How the Warden's time is used - February update

I can only say that my previous post did not have the desired effect, and an updated view of how I have been spending my time this term so far looks like this:

This is not what I enjoy about my role as Warden. Residents this year have not seen me working with them at social events and community building because all my time has been tied up with disciplinary issues. I am sorry this has been the case and once again, would like to ask everyone to help me. The Hall community as a whole this year could be getting much better value for money out of the service I can provide!

• Help me rebuild a positive Hall community. 

• Contribute to our events.

• Help us work out what activities you want organised in Hall, and work with us to organise them.

• Talk to your neighbours. Find out if there is anything you can do to make their time in Hall better. Have you been doing anything that annoyed them all last term? Tell them if you need their help with anything.

• Use our Hall bar. It's a valuable social space, but it won't survive without your custom and support. Don't drink your own alcohol in the bar, Bell room, or garden.

• Only smoke in the designated smoking area (in the garden), or on the pavement outside, well away from the main entrance.

• Keep quiet after 11pm.

• Don't go out onto balconies on the first floor.

• Be respectful of everyone around you. Remember our positive diversity message:

This is a safe space for everyone. Please join us in respecting and celebrating all our residents, staff, and guests, of every age, race, religion, sexuality, nationality, disability, and gender identity.

Finally, let me draw your attention to our goals & values statement. Help us work with you to deliver these for you.

We aim to provide a secure, supportive, and friendly environment in which our residents can study and socialise.

We hope that all our residents will call Connaught Hall “home”, and take many positive memories and good friends with them when they leave.

By encouraging our residents to participate in and contribute to the Hall community, we hope that they will learn to be self-directed and self-disciplined in their behaviour.
We aim to promote a spirit of neighbourliness and togetherness in our Hall community: an attitude that we can all take with us when we move on to other, wider neighbourhoods and communities. 

The needs of our residents, within the necessary limitations of good order, finance, and safety, take priority over other considerations at all times. 

We endeavour to help residents wherever we can. If we can reasonably say “yes” within the rules, we will not say “no”. 

We always strive to act fairly, honestly, and transparently. 

We deal with any problems sensitively and confidentially.

We do not tolerate personal harassment, nor discrimination against anyone because of their age, race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.

How the Warden's time is used in Hall - and how to improve your Hall experience in terms 2 & 3

There has been a significant change this year in how my time at Connaught Hall is spent. The graphic below is based on the amount of new correspondence in my email folders about different activities. It compares how much time I have spent on eight different areas of activity in term 1 of 2014-15, compared with the average year.

Discipline (investigation, meetings, disciplinary panels & hearings, appeals, letter writing, and fine administration) and responding to formal complaints have taken up much more of my time this year than is usual.

The amount of time have to spend on the Hall is fixed, so other activities lose out from this increase in complaints and disciplinary work. Some areas of activity are pretty fixed (like recruiting and training senior members, and attending central University meetings) so the two major things that I've had to cut this year are:

• service improvement projects. Facilities Committee, suggestion box, and responding to residents' routine enquiries; and
• Hall community & social life activities (organising & attending events, supporting the Residents' Club Committee).

Ultimately, you, the residents, pay for the service I provide for you in Hall, through your accommodation fees. I should much rather use my time to support you through difficult patches, improve the overall service we provide in Hall, and promote a positive, supportive, social community that everyone can benefit from, than trawl through one disciplinary case after another. I am usually a community leader here in Hall; this year, I feel like a policeman. I don't enjoy that relationship with our residents, and I am sure it is not the best use of your accommodation fees.

If you share my view that it's better for me to spend time on activities that benefit all our residents, rather than issuing fines, responding to complaints, and chairing disciplinary panels, I need your help!

• From the start of the new term in January, work with me and my team of Senior Members. We're here to help you make the most of your time in London and at Connaught Hall. We're not the "bad cops"! (Unless you decide that's what you want us to do with your fees.)

• Help me rebuild a positive Hall community. 

• Contribute to our events.

• Help us work out what activities you want organised in Hall, and work with us to organise them.

• Talk to your neighbours. Find out if there is anything you can do to make their time in Hall better. Have you been doing anything that annoyed them all last term? Tell them if you need their help with anything.

• Use our Hall bar. It's a valuable social space, but it won't survive without your custom and support. Don't drink your own alcohol in the bar, Bell room, or garden.

• Only smoke in the designated smoking area (in the garden), or on the pavement outside, well away from the main entrance.

• Keep quiet after 11pm.

• Don't go out onto balconies on the first floor.

• Be respectful of everyone around you. Remember our positive diversity message:

This is a safe space for everyone. Please join us in respecting and celebrating all our residents, staff, and guests, of every age, race, religion, sexuality, nationality, disability, and gender identity.

Finally, let me draw your attention to our goals & values statement. Help us work with you to deliver these for you.

We aim to provide a secure, supportive, and friendly environment in which our residents can study and socialise.

We hope that all our residents will call Connaught Hall “home”, and take many positive memories and good friends with them when they leave.
By encouraging our residents to participate in and contribute to the Hall community, we hope that they will learn to be self-directed and self-disciplined in their behaviour.

We aim to promote a spirit of neighbourliness and togetherness in our Hall community: an attitude that we can all take with us when we move on to other, wider neighbourhoods and communities. 

The needs of our residents, within the necessary limitations of good order, finance, and safety, take priority over other considerations at all times.
We endeavour to help residents wherever we can. If we can reasonably say “yes” within the rules, we will not say “no”.
We always strive to act fairly, honestly, and transparently.
We deal with any problems sensitively and confidentially.
We do not tolerate personal harassment, nor discrimination against anyone because of their age, race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.

Residents' Club Committee - survey feedback

In last week's survey, you told us that you want Hall events to be publicised better.

At last night's meeting of the Residents' Club Committee, your elected members discussed this and resolved to:

• give more notice of events;
• make announcements at dinner in the days leading up to events; and 
• invest in a printer so they can put up posters more easily instead of relying on Facebook alone for publicity.

Quick survey results

Thank you to everyone who answered our quick survey last week. 76 residents responded - so that's a response rate of 33%.

The results of the satisfaction scales are below.

We will carefully be going through all your written comments over the next week or so. Those of you who requested that we write back to you about your comments should expect to hear from us within 14 days - and probably much sooner.

We will update everyone with the action that we take based on your feedback in this survey.

Remember, you can always write to us with your ideas, suggestions, compliments, and complaints at suggestions@connaught-hall.org.uk.

Or if you want to write to us anonymously, you can text the Warden at 07 907 753 894. Please note this phone is not monitored 24/7, so do not use this number for emergencies. The response time is similar to our target email response time (72 hours). If you need to contact someone in an emergency, call reception and ask for the person on duty.

Defining the Warden's role

The recent University of London consultation on removing all Wardens and Vice-Wardens from the intercollegiate halls of residence (see this thread of posts about the consultation and what happened) prompted me to review the way we describe the Warden's role at Connaught Hall.

It is important that residents understand precisely what the Warden and Senior Members are for and what they do. Correspondence from the Warden's team will now make clear that the Warden's role lies in -

enhancing opportunities for personal, social, academic and cultural development through: welfare and pastoral care; discipline and conflict resolution; community and social life; Residents’ Club and Hall bar; out-of-hours emergencies; and re-admissions.

I would value your feedback on this description: is it too long? does it make sense? does it help clarify the Warden's role? Feel free to comment directly on this blog post or email me.

The Warden's Team: supporting you all the way.

Themed receptions

I am excited about a new idea for helping residents meet one another at Connaught Hall this year.

Throughout the year, I will organise a number of themed receptions for residents with particular interests. The invitation to each reception will be open to all residents; the receptions will not be exclusive in any way: any resident will be welcome to attend, but the intention is that residents interested in the theme of the reception will come and meet other like-minded residents with similar interests.

For example, there might be receptions for residents interested in sport, charitable work, acting, political activities, LGBT, photography, medical students, national or cultural groups, etc... Where possible, I should like to be able to invite relevant external guests.

I am open to suggestions for themes. Please get in touch if you would like to see a themed reception for a particular interest, activity, or group.

Residents' Survey - social events

Responses to Residents' Survey 6: social events

Continuing my series of blog posts to repond to residents' comments in the February 2010 intercollegiate halls residents' survey. A summary of responses to the multiple choice questions on the survey can be seen here: Residents' Survey results. And you can filter this blog so just the survey-related posts show by clicking on "survey" in the list of labels on the right hand side.

There was only very weak agreement with the statement "Social events are varied enough to appeal to everyone", in contrast to all the other questions about social and community life, which all scored very highly at Connaught Hall. Relevant comments included:

More non-alcohol based things, please.

Social side of Connaught is good although a regular weekly event, e.g. quiz night would be good.

A bigger variety of events i.e. museums, events in London, exhibitions, mini festivals, not even paid for but just organised by entertainment would be a good idea.

Too many 'party' events, maybe some variety, like movie nights?

Too many parties. All of them noisy, appealing to a certain segment of people.

The Residents' Club Committee considered these comments at their most recent meeting and plan to organise some more regular, non-alcohol based events in the next few weeks. Subscribe to this blog and look out for posters and minutes of committee meetings on the noticeboards in Hall for details.

Welcome & fitness room

It's been a pleasure to meet some of the first wave of new residents to move in this weekend. I hope you are all starting to settle in and looking forward to lots more arrivals over the next two weeks.

Quite a few people have been asking about the gym / fitness room.

The University has asked us to close the gym on insurance / health & safety grounds: if we kept the gym open and someone hurt themself, our insurers would not pay out, which would cause problems for the injured resident, the hall finances, and all the other residents whose facilities would suffer as a result of the hall having to foot the compensation bill.

I do really think this is a shame but the truth is that the fitness room was only ever used by a small minority of residents and its closure opens up the possibility of us creating a new, exciting social space in the basement that should be more widely used. This is a project that the elected Residents' Club Committee for 2009-10 will enjoy.

Be sure to let us know if you have any ideas for how we could use the old fitness room in future.