We hope you've been keeping up with all the fun stuff we've been up to this month—from Sheridan Pride celebrations to staff training and development opportunities, there's a lot of exciting stuff happening at SSU. In case you missed it, here’s a sneak peek: We celebrated Pride with on- and off-campus events, hosted a BUSU (Brock University Student Union) visit to our HMC Campus, and travelled to Vancouver to attend the annual COCA conference!
Sheridan Student Union is proud to share company-wide wins over the last month and recognize the talented and hardworking student leaders who make the SSU team all that it is. Take a look at June 2023 recap and find out what the Sheridan Student Union has been up to this month.
Departments Wins/News
Exec Team
Kyle Budge, your SSU President, along with Hanh from finance and Sawssan from HR, attended the AMICCUS Conference in British Columbia, a 4-day Student Union Managers Conference focusing on sexual violence prevention and general advocacy work
Catarina Pham, Leia Ali, and Sarah Stone, your SSU Vice Presidents, are the 3 new members appointed by the Joint Health and Safety Committee (JHSC)
The team organized their first meeting with BUSU (Brock University Student Union) to exchange information about our respective Unions and Piya, your Governance Coordinator, provided a tour of the College buildings at HMC.
Sarah established her first committee, namely Advocacy Committee, and has commenced the recruitment process. Sarah also held her first Pride Coffee Talk and also gave a speech during the Pride Flag raising.
Sarah and Cameron Spencer, your VP of Community, participated in the Pride Flag raising ceremony on June 3rd, alongside the Mayor of Mississauga. The Exec actively participated in the Halton Pride and Toronto Pride events in June.
The Exec team on behalf of SSU attended Convocation Ceremony 2023 to support the graduating students.
Ritz, your VP of Engagement, attended their first COCA 2023 Conference in Vancouver, which is an event, programming, and community-based conference for specific SU staff and student leaders.
All 7 members of the Exec team completed a First Aid and CPR Training course, acquiring certification.
Services Department
We received a new batch of 164 lbs of clothes for students to take from for our Dressed for Success Program now available at the Davis campus!
Clubs Department
This month we welcomed three brand new clubs - one active club, the Sikh Students Association, and two new prospective clubs: ASL Sheridan and the Computer Programming Club.
Throughout June, our SSU clubs hosted 14 events such as regular pop-up sessions each week from our Enactus Club to celebrating Pride month through pride coffee talks and game nights hosted by our Pride club to an event about sharing queer stories hosted by our Writers Village club.
Our Clubs Coordinator team is also hard at work planning out our first Summer Clubs Fair.
Events Team
This June, some of our student leaders got to attend the annual COCA conference, along with several college and university Student Unions from across the country. 2023’s conference was held in Vancouver, BC, and was a great opportunity for our student staff to connect with student leaders in other organizations. They got to compare notes, learn from their peers, and participate in expert workshops. They also got to witness some great up-and-coming talent each night, and explore all that the city of Vancouver had to offer. We are looking forward to taking another set of student executives to next year’s conference in Windsor, ON!
Even with the conference in Vancouver, we still managed to have 4 events over the course of this month.
June is Pride Month and we started the month strong with our Pride Kick-off Carnival at HMC! Community support groups joined us along with outdoor games and activities, including mini golf, caricature drawings, tie dye, slushies, and more! The turnout was great, about 50 folks joined us, and the people and vendors alike are looking forward to doing it again in the future, multiplying our turnout!
We also began our summer series of off-campus events with a trip to Canada’s Wonderland! Over 90 students joined us for this event and had a great time. We are looking forward to the rest of the events in the series!
Marketing Team
The Digital Community Coordinators created some recap content for the “What Does Pride Mean to You” video shoot & Canada's Wonderland!
They also created a few different Streeter-style videos and got a bunch of student participation.
Our team is actively working on more collaborations with other departments to help increase events promotions.
Food Team
This month, every day we choose a new feature at the Station Kitchen for our daily special. Here are some of the top favourite items: Aloo Tikki Burger, Cheese balls, & Chilli Barbeque Fries.
Board Update
“We are delighted to announce that the SSU Board of Directors has granted approval for the new Health & Dental Plan, which includes expanding our Empower Me Plus program and adding gender-affirming care, which will be implemented in September 2023. This plan is specifically designed to cater to the supplemental healthcare needs of domestic students.
This month, we focused on acquainting ourselves with the responsibilities associated with our roles as the Board of Directors. We successfully appointed new members to the Ancillary Committee, International Health Committee, and Finance Committee. In our discussions, we delved into matters concerning the Health & Dental plan that is currently provided to domestic students. Furthermore, we explored the potential inclusion of international students within the plan, examining the feasibility and implications of such an expansion.
As a result of those discussions, the SSU Board of Directors has created an International Health Committee and successfully appointed Harjot Sidhu, Vidhya Ganapathy Subramanian, Siddhi Gandhi, Sara Haider, Rajdeepkaur Jat, and Ademidun Abimbola as the new members. The committee’s primary objective is to conduct research on the preferences of international students regarding participation in the supplemental health plan. Through this committee, the Board hopes to identify the types of services Sheridan students need and determine their willingness to pay for such services.
Next month our goal is to engage with students, gather their feedback regarding the services we offer, and collaborate on finding effective solutions to meet their needs. Additionally, we aim to explore new ideas and suggestions from students that can be implemented in the near future, enhancing our services and further catering to their requirements.”
Staff Shoutouts & Wins:
🗣️ Shoutout to two of our Clubs Coordinators, Erin and Will: “For the work and time they put in attending the COCA SLS conference earlier this month. They worked hard networking with other schools across Canada throughout the week of the conference and placed together many ideas and notes to bring back to help expand and enhance the resources that we are able to offer our clubs here at Sheridan.” - Chloe Naftel to her team of Clubs Coordinators
🗣️ Shoutout to our new DCC's Miranda and Valentina - “They both worked so hard this month and we’re happy to have them on our team!” - Lexx Senior, Manager, Social Media & Community Engagement
🗣️Shoutout to Muskaan: “This month we want to recognize and give special thanks to our (only) returning Student Life Lead, Muskaan, for holding down the fort and doing some major planning for a big upcoming event. She is an integral part of our team, keeping us grounded in reality, and we would be lost without her!” - Kim Moreira, Events and Programming Manager
🗣️ Shoutout to Joy, our HMC Kitchen Supervisor: “She has a good attitude and gets along well with staff. She is learning her new role very quickly and already making a great contribution to the Kitchen Team.” - Melissa Mohan, HMC Food and Beverage Manager
Thank you to all our Staff and Student Leaders for their hard work, laughs, and contributions every day. The first month of our Spring/Summer term was filled with community wins and personal growth. We can’t wait to see what exciting new activities we get up to next month!
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