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Volunteering

from 2022 Annual Report by Student Guild

from 2022 Annual Report by Student Guild, page 34

Sport & Health

Volunteer programs multiply the Student Guild's ability to engage and support students through a variety of projects thanks to the generosity of student volunteers. In return, volunteering provides those volunteers with practical and valuable experience and professional skills such as leadership, communication, critical thinking, and responsibility.

Shane Taas Volunteers Coordinator

The year started strongly through recruiting an impressive 53 volunteer students to welcome back several new cohorts of students in Trimester 1 Orientation Week. Following COVID-19, many students had studied remotely making this year’s orientation feel bigger than ever with many students physically attending campus for the first time, and eager to engage in campus life. The volunteers provided critical O-Week support in guiding students on campus tours, providing much needed social networking opportunities, and engaging with a variety of information stalls. This could not have been achieved without dedicated students and it proved to be a taste of things to come further in the year.

The Student Guild’s traditional volunteer programs of Guild Crew, Wellness Warriors, and Community Outreach all returned to full strength supporting students and student activity alike. In total, 2022 was supported by 103 active student volunteers who contributed 1,617 hours of volunteer time. That represents a volunteer number growth on the previous year of 115%, with those volunteers contributing 35% more hours than 2021 which is an encouraging result. The Australian Bureau of Statistics places volunteer time as being worth $46.62 per hour meaning in 2022, Griffith Gold Coast students volunteered the equivalent value of $75,385 in voluntary time to the student community through Guild activity.

Several reward and recognition activities were organised to celebrate and acknowledge these contributions. This included low key social events, professional development, and networking opportunities. Two longstanding volunteer favourites were the Leadership Camp and Guild Awards. Camp was held on Stradbroke Island for the first time ever and hosted 18 students for team building, development, and fun activities. In November, 43 student volunteers were recognised at the Guild Awards which was an event with upscaled scale and scope compared to previous years. This allowed more students to be recognised generally as well as specifically highlighting six well deserving award winners on the night.

Clubs

100,000+ Total student engagements

Student clubs are the beating heart of campus life acting as the foundation for lifelong friendships, personal/professional development, and an enhanced university experience. Clubs allow opportunities for student led groups to be based on organic student interests and needs with the support and guidance of the Student Guild.

During periods of heavy disruption, maintaining the engagement of clubs presented a significant two-fold challenge. Early in the year, restrictions on events and activities continued due to COVID-19 and significant weather events. One of the less obvious side effects of prolonged campus impacts however, was weakened club succession as traditional club activities were paused for up to two years, with club executive knowledge lost as those students graduated. Restoring strong club leadership was a critical focus of 2022 and raised the importance of the Guild’s club induction, training, and recognition initiatives. The pedagogical approach to club training was redefined based on surveying what hot topic issues were for club leaders and how they could be rebuilt through modular ‘just in time’ delivery throughout the year. The foundation of this remained the Clubs Conference held in February which inducted 101 students resulting in an 80% increase in attendance from the previous year. At the other end of the year, the Guild Awards remained the peak opportunity to celebrate and recognise club leadership. This was expanded to include more club leaders than ever before with 176 recognised equating to a 43% increase on last year.

Another successful aspect of club support in 2023 was the maturing of the club funding model that was redeveloped and trialled in the years prior. A total of $200,000 was allocated as direct club funding above and separate to the support clubs received through the Clubs Coordinator and wider Student Guild systems. Of this, $100,000 was earmarked as Affiliation Funding which was streamlined through more autonomous processes to empower all clubs with baseline funding to support their core operations. A further $100,000 was then made available for all clubs to apply for through a grants system based on special club projects designed to enhance club member participation and growth. Thanks in large part to campus re-activations as restrictions were lifted, 2022 stress tested the grants model by having the Sport and Cultural Committee identify the highest potential 35 out of 57 projects to divert funding where it created the most impact for students.

Reinforcing these areas had a clear effect on supporting and re-establishing clubs throughout the year. In 2022, approximately 25,800 memberships were sold across 95 affiliated clubs which was a 22% growth of the number of clubs from the previous year. That number included the introduction of 25 new clubs which was a strong indicator that new students were re-engaged and willing to contribute. Together these clubs contributed to running approximately 402 sanctioned club events and activities which was a positive result considering many began the year under campus impacts, flooding, and difficult conditions. Considering a baseline that each club hosts four member engagements each year on average, that creates an estimated number of student interactions higher than 100,000. As an estimate this is a significant number that demonstrates how integral student clubs are to the vibrancy and experience of students at Griffith. In the new year, the team is aiming to further develop its analytics capabilities to track the exact number of unique students, demographics, and activity patterns to continue the support and growth of this space.