The Team that Plays Together - Stays Together!

Over the past few days the executive have been coming up with ways to "stay fit and have fun" for a lack of better words.
On Friday a few of us went out after work to the Carleton Quad and played frisbee, basketball, and relaxed.
Tonight myself and a few others went to the gym.
Dan and I have become cardio buddies and are cheering each other on!
Mark likes to opt for the pool with his spandex shorts.
Matt helps some of us learn more about lifting weights correctly.
And Kris enjoying playing basketball.
Together we're making sure that we are both able to work together well in the office and out of the office. This way we will be a solid team "on and off the court".
This is definitely not the most important blog post that I will have this year but I think that it is beneficial for people to know that we are working well together in all aspects.

June Retreat

This Thursday the DSU executive, full time staff, and a few councilors will be coming together to talk about what time it is in the DSU. This is a new retreat that is part of the strategic cycle. The cycle consists of other events such as our Imagine events during the year and the Candidates Cafe prior to election week.

This retreat has been expanded to invite all councilors and Board of Operations members, unfortunately only a few councilors can attend. However, we feel that whoever comes to the event will be the right people and whatever happens is all that can happen.

The retreat uses world cafe and open space technology.

I am highly anticipating the event and am sure that it will produce great insight into where we are now, where we can go this year and years in the future, and specific projects and goals as well.

I will of course be blogging about what is to come from this event.

DSU Speakers Series

The DSU is preparing to launch the Speaker Series again this year.

Last year we launched our Speaker Series when Sue Johanson came to Dalhousie for Fall Fest (October 19th). It continued throughout the year with the assistance of societies and students that partnered with us to provide these events.

The executive met today and have decided to continue the Speaker Series this year. Mark Coffin, Vice President (Education) will be the lead for the events, with the help of all of the executive to ensure that they are a success.

We will be in touch with societies soon to try to collaborate on possible events throughout the year.
The events will range in speakers and in size, from 800 people in the McInnes Room to 50 people at the TRoom. The events are going to be designed over the year to reach as many students as we can.

If you have any possible speaker ideas we would love to hear from you!
Please contact:

Mark Coffin
Vice President (Education)
902.494.1275
dsuvped@dal.ca

Wall of Nostalgia

The Wall of Nostalgia was put on the second floor of the SUB at the 145th anniversary of the DSU. The wall was designed for nostalgia to be placed for students to view and to feel pride in both their student union and their university.
Over the past few years the wall has primarily been used only when a student group may need an area to make a display (usually for a week when they have an event that will be taking place in the McInnes Room). This year we have decided to use the wall throughout the year to highlight the DSU and the SUB over the past 40 years (it is the 40th anniversary of the SUB this year).
This week I will be putting in our first installation of nostalgia. Once it is done I will take pictures and hopefully learn how to place them on my blog (I've fairly new to this whole blogging thing).

Summer Council in Session

Today was the second Council meeting for the summer months (during the summer term Council is scheduled to only meet once a month, compared to twice a month during the fall and winter terms).

The agenda was packed with appointments to council, minutes from previous meetings (nine sets all together!!!), appointments to committees, new business, and notices of motion - for the full agenda and materials for the meeting please visit:

http://www.dsu.ca/aboutus/council-1/council-information-1

For all of this year's council meetings we will be posting the necessary materials on the DSU website to allow for more students be access the information.

Some points of interest from the Council meeting tonight:

• Board of Operations will be reviewing the Recruitment Committee over the summer and completing a report for the last meeting of the summer term (August)
• The Capital Expenditure budget was allocated $25,000.00 in additional funding to allow for more projects to be completed (some of the projects are: wireless internet for the McInnes Room, booth for the Grawood, and a ticket system for the Information Desk)
• Council passed a motion concerning Aboriginal Students
• The Ad hoc Referendum Review Committee had a chair appointed (still positions of the committee to fill!)

The next council meeting will be taking place on July 8th at 6:30pm in DSU Council Chambers - we would love to see you there!

Contact Information

Email - DSUPRES@DAL.CA
Phone - 902.494.1277
Fax - 902.494-6647

A New Era Begins

Welcome to my blog!

This is my place to come and write everything that is going on with the DSU through my eyes.

The purpose of this is for students and the community to get a more inside view of what really happens at the DSU day-to-day. My portfolio is very diverse, from Board of Governors committees to giving speeches at convocations, to assisting in hiring staff. So ideally you will get a glimpse into all aspects of the DSU. The Vice Presidents will each have blogs as well and will be posting regularly on theirs as well.

Make sure to keep checking back for updates - I will do my best to post as often as I can and to answer any questions.

It's going to be a great year - get involved - and make your university experience everything it can be.

All the best,

Courtney Larkin
President
Dalhousie Student Union