For those not in the know, the ominous purple figure represents the University (in a purely metaphorical way of course) whereas the red blob is the Guild existing in abstract form as an entity, ready to defend the students (not shown). The seamine, I believe, was an afterthought. Personally I would have seen to it that Satellite Sites were represented in this metaphor, but:(a) there wasn't enough play-dough.
and (b) given the scale we were working on, some of them would have needed to be constructed in the next room.
On a serious note though, this exercise did enable us to think, in an unconventional way, about our role as officers, and the Guild's role as a student union. I think it would be fair to say that the majority of the student body think of the Guild as Joes, Subway, Spar, and not much else. This is a real shame and will probably be one of our biggest issues as an Executive team over the coming 12 months. Student apathy is one reason for all of us to really give 110% to our roles - if our acts as officers are both positive and noticeable, they can only be beneficial in raising the Guild's profile.
Secondly, one thing that struck me most during training was that the Guild has a whole floor I barely even knew about. The average Guild member will probably know very little about departments such as finance, marketing and R&D. If anything, the most contact they will have with Guild staff will be Student Development - "the coalface" as I've heard it referred to. This is doubly tragic since not only are they all essential to how the Guild operates, but some, such as R&D are a powerful symbol of what the Guild stands for.
If there's one thing I've learned from Exec training, it's that we, as officers, are privaleged to know just how much the Guild as a union is capable of. Now it's our job to take this message to our members.
...even when they're only formed of yellow playdough
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