We've just finished our sabb residential and it's raised some questions about the structure of the union, or 'how the union works'. I think that everyone is reasonably clear about how it works in practice, but it's been tough to represent it in images.

We set the new sabb team a task of what they thought the structure of the union was and they had to put all of the committees / groups in order. This is what they came up with:

(don't know how it ended up on its side - they didn't draw it like that!)

Anyway, I think that it's a pretty good stab. They certainly passed the test of getting all of the committees right.

Then Steve T had a go - his looks different, but is divided into three sections:

Green = Democracy

Blue = Governance

Red = Management

Again, this example seems to fit the bill. However, after a bit of googling you'll see that it's actually impossible to find two students' unions with vaguely similar ways of visualising their structure. It's very odd, given that all students' union are regulated in the same way and involve similar relationships. Universities don't have this divergence.

Then, after a bit more digging looking through my old work files from CCCU and Kent I found this sort of structure; drawn by me, aged 28:

I've also seen that Warwick have something similar to this on their wiki page. However, I haven't seen one of these in use for years, as the Charities Act changes make this system redundant.

Where do we go from here? Not sure, but I think we all agreed that we need something a bit more digestible. Ideas welcome!

Other news from the sabb residential....

Steve T set two 'Topazio's Tasks' for the new team to work on each night. They were both designed as in-tray exercises that would help the team for future scenarios. Great imagination and well presented - a pic of the outcomes of day 1 below!

(is it just me or are the colours shown through my phone camera really good??)

I also have a nice video of the team during training, but I need some tech help to get that up!