It has been awhile since my last blog - I have been in California on vacation.
The June retreat that I blogged about earlier was a great experience - we all benefited from attending. Below are a list of priorities, goals, and projects that the executive and full time staff at the DSU have created for the coming year. It should be pointed out that these are items that would most likely not have occurred without this event simply because we need the opportunities to come together and talk about issues that are more than what is "day-to-day" work and our job descriptions. These sessions allow for us to progress as a student union and work towards better serving our students and stakeholders.
Priorities for 2008-09
Level 1
- Engaging Dalhousie stakeholders
o Conversation points:
§ Engaging students
§ What do we want Imagine to do?
§ Take a stand for connectivity/student engagement
§ How do we acquire and sustain hosting expertise?
§ Identities and cultures of stakeholders
§ How do we recognize the diversity of the DSU in its short and long term operations?
§ What does the building need? (services)
§ Student engagement campaign
§ Survey for DSU services, current and prospective
§ Speakers corner at information desk, video booth
- Following through on our promises/being responsive
o Conversation points:
§ How to build responsiveness to stakeholders needs
§ Keeping promises/following through
§ Having the capacity to follow through
§ Collective responsibility
§ Enable people to take change on: active role in achieving their objectives
§ Make people aware of progress or otherwise on issues they have brought forward
§ Accountability – project portal
Level 2
- Seeing the BIG picture
o Conversation points:
§ Ensuring all elements/branches of the DSU understand and are committed to its purpose
§ Shared purpose?
§ Recognize and acknowledge what is working
- How we work together (building relationships)
o Conversation points:
§ Building respect at work
§ Principles in relation to organization
§ Make our principles alive
- Becoming an organization that learns
o Conversation points:
§ How do we gather our learning?
§ How do we capture our learning/institutional memory?
§ Knowing what works vs. what doesn’t
§ How do we ensure that our solution is sustainable over many years and allows for change in itself
§ Reflection time – pros, cons, what success looks like
Level 3
- Connecting the pieces
o Conversation points:
§ Understanding the role of each piece and connecting/communicating with each
· i.e. Board of Operations, Council, staff, Executive, part time staff
§ Connectivity between “silos” of roles and departments/pilot projects
§ Connecting bodies within the DSU (Board/council/exec/staff/part time staff)
§ Recognize, act, and sustain connections
§ Clear definitions and function of the Board of Operations
§ Support from DSU for full time staff and their projects
§ Informed front line, 1st impression
§ Ensure exec, staff, council, board, are “on board”
- Fiscal responsibility
o Conversation point:
§ Time for a stronger financial return
Goals/Projects
- reviewing DSU services
o what we may be able to add/enhance
o what may no longer be needed by our students
- fiscal responsibility
o proper allocation for budget
o regular meetings
o tracking mistakes
o board reviewing budget
o cash flow analysis
- portal
o all executive and full time staff can access
o a place for projects (progress, conversations), etc.
- engaging Dalhousie stakeholders
o maintaining a society focus (event at beginning of the year)
o Imagine event(s)
o Increasing voter turnout
o Dalfest 2008
We have created a team of executive and full time staff that will do follow up work associated with our priorities, goals, and projects. We are hoping that this team will be able to provide status reports during the year, retain the information generated, and be able to motivated others to complete the task at hand.
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