Students’ Association Hosts First Ever All-Students Forum

On the evening of Friday 14 November, a panel of Students’ Association Officers, alongside Postgraduate Research President, Postgraduate Taught President, Head of Student Engagement, and Chief Operating Office Chris Clarke, held the first-ever All-Students Forum open to all matriculated students and guests. 

This panel follows the protocols implemented in January 2024’s Change Programme, which includes the Democracy Review. According to the Union website, the Review “focuses mainly on some of the high level processes that are undertaken in the Union and will ultimately change the way we represent you.” 

The meeting was primarily facilitated and moderated by Postgraduate Research President Amy Hopkins to avoid bias, as she was not presenting alongside the Executive Officers. She began by stating that the Forum intended to facilitate healthy conversations while clarifying that unruly behaviour would be grounds for removal. 

A crowd of approximately twenty attended, consisting of matriculated students, guests, and Representation Officers. 

The forum was divided into seven parts according to a release issued on the Union website, including the welcome and introduction, with plans to present on the organisation’s budget and finance information, Draft Laws, a discussion on postgraduate goals and issues, updates from the Executive Officers, student submissions, a survey on Main Bar, and any other business. 

President of Union Affairs Alice Hodges and Clarke presented the Union’s finances, revealing that following the COVID pandemic, the previous financial system was “outdated” and lacked proper oversight, leaving the Students' Association with “less money than we thought we had,” said Clarke. 

Last year’s shortfall, initially forecast at £200,000, ballooned to around £500,000 due to commercial underperformance, a disputed block grant from the University, and “long-term issues” including loss of institutional knowledge, and a “lack of long-term financial planning,” leaving the full scale of the problem “unclear until late August” explained Clarke.

Citing the previous year in which “our expenditure [was] greater than our income,”alongside “a leadership vacuum,” and a “lack of ownership and accountability,” Clarke said these factors had compounded the problem, adding, “We will do the utmost to recoup our losses from last year.”

“If we do nothing, then we will be bankrupt in eighteen months,” said Hodges, “but we’re not going to do nothing.” 

They outlined that for the 2025-26 academic year, the Association has reforecasted the budget, which they will present to the Board in three weeks. They have separated their charity and commercial accounts, hired a new financial manager, commissioned external reviews of its venues and commercial services, imposed a salaried staff recruitment freeze, and are continuing talks with the University over the block grant.

Head of Student Engagement Elise Bateman and President of Student Opportunities Robert ‘RoMo’ Moran presented the next segment on the Student Association’s Draft Laws.

“We only have one law, and we also realised our old laws were obsolete,” said Bateman. 

In February, the Students’ Representative Council passed a motion to dissolve the organisation’s old laws and “start from scratch,” said RoMo. 

He went on to state that every all-students forum will address the question of the Student Association’s laws to allow the possibility of reform and greater student representation. 

The audience was asked to break off into small groups to discuss the proposed laws for ten minutes, deliver feedback to the panel for another ten minutes, and then spend another ten on voting. 

Any and all students with a “conflict of interest” were told to temporarily exit the room to avoid “the possibility of bias,” Hopkins said. 

Many of the Representation Officers in the audience raised a number of questions, such as clarification of who was actually writing the laws and on student representation. 

Bateman currently writes and edits the laws, and said she encourages students' feedback. “The laws are a bit rough, so we think we need wider student input,” she said. 

“We have a whole document of questions,” someone called from the audience. 

The new constitutional law proposals proved highly divisive. A majority of voters recorded “no consensus” — a verdict that equates to full opposition and means the current draft laws will be sent back for substantial revision, expanded, and brought forward for further student consultation at a later date.

The votes were followed by a discussion of postgraduate issues, presented by President of Education Bannister, Postgraduate Taught President Pierluigi Maffi, and Hopkins, who urged the importance of building a stronger community for postgraduate students, with the mention of potentially transforming the Beacon Bar into a postgraduate-only space. 

Each Executive Officer gave a brief presentation on their goals and launched initiatives from the semester. 

The meeting concluded with the address of ‘any other business,’ at which point the Zoom recording was stopped and Executive Team members asked to leave the room before re-entering at the close to adjourn the meeting. 

After the meeting, one Union Officer told The Saint they thought “things are moving in the right direction.”

“We're changing the democratic structures, like this was more involved for students than it has been,” they said. “It's not just Officers sitting hidden in a room, like anybody can come to this if they want to.”

Image Courtesy of The University of St Andrews