Hi, I'm Erin, I'm currently in my second year. I want to become the treasurer of the anime and manga society. I'm personally very responsible and I'm interested in finance and budgeting so I think I would be great for this role. In this role I want to improve society so that people in society know about how much we're spending, what we're spending on and that we are transparent with our money. And that we're doing the most possible to keep society costs down so we can spend the bulk of our money on things the whole society will enjoy.
Over the course of my term as treasurer of the Anime and Manga Society I want to achieve five main goals:
Firstly, I want to ensure that we are using promo codes for students and comparison shopping when buying equipment for society events. This is because our society allowance is quite small, and by ensuring we're getting the best possible price it frees up costs and allows us to spend money on other things the society needs, or fun activities.
Secondly, l want to ensure we are doing a lot of fun activities that don't involve spending a lot of money. Doing this will be great because it gets us thinking outside of the box in terms of activity ideas as well as saving on costs allowing us to be more flexible in our budgeting. An example of one of my ideas is to get scissors and cardboard from the university. Then buy glue and sellotape to create cardboard cosplay as a fun evening activity.
I also think this would be great because it creates more contact between BSU, the Anime Society as well as the university. To show how BSU as well as the university want to support the student's activities.
Thirdly, I want to ensure that we have funding in the late half of the year to do more outings as a society. For instance doing more expensive activities like booking out karaoke bars, doing day trips and getting student transport to anime and manga conventions. I think these experiences are particularly enriching and will be a really fun treat for the people who come to the society often.
Fourthly, I want to make the process of spending society's money more democratic. We will have a society leader this year but I also think we should be actively talking to the society members about what our budget looks like for the year, as well as their ideas on how we should be spending that money, to get the maximum use out of it as a society. I hope this will inspire people to think more about budgeting and what it looks like to spend money as an organisation.
Finally, I want to ensure that there's somebody everyone knows society to go to if they need help finding Brighton University's financial support team. This is particularly important right now because of the cost of living crisis and because of the expenses of housing in Brightion. Currently, I know multiple students on a full-time course working up to 25 hours a week at their part-time job, because they can't afford bills. Having somebody in society who can point them towards budgeting resources will hopefully help students understand what they need to do or talk to to help themselves.
I think all of the five things I want to implement are all important to the running of a society, and finances. I also hope that by implementing these small changes, people within society feel more comfortable about how we're spending society finances. as well as feeling more comfortable in society in general.
TLDR:
Erin O'Connell wants to become treasurer and achieve five big things in the position:
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Ensure that we use student discount codes when buying paints or crafts.
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Cut costs by creating fun society events that don't cost a lot of money to do.
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Making sure that we have funds, for use to do trips for anime society members.
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Ensuring we are deciding what we want to do with our money as a society more democratically.
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I want to make sure people have someone they know and trust who can point them to financial resources at the university.