ISU NORWAY Union Development Officer

Report of activities May 2016 – April 2017

27/04/2017 Oslo (Norway)

May 2016 – September 2016

During the rest of May and June 2016 after the National Assembly my focus was put mainly onto getting used with the field of new responsibilities. I worked also on the project of establishing new branches all across the country. Besides working with current local branches, I was discussing the possibility of increasing the number of local branches and have a more dynamic organization by exploring the places where ISU Norway is currently present. Original research has resulted in considering the following education establishments as potential candidates for the project :

•  Alta University college.

•  Molde University College.

•  Norwegian Academy of Music.

•  Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO).

•  Troens Bevis Bible and Mission Institute.

•  VID Specialized University.

•  Westerdals Oslo School of Arts, Communication and Technology

As a part of this workload I was put into contact with a range of school administrations, international offices, student parliaments. I worked as well on recruitment potential leaders/ members for new ISU branches. Eventually the initiative resulted in the following list: ISU VID, ISU Haugesund, ISU Bø, ISU Alta, ISU NAM projects.

I researched potential of the ISU Resources opportunity which was presented on one of the LM meetings. Within the summer period I started contacting local branches in order to improve communication and establish working relation with the local branches leaders. I worked on improving the recruitment of new international students as well as headhunting for potential board members.

The office of union development office worked to ensure that ISU Local Branches had a successful semester start. I was in contact with the Local Branches to find out what form of assistance they might need for the start of the academic year. There have been arranged a number of activities in order to facilitate meetings between new international students, as well as conducting their respective general assemblies to elect new local board members.

Workload was also put on working to facilitate the start of the semester for the local branches and ensure legitimacy of the coming elections for the local boards. I have also attended several meetings and elections at ISU UiO, ISU HiOA, ISU Telemark.

Eventually the possibility of establishing ISU Haugesund and ISU Bø has gone through with the EB and NB approval. It has resulted in presenting the cases of the abovementioned new local branches and voting them in at the LM2. Generally it has been concluded that the above candidates were about to ensure continuity in the future. I worked on writing reports with analysis, comparison and guidelines about the candidates of the new local branch project.

I was also assisting the work of ISU with political cases when it comes to communication with the local branches. Being a part of the EB I worked on creating an effective communication structure to receive cases and statuses from the local branches. I was also working on an update of ISU Norway resources to help local branches access to information related to ISU Norway.

In the ISU Kick Off weekend was emphasized the importance to communicate with ISU Norway Political Affairs Officer, about issues matters to international students such as housing, work and others.

Both the transition weekend and the first National Board meeting has provided me with a proper briefing in order to establish a smooth and effective cooperation with another national board positions. I have been constantly running communication sessions with the local branches of ISU including the board members and other local international students.

I have also finalized gathering the local status update forms and did some work on the summary report.

Closer to the Christmas vacation the area of my assignments was aimed into continuing of setting up meetings with the Oslo area local branches leaders and discussing issues of cooperation; updating and development LinkedIn ISU page and professional group; continued updating ISU LB database and upgrading it with some advanced tools. In terms of development integration of international students with the Norwegian society I did conversations with Jan Godfrey. The main purpose was targeting start up for the proposal concerning LO club establishing.

In terms of the virtual union development I have been involved into phone conversations with Isaac regarding the matter of not working local branch email addresses. I was given by some recommendations and suggestions how to support ISU students in case of technical problem with mail delivering. It has been a big step into the ISU Oslo regional cooperation group development to have a meeting with Abe, presidents of ISU HiOA and ISU MF to discuss a status update and talk about an Oslo regional cooperation. It went quite positively apart from a fact that the branches are not sufficient motivated and active in terms of prospective development.

I have created a LinkedIn organisational profile and established ISU network within this platform. I am continuously looking for the ways of its development. I have started promoting, increasing the attendance rate of the ISU LinkedIn group.

This period enabled to create and test fully functional ISU members database which will definitely contribute significantly into the continuity and future development of ISU.

In terms of preparation for the Leadership Meeting in Stavanger I did research of the potential hotels and their price policies.

I am glad to conclude that the regional cooperation project has been successfully implemented . It resulted into having a joint seminar provided by LNU in terms of the regional cooperation in the Oslo region.

It has to be admitted that the planned local branches visits went successfully and gave me a better insight into the current situation on the local level.

Continuously I was working on contacting the local branches both where the stability and continuity of ISU activities had to be improved and those who possess a sufficient level of implementing their activity plan. I have established contact with a range of potentially new ISU branches where I discovered a capacity, enthusiasm and interest to form a new international student body, - ISU local board.

Among other essentially required facilitations in terms of the Regional Cooperation I have been working on implementing a common sharing systems. It has mainly to do with a range of modern solutions bases on the social medias. e.g.: Facebook, Google groups, forum, branches’ websites, etc. It is based upon the main aim which is that each and every ISU member could check out what is going on in the other branch and use this information for the common benefit.

Other that I worked on the issues concerning MF and HiOA related to lack of demotivation and actions plan.

I have been also regularly participating in and contributing at Executive and National Board meetings.

Thank you all international students in Norway from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity to serve you as the Union Development Officer. This report is just a short summarized overview of the activities and achievements of my position from May 2015 to April 2017.

Report presented by

Alex Sigal

Union Development Officer

E.mail:

Telephone: (+47) 483 44 785