2026 Winter Secretary Meeting Minutes

Reviewing T1 & Feedback, Planning T2 Secretary Matters

Agenda (Minutes Next Section)

Note:

• Raven Lucia (RL)

Agenda I: Term 1 Feedback Form Info By Welfare (points by RL)

• On 16/12, a Term 1 Feedback form was circulated via a Discord announcement and email to all members

• Relevant details to each meeting being added to agendas

• Hearing about events: 100% responded Discord & newsletter, ~40% IG, “Other” ~20% (incl. in-person)

• Communication

  • Feedback received

    • Known & convenient event times - 100%
    • Known & convenient locations - ~60%
    • Known event purpose - ~80%
    • Easy to find event details - ~60%
    • Engaged & included by event comms - ~60%
    • Known sober exec - ~80%

  • RL: Some proposed action points

    • RL to fix a couple of bugs in sec-scripts that messes up filling out of event times by start of term
    • Helpful to avoid things like "[DCS] Atrium" - flag if spotted. Already started doing for gaming events - people were getting confused with SU atrium, irrespective of campus links
    • Could be worth slight explainer of how to reach more obscure locations and e.g. emphasise card access not being an issue
    • Improved cohesion between Welfare, Social & Sec - proper expansion of sober exec worked well, but worth having finalised in time to be explicitly mentioned in newsletter to plug gap. Connected, continued plug of Welfare Officers towards start is good.
      • Comments have praised existing efforts to advertise who sober exec are
    • Possibly flag in newsletter (at least W1) to signpost to other places to find out event details - e.g. events website is good
      • Some confusion over event end times - more relevant to publicity

• Know of & are comfortable of Welfare Officers & sober exec

  • ~80% yes, ~20% unsure

• Know of exec roles & who to get in contact with

  • Similar to above, but only a few responses
  • RL undertaking larger overhaul of various info sources for T2 as part of broader transparency efforts

• EGM Feedback

  • Event was longer than expected, but free pizza made up for it
    • RL: Some extenuating circumstances exacerbated this, but it's a valid point - said extenuating circumstances also meant there was a quality slip in the PowerPoint due to tight turnaround, which will be checked more for the AGM
    • RL: Main thing imo is properly capping motion discussion time since this was the largest controllable variable. However, this needs to be paired with making sure people know where the information is accessible, and that they can have further discussions/questions in the hustings channels on the Discord. Minus some slight savings that could have been made with PPT preparation, role speeches have to be relatively constant throughout for the sake of fairness. These things, unfortunately, can take a while, even if we're as efficient as possible - alongside improvements suggested, we can also make this more clear in the comms leading up to the elections, as well as e.g. at the start of the actual event, incl estimates of when people need to arrive for speeches. Best if as many people can engage with the process as possible, but there's always gonna be people who don't want to sit through the whole thing, or aren't available for the whole time - this shouldn't implicitly preclude people from taking part in democracy
  • EGM being day before due date of CS118 CW1 was unhelpful
    • RL: Point taken - will look to be more involved with checking scheduling for the AGM to avoid as many deadlines as reasonably possible & will make sure it's added to my new election guide that'll get signposted to in handovers etc
  • Comment about it being unclear about how jokey/serious to be in speeches
    • RL: This is down to candidate discretion for the most part, as long as e.g. the speech is not offensive, and they shouldn't smear (nor endorse really) another candidate. It's helpful to talk to current exec that hold the counterpart positions, and to talk to members to get a vibe from them - different roles and different cohorts have different priorities and preferences, and we can't dictate what members should have win an election. You may find that people prefer more serious academic candidates, but may prefer some slightly shitposty gaming candidates - underpinned by a persuasion that they are suitable to deliver to the role. If you say something along the lines of "don't vote for me", that has proven unsuccessful for winning a vote in the past

Agenda II: Meeting minutes

• RL:
• RL planning to attend most meetings so can act as fallback if needed
• Action points focus good for accountability etc
  • A@W does “[person] to do/follow-up [task]” in agenda point, with task-list at bottom like:
    • Person 1:
      • → Task 1
      • → Task 2
      • Etc
• 4.4.7.b of constitution mandates release of meeting minutes to members
  • Transparency & accountability is good anyway!
  • Motion suggestion for AGM: adding specific timeline for their release (e.g. within 7 days)
  • RL to focus on dedicated, accessible website space to signpost to - currently buried under news (none since approx 2 years ago). Planned to be done by start of T2
  • Occasionally, some confidential/sensitive bits aren’t always best to make public
    • Still document, split into exec version & public version if needed
    • Preferable to withhold as little as possible
    • RL happy to share opinion wrt specific minutes

Agenda III: Newsletters

• RL:
  • What gaps are there wrt writing them?
    • E.g. limitations/bugs in sec-scripts Jupyter notebook, missing documentation
  • What availability for the various weeks?
    • Check deadlines etc
    • Figuring out fallback plan now better - odd/even weeks didn’t work hugely well
    • Could be better to set lim of e.g. Sunday midday - if newsletter not likely to be done by the end of Sunday, notify other sec/others willing to do it
      • Better than being a last minute scramble
      • Best to have newsletters consistently released on the Sundays - big dependency source for event info - not ideal if they’re released too close to/after some events

Agenda IV: AGM & Handover

• AGM coming up end of T2 - gets done ~ Week 7 - Week 9 (cannot be later than Week 9)
  • Last 2 years have been Week 8
  • RL: Suggest we aim for Week 8 again, avoids most deadlines, and won’t be something that pulls focus away from major events like ball and WASD
  • RL: Further suggest we schedule to be earlier in the day than in the past (and what is currently on draft website), rather than aiming to finish by the point Community Safety start kicking people out of the buildings
• Proof of elections sent to SU requires minutes for general meetings
  • Unclear previously
• RL: Considering putting myself forward in a similar capacity as the EGM, as Returning Officer
  • Preference is not necessarily to run the meeting itself, but to oversee the admin & actual elections side of things
  • SU Reg 9 has been scrapped - going to be updating my election guide and comms generator to reflect new by-laws
  • In theory happy to do AGM minutes
    • However, not convinced expectations of the minutes are clear if someone else were to pick it up - helpful for me to document/signpost?
• RL:
  • Done a fair bit of sec/connected admin stuff this & last exec cycle
  • Could be my last term as exec
  • Would like to know any gaps in documentation e.g. of things I do/contribute to (and more generally - can’t promise but can look into), that would be helpful to have available for handover

Minutes

Attendance

• Josh
• Crystal
• Ray
• Raven

Agenda I: Term 1 Feedback Form Info By Welfare (points by RL)

• Newsletter should be out by Sunday Evening (Ideally)
  • People tend to receive event details through newsletters

Agenda II & III: Meeting Minutes & Newsletters

• Meeting minutes: Crystal - 4th Jan + Socials (6th Jan); Ray - 5th Jan
• Add a summary to do for everything + ping everyone who are involved
• Convert the markdown to pdf if the markdown is too long (markdown to pdf plugin on dcs)
• Meeting minutes to be on the website
  • Welfare to censor meeting minutes (to discuss first in Welfare meeting)
  • Let all the execs review the meeting minutes before uploading them
• Newsletter Allocation
  • Ray - Odd
  • Crystal - Even
  • Note: if a secretary can't do it, must inform by Friday on Secretary Zone
• Frep Newsletter
  • Require more organisation at the end
  • Ideally arrange this during a non-sponsor talk week
  • Week 4 to arrange the 2nd Frep Newsletter

Agenda IV: AGM & Handover

• Attempt to speed up the AGM + include an itinerary for clarity
• Role Description:
  • Organise a panel event 1-2 weeks before to explain the roles
  • Make sure the instagram posts are detailed enough to explain each role

To Do Tasks:

• Ray - Meeting minutes for 5th
• Crystal - Meeting mintes for 4th + Socials