Women’s Officer Report -26/01/09 – 31/01/09

Monday 26/01/09
- Flyering for Pangaea
- Made pirate flags for Pangaea
- Organised travel and started promotion for Gender, Race and Class – an anti-capitalist feminist event in London.
- Made more Reclaim the Night Flyers.
- Updated the Riveters mailing list and started promotion for meetings.

Tuesday 27/01/09
- Holocaust Memorial Day vigil, and helped organise the evening event with a film and speakers.
- Flyering for Pangaea
- Wrote a proposal for a ‘common room’ – non-commerical space in the Union to take to exec in order for students to use the union in the best way for them.
- Ordered more DVDs and books for the Riveters Library and upcoming film nights.

Wednesday 28/01/09
- Confirmed self-defence classes for this term.
- Flyering for Pangaea
- Represented students at the General Assemby – a meeting where key stakeholders and figures in the University, as well as the token 6 students go along to hear about the Universities finances. Of note to students is the University have pledged not to cut back on their commitment to Widening Participation in the financial crisis, and are not key lobbyists for lifting the cap on fees. Also of note, not one woman was sat at the top table – we still have that glass ceiling to crack.

Thursday 29/01/09
- NUS regional conference North in Man Met, asking questions to the NEC, finding out how to input into policy for NUS conference and meeting other sabbatical officers.
- Riveters Meeting ☺

Friday 30/01/09
- Pangaea promotion! Including, making a pirate ship, making sails, setting up and generally being creative and piratey.
- Meeting with Amy about Lis, the Riveters play, and planning for the recruitment meetings, how to inform people of the severity of working in prisons etc.
- Reclaim the Parks: Bike Style. Critical Mass followed by party in the park – reclaiming our spaces from gender based violence in the way we want to? Sounds good to me!

Saturday 31/01/09
- PANGAEA! Organising a room for the biggest NUS-only club-event EVER! Pirates of Pangaea was the pirate rock room, celebrating both pirates and rock music. Working in the Union to promote the Union in a way students enjoy. And, getting to make a pirate ship.

Women’s Officer Report 18/01/09 – 25/01/09

Women’s Officer Report 18/01/09 – 25/01/09

Sunday 18/1/09
- Wrote the first draft of the new information for the Students’ With Caring Responsibilities section of the union website.

Monday 19/1/09
- Planning meeting for pirates of Pangaea
- Meeting with student
- Finished the plans and handout for the trans training for hall mentors workshops.
- Wrote the Reclaim the Night Press Release
- Developed the plan for the liberation workshops in election time.
- Visited a feminist activist from York St John about setting up a women’s group.
- Visited the Leeds Met Women’s Officer to plan some joint activities.
- Visited the Women’s Conference Delegate from Bradford College to help write an amendment

Tuesday 20/1/09
- More planning and promotion for Reclaim the Night North.
- Worked with a woman on how to build on experience from being a women’s officer in the future.
- Got performers on board with Reclaim the Night and confirmed speakers.
- Rewrote Lysistrata – the feminist play this year and started advertising getting people to come along.
- Registered Reclaim the Night as a volunteering opportunity with MLP to get more people involved.

Wednesday 21/01/09
- More writing for Lysistrata
- Contributed to the NUS LGBT and Women’s campaign – ‘Women in LGBT History Month’.
- More work for Pirates of Pangaea
- Casework
- Gave a student advice on housing options for next year.
- Attended Exec meeting.

Thursday 22/01/09
- Meeting about vocational human rights MA students doing work experience in the students’ union.
- Reclaim the Night North volunteers planning meeting.
- Pre-meeting with Gilbert meeting
- Stewarded the Gaza demo to ensure no-one was hurt, nothing was obstructed and no exam-disruption occurred
- Emailed organisations in Manchester about Reclaim the Night
- Riveters Meeting

Friday 23/01/09
- Arranged torches for Reclaim the Night.
- Arranged travel for 14th Feb event – Gender, Race and Class.
- Sourced DVDs for Open Media and Riveters film nights.
- More promotion for Reclaim the Night.
- Wrote the ‘Hard-To-Reach Students’ workshop for the Course Rep Conference.
- Continued re-writing Lis (the Riveter’s play).
- Attended the Riot Showgrrrl club, a fundraiser for the London Feminist Network to promote Reclaim the Night North.

Sunday 25/01/09
- Finished the first draft of Lis.
- Promoted the planning meetings for the event.
- Met with the other ‘team leader’ for the play.

Women's Officering 12/01/09 - 16/01/09

Women's Officer Report - 12/01/09 - 16/01/09

Monday 12/01/09
Caught up with emails, post and messages from over Christmas.
Finalised the plans for the 24 hour Night Bus and caught up with the library about the popularity of the 24 hour library.
Finalised the campaign plan and timetable for this year.
Organised a coach from Manchester to the Free Education demo on the 25th February.
Attended the Climate Rush demo at Manchester airport

Tuesday 13/01/09
Reclaim the Night promo – including printing publicity, updating facebook and conducting a HUGE mailout.
Organising speakers and stalls for Reclaim the Night.
Rung round lots of Students’ Unions to get them to register delegates for NUS Women’s Conference in my role as Lesbian Rep on NUS Women’s Committee.

Wednesday 14/01/08
Exec away day in Lancaster to discuss experiences, problems and ways forward for the coming term. It was great to speak to everyone outside the union context and talk about issues to help us work better this term.

Thursday 15/01/08
Follow up from 13th December Feminism and the Student Movement event.
Helped develop campaign plans with new Women’s officers from the North we can work on this year.
Looked into new times for self-defense classes this term.
More Reclaim the Night Promo.
Academic Advice Service Open Day Meeting to liaise with influential members of the University.
Represented UMSU at Goldsmiths discussion on Miss University UK.

Friday 16/01/08
Wrote amendments for NUS Women’s Conference.
Arranged support for London Women’s Officers on Miss University UK.
Promoted Reclaim the Night North in London.
Started re-writing Lysistrata – the Riveters play this term.

Notes/ Thoughts

I have decided to stand for the position of NUS National Women’s Officer this year. This decision will not interefere with my work as UMSU Women’s Officer as I shall continue to work hard to ensure the liberation of women students is a paramount priority.

The sabb away day was fantastic and I’m really glad we decided to have open consultations regarding UMSU governance, and to work together on specific campaigns.

I was also hugely impressed by the amount of people at the Goldsmiths meeting to discuss beauty pagents and the efforts of London Women’s Officers to engage students in their demos, actions and discussions. I believe that it is a women’s choice to present in whatever way she wishes and will support them in doing so. But also believe it is important to challenge the capitalist structures which form the ideas of what we need to look like, how we need to harm our bodies to conform and cause not to celebrate how all women look, act, behave and present.

Reclaim the Night

Reclaim the Night is coming up very soon on the 21st February.  The Riveters have been busy organising this event since last September, and finally things are starting to come together for what promises to be a very successful march, rally and party.

This year the Riveters, the Women's Rights Collective at the University of Manchester Students' Union, through the medium of consensus decision making, decided to make the march open to all genders.  This decision was reached by the group collectively, to address so many of the problems gender-based violence brings up.

The aim of making the march open was to be inclusive to as many people as possible.  We reacted to feedback received from Reclaim the Night last year whilst deciding on this.  The aim was not to get rid of women's-only spaces, in fact the Riveters and myself are proud supporters and advocates of women only spaces such as the Women's Office in the Students' Union, Our Women-only discussion meetings and the women-only self-defence classes we are proud to put on.  With Reclaim the Night, we wanted to try something new.

So what were the reasons we discussed?

• The idea of a women-only space as a 'safe space'.  The march is anti-violence against women, yet by suggesting a women's only space is safe suggests same-sex violence doesn't occur, or is unimportant - in fact, it has the same rate of occurance as Domestic Violence in straight couples.
• Trans inclusion.  The Riveters pride ourselves on the inclusive nature of our group, and we wanted Reclaim the Night to reflect this.  Last year, with a women's only and open march, many trans women felt they were not included because they didn't dress or present a certain way.
• Showing solidarity.  Many non-women who attended last year felt the banner 'these hands won't hurt women' was patronising and wanted to be part of the march but in a more involved way.  

We hope the results and product of this decision, i.e. the march, will be successful!  We look forward to actively reclaiming our spaces together, to saying NO to gender-based violence and to standing together as a community - a community that condemns violence collectively, sticks up for each other and put a stop to the abhorrent circumstances many women experience and live in.

We would love to hear your thoughts, views and opinions on our decision, and would love feedback after the event!

See you ALL there, Saturday 21st Feb at 7.30pm University of Manchester Students' Union, Oxford Road.