University of Birmingham Guild of Students

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The University of Birmingham Guild of Students is the officially recognised body which represents over 25,000 students at the University of Birmingham. In theory and practice, the Guild has almost complete autonomy in the running and management of its own affairs and premises. This includes the ability to employ staff, enter into contracts, hold investments and indeed form Limited Companies, as well as the running and management of their own facilities and the generation of income through sources other than the Block Grant.

The Institution had its first foundations in the Mason Science College in the centre of Birmingham around 1876. The University itself formally received its Royal Charter in 1900 with the Guild of Students being provided for as a Student Representative Council (Cheesewright, 1975, p.35). As a consequence both the Guild and the University officially celebrated their centenaries in the year 2000. Mason College had had a union of sorts with a club house opening in Great Charles Street in 1905. The Guild of Students having been provided for in the 1900 Charter was formed in 1909 as the Guild of Undergraduates, being based at Edgbaston (Hughes, 1950, p.17).

The Guild possesses archives which go back to the First World War, clearly establishing a very long tradition of what we would refer to as "modern Students' Unionism". BUGS was a founding member of the National Union of Students.

The University has remained relatively untouched from the incorporation of Colleges in the 1980s and the more recent changes of Polytechnics into Universities, though over the last few years student numbers have more than doubled to the present level. The University is mostly a very large Campus to the south of the City in Edgbaston, with satellite sites including Selly Oak Campus in Selly Oak and the Dental School located in the City Centre close to the University of Aston.

The Guild of Students occupies the Union Building (often referred to as the Guild itself), situated at the edge of campus by the East Gate, for a peppercorn rent from the University. The building itself, by Holland W. Hobbiss, dates back to 1928 and has been added to and amended, most significantly in the 1950s adding a south wing and again in the 1960s building a much larger west wing. At 10,000 square metres is one of the largest Student Union buildings in the UK.

The Guild - the same as a student union - is known differently because in the 1920s it was first to define itself as an organisation and not merely a student representative council (SRC). At the time, Guilds of skilled people and professionals were commonplace, while trades unions were generally for low paid workers. The University therefore decided to call it a Guild because of this and because it had less socialist connotations, which the upper class founders wished to discourage, instead choosing to reinforce a hierarchical system.

The Vision

The Guild's vision is:

To lead the student experience and be at the heart of student life;
To work within the student movement to create positive change in the student community;
We will act with and for our students in all that we do.

The Core Message is: The University of Birmingham Guild of Students (Bugs) is the recognised students' union for over 28,000 students. Bugs represents and involves all students, under or postgraduate, home or international, on all campuses. Bugs brings students together on issues they care about to create positive change and achieve equality for and within its membership, through taking collective action.

Purpose and Activities

The Guild provides representation to all students at the University and campaigns to create change on issues affecting students at a local and national level. This is achieved through regular meetings with University Senior Officers and Senior Managers, as well as through lobbying Birmingham City Council, the Government and other bodies. The Guild also runs campaigns focused on particular issues; recent campaigns have included a drive to see wheelie bins across the city, an initiative to improve campus security and have the University install CCTV across all halls of residence, and strong participation in the NUS campaign against the introduction of £3000 top-up fees (a campaign which continues, despite the measure being approved by Parliament in January 2004).

The Guild boasts 24/7 welfare support channels for its members. The Advice and Representation Centre (ARC) provides professional and impartial advice on all manner of student issues, from academic problems, financial woes, immigration and other international troubles, housing worries, health or safety issues and more, and arranges individual representation for students facing academic appeals, disciplinary hearings, or other measures. All students in halls of residence can seek similar advice from their team of Student Mentors, who are on hand day or night for emergency issues, while Niteline provides a confidential listening and information service through telephone and email overnight. The Guild's welfare services are complemented by the Job Zone, which seeks and promotes part time student vacancies, and the liberation associations.

With one of its three constitutional objects being to promote "social intercourse" the Guild maintains social space, bars and event nights, all of which provide an income without which initiatives including campaigns, the ARC, Job Zone, Niteline, and many student groups would struggle to exist. The major weekly night is Saturday's "Fab 'N' Fresh", with other popular events including "Very Important Tuesdays" (VIT), society-themed evenings such as "The Mix", student group events and irregular gigs and comedy evenings. Further commercial revenue is generated through marketing and retail activities, including a supermarket, and the Guild acts as the official retailer of University branded merchandise for this purpose.

The Guild also supports around 160 student groups and societies, actively promoting student involvement, volunteering and social participation. Its oldest society is Carnival, the Guild's charitable RAG (Raising And Giving) society, while one of its newest is Pirate Soc, with all manner of groups such as Paintball, Circus, Intervol (International Volunteers),Mountaineering and Jazz and Blues in between.

The Guild of Students publishes a weekly newspaper called Redbrick, has a radio station, BURNFM.COM which broadcasts on 87.7FM twice-yearly and all year round online, and Guild Television, a television production group. All three media outlets are editorially independent and encouraged to hold the Guild Executive to account. However as the groups and the Executive are all part of the same organisation, the trustees reserve the right to edit content that poses legal or other risks to the Guild, which at times has caused friction amid claims of political censorship.

During a recent refurbishment, two committee rooms were renovated and dedicated: one to Rosa Parks, and the other to Baroness Amos, the first Black woman in the Government and a University of Birmingham alumnus.

Government

The Guild is a students' union for the purposes of the Education Act 1994. Under section 67 of the Act, all students of the University are by law automatically members of the Guild unless they deliberately opt out, and the role of the Guild is to democratically represent this body of membership. However, the University of Birmingham does not disclose any details of its students to the Guild, which natually makes the Guild's job of democratically representing its membership something of a challenge.

The Guild's Constitution sets out in detail how the organisation should be run.

The Guild's sovereign body and Union Council is Guild Council, made up of elected councillors representing academic, student group, hall of residence and Athletics Union constituencies. There are roughly 500 seats on Guild Council. The role of Guild Council is legislative: it hears, debates and votes on policy proposals to guide the Guild Executive; it holds the Executive to account over their actions in pursuit of approved policy and their duties generally; and it has a role in setting the Guild's priorities by hearing and voting on the Guild budget.

Like many student unions in the UK the Guild is an unincorperated association: it has no legal identity itself. A group of trustees legally represent the Guild, and it is they who enter into contracts and represent the organisation in court. These trustees are legally responsible for the Guild's activities: they ensure the Guild is compliant with legislation, they oversee its financial management, and they prioritise its resources on behalf of all the members. In the past, when it had far fewer members than today, this group of trustees was Guild Council. Board of Trustees today meets as the Guild's Resources Committee, and is constituted out of fourteen of the eighteen Executive Officers, plus two members of University Staff (one academic, one administrative). The Guild's future legal status is currently under review in preparation for the forthcoming Charities Bill that will place regulation of students unions under the remit of the Charity Commission.

Executive

On a day to day basis and in the absence of Guild Council over University vacations, the Guild is run by a Committee of Executive Officers. The makeup of the committee changed for the 2006/07 adademic session as Guild Council adopted the outcomes of an executive review, albeit with numerous amendments.

There are eighteen Executive officers, seven of which are full time Sabbatical Officers, the remaining eleven being student "non-sabbatical" officers. Seven of the non-sabbaticals and all of the sabbaticals are also trustees of the organisation. The non-sabbatical trustees are termed Executive Officers as are the remaining four Liberation Officers, whose remits focus on the liberation of certain groups which are perceived as being socially oppressed.

As of the 1st of August 2006 the Sabbatical Officers of the Executive Committee is as follows:

President - Gary Hughes
Vice President (Academic Quality and Access) - Peter Mason
Vice President (Finance and Services) - Sabrina Francis
Vice President (Housing and Community) - Sally Hinchley
Vice President (Sport) - Hannah Poulton
Vice President (Student Activities and Development) - Ruth Wadsworth
Vice President (Welfare) - Irene Michael

As of the 1st of August 2007 the Sabbatical Officers of the Executive Committee will be as follows:

President Elect - Rhea Keehn
Vice President (Democracy and Resources) Elect - Simon Fairbanks
Vice President (Education and Access) Elect - Laura Sadler
Vice President (Housing and Community) Elect - Naushabah Khan
Vice President (Sport) Elect - Will Bastin
Vice President (Student Activities and Development) Elect - Lizzy Ralph
Vice President (Welfare) Elect - Sarah Bolt

As of the 1st of August 2007 the non-sabbatical Officers of the Executive Committee will be as follows:

Anti-Racism Anti-Fascism Officer Elect - Alex Totton
LGBT Officer Elect - Alex Wright
Ethical & Environmental Officer Elect - Julien Pritchard
Home Students Officer Elect - Libby Hooper
Community Action Officer Elect - Sean Rath
Disabled Students Officer Elect - Matthew Haywood
International Students Officer Elect - vacant
Women's Officer Elect - Kiran Rashid
Black & Minority Ethnic Officer Elect - Yasmin Patel

Other Officers

The Guild has a number of other officer posts outside of the Executive.

Independent Chairs

There are three Independent Chairs, whose principal function is to chair and facilitate Guild Council meetings independently of the Executive. In this regard they are often compared to a Speaker of the House role. They also fulfil a number of investigative and disciplinary functions which could be described as judicial.

The incumbent Chairs are Laura Morris, Tom Hyner and Peter Lloyd. The Independent Chairs Elect for the 2007/08 session are Hannah Lazell, Fabian Neuner and Will Stevens.

Warden

The Warden's role is to act as a safety net and make sure the Guild is always in the right hands. Unlike other officers the Warden cannot be a student, and holds a three year term of office. They have an advisory role and some disciplinary duties, but their main task is to step in and administer the Guild in the unlikely event that all of the Executive Officer posts become vacant. (Without the Warden it is likely under English Law that under this circumstance, administration would pass to the University). While seemingly unlikely there has been an occasion in the Guild's history when Guild Council saw fit to dismiss the entire Executive, at which point the Warden of the day stepped in and immediately held fresh elections.

The current Warden is Ruth Holdaway.

Media Controversy

Over the 2005/06 academic session, the Guild made national and international press over several controversial issues.

The year started with President Richard Angell banning the National Blood Service from the Guild's popular Freshers Fair (an important opportunity to recruit blood donors) over the service's policies of banning most gay and bisexual men (those with sexual experience regarded as dangerous) from giving blood, for life. [1]

In January 2006 a row erupted as the Guild became aware of and subsequently took issue with some of the policies stipulated by the constitution of the Evangelical Christian Union. The key issues the Guild took issue with were BUECU not allowing non-Christians to become members, and requiring leadership to be chosen through fully democratic elections rather than being proposed by the previous leaders and having to sign an evangelical doctrinal basis.

After the controversy began, but before the final decision was made by the Guild, BUECU altered their constitution to enable members to choose to run against the nominations of the previous leaders, being labelled as such. BUECU stated that in this context they felt their religious beliefs prevented them from being able to make any more concessions to the Guild in conscience. However, the Guild held that this was a compulsory requirement for all societies under their constitution. As a result of this, the Guild derecognised the Evangelical Christian Union and froze their funds (which BUECU had formerly been legally required to bank with the Guild), claiming that they would be repaid upon certain conditions (i.e. that the money go to UCCF for use on Birmingham students, rather than directly to the derecognised society as they ruled that they were a self appointed group of friends and thus shouldn't directly receive the money).[2]

At the Guild Council in June 2006, President Angell proposed a motion (titled 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead') that the Guild should "have a party" on the occasion of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's death, [3] which was met with widespread criticism, even making The Times national newspaper.

Other information

The current brand of "BUGS", adopted in 2000 (although used informally since the early 1980s), is the acronym of Birmingham University Guild of Students. Soon after the change the University moved to a policy insisting that the University must only be called "The University of Birmingham". Myth has it that Birmingham University, Alabama, USA had launched a lawsuit against its UK namesake; however it was only a local marketing decision. The Guild nevertheless continues to use the BUGS brand, although consultation is in progress about a potential rebranding.

Affiliations

References

Foster, A. (2005). Birmingham (Pevsner Architectural Guides). London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10731-5.
Ives, E. (2000). The First Civic University: Birmingham, 1880–1980 – An Introductory History. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press. ISBN 1-902459-07-5.
The University of Birmingham Yearbook 2002–2003.
Cheesewright, M. (1975). Mirror to Mermaid. Birmingham: The University of Birmingham Press. ISBN 0-7044-0130-4.
Braithwaite, L. (1987). University of Birmingham architectural trail. Birmingham: The University of Birmingham Press. ISBN 0-7044-0890-2.
Hughes, A. (1950). The University of Birmingham : a short history. Birmingham: The University of Birmingham Press. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

External links