Woah, can you believe we are getting to the end of the first term already!? 

As part of our commitment to make our work transparent and accessible, we want to share with you all of the things we have been up to this term...

Reps

Massive thank you to all of our reps for your amazing work this term. We had a great turnout to our initiative of E&D Reps, and together, we have taken part in Campus Assemblies, School Assemblies, College Wide Assemblies, and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion assemblies. 

We take minutes and action points for students and staff after each of these meetings, which the Reps were distributing to their cohorts. If you haven’t seen them, just ask your Reps - they know how important it is to be kept updated! 

We worked closely with B&E who attended Campus Assemblies and met with us separately on several occasions, and things are slowly warming up. 

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We gave a presentation to Council - the highest governing body of the college - on this very topic. We don’t want to make tokenistic gestures and want to see real change. 

We are pleased to report that the Senior Management of the RCA has committed to matching our new SU role of an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer with their own position within the College so there will be a staff member both in the SU and the college working together on this from next year. The SU E&I Officer is expected to start in the beginning of the Spring Term, and we expect the College’s recruitment to follow shortly after. 

In the Working Group Changing the Culture - named after a 2016 report focusing on how to improve sexual safety on Campus - we have been working with College staff to draft new Policy which explicitly acknowledges sexual violence as a form of misconduct, and offers appropriate support for those affected by it. In January, the College will launch an online Anonymous Reporting tool, which in the future will also be suitable to report incidents of discrimination. 

In our own SU Spaces, we have been clear about our zero tolerance policy on discirmination and harassment, and by the end of this term, our lovely Bar Staff will all be Good Night Out trained, meaning they will be best equipped to facilitate a safe environment in the ArtBar. 

SU spaces

SU Cafe *groan*

We have all been sad to see how long the cafe has been shut (due to the college sorting all the contracts for the space.) We are pushing to have some food services running at the start of next term. Fingers and toes crossed. In the meantime please feel free to continue using the space. 

Art bar 

Our lovely artbar based in Kensington is open on weekdays 5:30-11:30pm - please come and join us for a drink :) 

Pop-up bars 

We want to spread the love to White City and Battersea with pop up bars on both of these campuses. Getting this sorted is a slow process but we are working on it! 

Events

This term we have hosted: 

Welcome week events 

We really enjoyed putting on Welcome Week events for all of you and getting to know you at the fabulous Society events, Campus Tours, Global Climate Strike, Drinks at the Draft House, Film Screening and our big Welcome Week Party in the ArtBar! Thank you for joining us.   

Black History Month 

We organised RCA’s first ever Black History Month, with a Library Display, The Stuart Hall Project film screening, ‘Just Because We’re Not Magic Doesn’t Mean We’re Not Real’ Panel Talk, and the Intersection-Reconnection Exhibition at White City, followed by a night of Afro Beats in the Art Bar. We really look forward to working more closely with the College on the Month next year! 

Alcohol Awareness

We all have to be aware of alcohol consumption as an integral part of our mental and physical health. Thank you to Student Support for working with us to organise Alcohol Awareness Week - your drunk portraits were fabulous! 
 

Halloween and Xmas Party 

We celebrated Halloween and the Holiday Season together under the ArtBar’s mood lighting, and we had a lot of fun - we hope you did too. 

SU Roundtable Series: Creative Practice and Migration 

As part of our Roundtable Series in which we identify what discussion is currently missing in the RCA curriculum despite being urgently needed, we hosted a Panel Talk about the reality of migration and being a creative worker. The recording will be made available on our website by the end of term. 

Cross Cultural Lunch 

We teamed up with EAP to host a cross cultural lunch where we shared food, drawings and stories of all the different places we are from. 

Christmas Fête 

It’s such a pleasure to host the Christmas fête which features the fantastic work of RCA artists and designers. It always gets a great turn out from the general public, and we love picking up beautifully handcrafted stocking fillers, and sharing in some seasonal cheer!  

New website

We have launched a beautiful new website https://rcasu.org.uk where you can check out all of our events, societies and info. We are working on getting the forum up and running and eventually a shop where we can sell our work - so keep an eye out for it! 

College committees 

We sit on many different committees across the college and support them with working on; sorting building and estates issues, a sustainability strategy, improving mental health, cross cultural dialogue, a student charter, health and safety, organising the shows, supporting staff unions - just to name a few! 

Like what you’ve read? Wish we were spending more time working on something else? We are here for you - so let us know what you want to see us doing :) Come speak to us in person or get in touch with us at students-union@rca.ac.uk