[committee] Discussion of club direction in 2012

[Bob Adamson]

On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Ash Tyndall wrote:

> 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.

Hostile takeover of Information Services - who's keen? ;)
 
> 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.

A prosh theme/stunt/crew for UCC would be a good and fun start to that. I 
think most of these things haven't been done in the past due to numbers - 
something that we seem to have been improving upon in the last couple of 
years.

> 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.

This happens in every club since it's almost impossible to participate in 
every club you sign up to on O'Day. The best way to combat it is to ensure 
that people who sign up on O'Day are shown to the clubroom and are given a 
good induction so they feel welcome and included.

> 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.

As someone who tried reviving the movie nights in 2011, I strongly concur.

> 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.

I'm surprised to hear you say that as someone who signed up based on a
poster in the guild courtyard. We also got 19 new members signing up over 
the year and most of the time during semester we can't physically fit more 
people into the clubroom - do we really need to advertise more?
 
> 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.

You can get an awful lot already by not being a member - people need to 
realise that they get some value out of being a member otherwise people 
will stop bothering paying the money to join.

> 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.

Agreed.
 
> 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.

Yes, I think wheel also supports this based on discussion at the last 
wheel meeting.

> 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.

Committee (in particular Matt Didcoe and I) have been working on this for 
nearly two years now. I think that we've done everything we can to push 
for a larger space. As for grants, we can't really start chasing them 
until we're 100% sure of the move.
 
> 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
> 

Andrew Adamson
UCC President
bob at ucc.asn.au

|"The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live."     |
| ---Peter's Laws                                                        |