As the largest professional staff conference in the UK students’ union sector, the Membership Services Conference continues to be key in encouraging sector support and dialogue. It is practitioner based and covers the disciplines of student advice services, charitable and democratic governance, student development and leadership, course representation, advocacy, campaigns, and legal updates concerning student rights and opportunities.
Counterculture Partner, Alan Roberts, started the conference nine years ago along with the Union at Manchester Metropolitan University and Manchester Students’ Union. Alan continues to organise it today and has been able to tune in to the range of experience and roles in the sector, as well as ensure that the Conference provides the right combination of ideas and problem-solving to fuel the students’ union sector for each year.
The Conference has always had three core objectives:
- to bring together staff and stakeholders in the sector to create dialogue and activity which will benefit current and future students.
- to support staff members who are new to their roles and, in particular, the sector.
- to enable cost-effective staff and union development through both attending and presenting at the event.
Most of the conference is delivered peer-to-peer. A light-touch session development support gives quality assurance and ensures that presenters and delegates can get the best out of their session. Programme curation is the largest piece of work in producing this conference, asides maybe from catering the event!
Our objectives mean that a key KPI is the number of first-time presenters. We aim for a third of all sessions to include first time presenters. We are proud of this, and new presenters regularly excel in their sessions, with conference delegates who are very supportive of all sessions and presenters. This aspect of the programme development, we feel, helps to bring our sector together and results in a greater range of creative collaborations.
Getting the balance right is vital. The programme always contains a mix of the following:
- Evaluated projects or initiatives
- New project showcase
- Problems to share and solve together
- Updates on legal, policy or service developments
- Training against core skills frameworks
- Practice based “speed-dating”
To help maintain the equilibrium between quality and participation of new presenters, we have established tighter guidance around session types, provided briefings for colleagues who want to try out an idea, and on top of this started a weekly podcast in collaboration with our partners, Wonkhe, called How to Run a Students’ Union: The Membership Services Podcast. The Podcast takes three case studies per week in a short interview format (lasting no longer than ten minutes per case study) and gives a chance for the programme team to pull in sessions, broadens access to the talent in the sector and is fun and challenging for a wider range of practitioners.
These staff members are the future leaders within this sector and beyond, and we are constantly on the look out for new ideas and collaborations to drive not only the service offered to students, but the quality of service and stewardship in the youth, leisure, and wider charity sectors.