SFS member coordinator Leo Jonason sums up an eventful member meeting in Uppsala.
What joy we felt when we stood in Uppsala and knew that we would finally get to meet the members at this year's first membership meeting. More than 40 participants per day from a total of 27 member corps gathered to discuss SFS present and future. At the top of the agenda were bills to the SFS council, how we improve student representation and the doctoral student committee's work to change migration legislation.
First of all, a microphone was thrown around the hall, so that all participants could introduce themselves. Then we were thrown into the art of writing motions for SFSFUM led by Anna Larsson from the board. A basic course in cat jokes was also offered, which is an important part of SFS's meeting culture.
Three cat jokes from the members' meeting:
- Cat ate SFS, became united
- Cat ate eraser, disappeared
- Cat ate broken calculator, got speech error
The bill that gave rise to the most lively discussions was Proposition 1, on SFS's business plan and political focus issue. The discussions revolved in part around students' well-being, and how the social aspects of student life have suffered during the pandemic. Another issue that many had opinions about was student housing, including where new housing is built, as new housing is often built further from the universities. The housing allowance was also discussed.
SFS's doctoral student committee chairman Pil Saugmann spoke about their work on migration legislation, which since changes last summer prevents doctoral students from non-EU countries from staying after graduation. Pil explained how they thought about being long-term in their work and keeping the issue alive for a long time by having continuous debate articles during the spring.
The host union Uppsala Student Union's chairman Jacob Färnert held a session on student representation where he shared how they work to fill their advertised places. The members discussed different strategies for lowering the thresholds, spreading the tasks over more people and getting a sustainable commitment so that not a few take on everything. A major problem that several people talked about was the poor foresight from higher education institutions when new student representatives need to be nominated for assignments, where there is no time to announce in a good way.
We thank the Uppsala Student Union for the great hospitality and for letting us see several campuses and test what it can be like to go to a classic nation. We also had the privilege of ending the days by entering the old auditorium and taking some very lovely group photos and soaking up the historic environment that Uppsala University is.
Please,
Leo Jonason, Member Coordinator