[committee] Discussion of club direction in 2012

[Ash Tyndall]

Some have requested that I include the previously attached document in
plaintext. Here it is:

UCC Direction 2012
A collection of opinions by Ash Tyndall, written in December 2011

Moving beyond the Clubroom
--------------------------
While the clubroom is certainly the heart and soul of the club, the club would
do well to investigate further what areas around campus it can begin to start
participating in.

Getting more involved in Guild run events, participating in charity activities
such as Relay 4 Life and inter-club events like Prosh Olympics would both work
to raise the club's profile, and provide opportunities for club members to
interact in further social settings.

Regular Events
--------------
Member retention is a huge issue for most clubs; while O-Day usually has a huge
fresher sign-up, there is a large drop-off in club participation the next
couple of weeks hence.

One way in which this problem can be mitigated to a degree, is to ensure events
are run frequently and — more importantly — at regularly intervals. If you
can get a new member to incorporate club events into their normal routine,
you've earned yourself a valuable regular participant.

Shared Responsibility
---------------------
A pervasive problem in the current committee is the current mindset of people
"owning" events, and the attitude that "you suggested it, you do it."
While this attitude does help stop criticism without useful alternative
suggestions, it also quickly burns out any member who becomes assigned to a
frequently occurring event.

This attitude, as it stands, would make it nearly impossible to move to a
regular event schedule as discussed above.

An obvious solution is to encourage the rejection of this attitude within the
committee and instead foster the understanding that with the amount of people
the committee has, if everyone shares the workload of organising and running
events, no one committee member will be left with a "burn out level"
workload.

Advertising to the wider student population
-------------------------------------------
The club currently only extends strong welcomes to non-members on O-Day in
semester 1 and Club Carnival in semester 2. After these times have elapsed, the
club becomes almost a closed society.

We have very little advertising or promotion outside of our own circles and for
a student who did not attend O-Day or Club Carnival, it would be 1) unlikely
for them to know of our existence and 2) unlikely that they would take the
initiative to join a club that does not project a particularly welcoming
exterior.

The club should strive with future events to make sure that they are
appropriately advertised to the wider UWA community. This strategy would
hopefully generate a small but steady influx of members all year round, and
would continue to increase the club's profile in the wider community.

Targeting the faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics with poster
material related to events, as well as utilising the Guild's rotunda
advertising system, could serve to draw many people who would otherwise not
know about our events.

Furthermore, the committee should be encouraged to consider that somewhat
subsidising non-members at an event (through their share of free pizza for
example) can be advantageous to the club in the long run, as it can serve to
"bribe" people into joining the club.

LANs
----
In line with the suggestion for more regular events, LANs should become a more
regular occurrence in the Cameron Hall loft and possibly at larger venues.
There is generally a small but constant demand for more LANing opportunities,
and the club should endeavour to fill this demand on a regular basis.

Running monthly LANs at a similar time, place and interval (exams and other
events permitting) could be an easy way to encourage new memberships and
current member participation.

Monday Night at the Movies
--------------------------
Yes, the event that just won't die permanently! One of the primary problems
with the event was that while the screening was going on, other activity was
continuing in the clubroom. This served as a constant distraction. Coupled with
the fact the furniture was always arranged so awkwardly in relation to the
screen, this served to severely detract from the experience.

A solution to this problem would be to close the clubroom to non-movie watchers
during this time and rearrange the furniture to be more suitable to a movie
watching experience. This, coupled with the committee sharing the
responsibility of hosting the event, would lead to a lasting event.

UCC Talks
---------
UCC Camp demonstrated that within the club's membership, there are engaging
speakers who can speak on intriguing areas of computer science and there are
plenty of people willing to listen to them.

Furthermore, the club's profile as a large body of potential employees could
easily lead to the club recruiting speakers and representatives from a variety
of computing organisations to speak about their technological innovations and
experience in the industry.

Bring the Talks back as a monthly or bi-monthly event would serve to draw
potential new members to the club, and would educate current members on some of
the rapidly developing areas of the computer science industry.

Technological Investment
------------------------
In years past, the club used its funds to provide club members access to
technologies and resources that they would otherwise be unable to utilise. In
the late 70s and early 80s, given the newly developing technologies of the
time, this was of course the computer.

In today's world, computers are ubiquitous and — for the most part —
inexpensive. So while the club does still provide a valuable service to its
members, the value of this service has unfortunately diminished.

To remain relevant in a constantly advancing technological landscape, the club
needs to begin looking to the future and start using portions of the club's
funds to investing in newly available technologies. In a similar way, the club
should also begin perusing sponsorship by large technology organisations to
decrease the cost of these technologies in exchange for promotion of the
organisation in question.

New Clubroom
------------
It appears that in the near future, perhaps even next year, the club will be
migrating to a different clubroom on the Guild Administrator floor of the Guild
building. This will be one of the most important events to happen to the club
in the last 20 years, so it's important that it is handled correctly.

The club needs to ensure we are allocated adequate space to ensure the club
continues to have room for now and for the future. Funding for the necessary
renovations to the room will need to be pursued from a variety of sources,
including a large contribution from the club's current fund pool to ensure
that the job is done right.

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Ash Tyndall <atyndall at ucc.asn.au> wrote:
>Seeing as we're going to be discussing the club's budget in the meeting
>tonight, it seems only sensible that we should also start discussing the
>directions we would like to see the club head towards in 2012.
>
>While of course this committee's decisions will not be at all binding on the
>2012 committee's decisions, I'm sure it can't hurt giving them a solid base of
>opinion to build upon as the year progresses.
>
>To get the discussion started, I've attached a document containing my
>personal opinions on the club's direction. I've also added discussion of the
>club's direction to tonight's agenda.

--
Ash Tyndall [ASH]
2011 Fresher Rep