handbook and learning more about what our university and community have to offer! I have also been compiling a list of local charities for the residences to look at this year when deciding which charity their house charity events will benefit. It is important to me that our charity money stays in the community as much as possible.


Aside from office work I have also been working on a few committees this summer. The Student Orientation Committee (SOC) is currently in the process of putting together FROSH WEEK (you may have heard of it...jello slide anyone?) and more information will become available in the coming weeks. One thing I can say is that the incoming frosh are in for the best week of their life, and the house presidents are STOKED to provide them with the best possible guidance throughout! Other committees I am working on include the Event Review Committee and the Food Service Liaison Committee which will become more active in the coming weeks as we nail down some policy and finalize some decisions. 


Lastly, I had the opportunity to travel to Halifax with Nick and Pat for the ANSSA Board Education Retreat a few weeks ago and you can read more about our trip in Nick's summary below! 


Well that's a basic outline of what I have been up to for the last few weeks. If you have any questions about my position feel free to send me an email or stop by my office.


I might venture into the world of video blogging (vlog...ing?) next week... or at least improve my picture selection.


Until next time, 


Jessie 

An Update from ANSSA

Earlier this month, Jessie, Pat, and I attended the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA) Board Education Retreat. This was an opportunity for us to meet with a number of people in regards to Post Secondary Education (PSE) in the province of Nova Scotia.

We spent three days in Halifax and met with six different people. Our first day included a meeting with Carole and Ken from the Nova Scotia Student Assistance Program. They provided us important information about the successes from student assistance over the past two years (I have summarized that in a table below):

2011-2012	2012-2013
Investment of 42.5 M in PSE          30 M in Student Tuition Bursary          12.5 M in Student Assistance          30% grant/ 70% loan           debt cap: 28, 560	Investment of 35.3 M in PSE            30 M in Student Tuition Bursary            5.5 M in Student Assistance            35% grant/ 65% loan            debt cap: 28, 560

As you can see, there was a 7 million drop in funding to PES this past year. We are encouraged by the fact that the Provincial Government did give some money to the Student Assistance Program, but there is still work to do.

We also met with Paul Black, Director of Policy and Community Relations at the Office of the Premier of Nova Scotia. This was a candid conversation about where money is being spent and the direction of our current government in regards to PSE funding. It is important to note that Paul Black is an advisor and does not make the final decision. Even so, this was a good meeting, as we learned a number of things about the plans for the government going into an Election year.

The third meeting was with Ray Ivany, President of Acadia University. He spoke with us about the funding formula for Universities and the disadvantage that it put St. FX and other small Universities at. We receive less funding, but are trying to provide the same, high quality of education. With Mr. Ivany being the Chair of the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents (CONSUP) this year, we will look to work along side him and his team as we lobby the government to address the issues with the current funding formula.

On our second day, we discussed the Dalhousie Transition Year Program for African Nova Scotian and Aboriginal Students. This is an amazing program that assists with the transition to University and put an emphasis on the culture and history of African Nova Scotians and Aboriginal Nova Scotians. The afternoon of our second day we discussed the current situation in Quebec and the potential impacts to our own province.

Our final day consisted of an excellent session on Board Governance, during which we learn about many of the changes we need to make to our own By-Laws to make them a more functional document to work with. As well, we spoke with Ryan McNutt and received media relations training, so that we are able to speak with the press better.

This was a really informative three days! We are ready to move ahead to our Policy and Strategic Planning Retreat in July during which we will set forth our lobbying priorities for this year.

For more information about ANSSA check out: http://www.anssa.ca/. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me (su_pres@stfx.ca) or call me (902-867-2435) any time. Hope all is well from wherever you are reading!

Cheers,

Nick

rainy dayz

Annnd the good ol' Antigonish weather is back .. rain for daaays. But here's a lil' update on what's been going on in the Comm office! I've been working closely with Pat and Sean over the past two weeks putting together our sponsorship package for Frosh Week which I just finished up yesterday. The next goal will be to get our ad package ready to send out to businesses over the next few weeks! 

Also two weeks (?) ago we launched the NEW website which is super exciting! If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet be sure to stop by theu.ca soon - there are a few kinks that need to be worked out soon but otherwise it's looking great! Huge thanks to Dave Mattie on this project 

Another large project that's been under way is the planning of Frosh Week - I have to keep most details under wraps until the big reveal but I've been working on designs for the theme and logo, as well as getting the Frosh website underway! Wylder and the rest of the Student Orientation Committee have been working very hard to make sure that Frosh Week is amazing and I can't wait for SEPTEMBER!


Like Tessa and Rach mentioned before, the exec team went to the valley earlier in May for an ANSSA conference. It was really great to meet other exec teams from other universities, it's so interesting how different each Student Union or Association is. It was a great experience and I learned a lot from the other schools. Later this month Wylder and I will be heading to the Canadian Organization of Campus Activities (COCA)  national conference in Montreal where we'll get to experience this shared learning even more, so I'm really looking forward to that! 


Oh and how could I forget THE INN ?!? Wylder and I have started our weekly meetings with Kris (the Bar Manager) and starting to solidify some dates for all your favourite events (country night anyone?!) and to start all the other plans for the year. Wowzaas I can't wait for FIRST WING NIGHT BACK!!


Well that's all for now, hope the sun's shining where you are!


- Kaleigh, VP Comm