ReStart settles in at DSU offices

This year’s board plans to focus on students services

By Dylan Hackett, News Editor

The newly elected Douglas Student Union Representative Committee moved into their offices at the New Westminster campus last month and begun planning the year’s events as well as making its presence known in the concourse. This year’s group of student representatives is hoping to remain a service-oriented entity and has set course to maximize student engagement.

“We want to reconnect with students,” said Jill Griffin, External Relations Coordinator. “We want to restart our services, which is why “ReStart” was our name!”

Restarting services means making sure students are aware of the services the DSU offers. We want to build on our services and to make sure there are more services for students. We noticed there was a need for a computer lab, students were talking about it. It’s definitely something we’re looking into,” Griffin stated.

As well as considering the implementation of a computer lab, the ReStart committee plans on carrying out last year’s plan to ban the sale of bottled water on campus.

“We’re looking into looking forward to banning the sale of bottled water on campus but we know students drink a lot of water,” explained Griffin. “We have to educate as well and explain ‘this is bad for you, it’s bad for the environment’ and also provide alternatives by working with the college to bring in filling stations. This board is looking to ban the sale of bottled water and looking toward a more environmentally friendly campus.”

Different than last year’s board however is the attitude towards spending on DSU branded goods such as lanyards, water bottles, and T-shirts—of which tens of thousands of dollars of students fees went towards.

“This year we have more of a strategic plan as far as purchasing and distributing goes. What we do is we look at events we’re going to be having and before there are any purchases or orders going in we look at exactly what we need, how we’ll distribute it and how many students we’ll be distributing [to],”
Griffin explained. “Last year it was more of a ‘let’s bulk purchase everything and we’ll get rid of it eventually’ plan.”

“We have some really amazing, positive, and outgoing students who already have a background working with students,” said Griffin, “[The board] has people from Office for New Students and from DougLife who are really excited to interact with students. They’re here at the DSU to bring what students want, to listen to the students and give them what they want. We’re fulfilling the student’s mandate, we’re not coming in and saying, ‘we’re doing this’, we’re saying, ‘we heard you want this and here it is.’”

If anyone is looking to volunteer you can let us know. The more help and more feedback means we can do things that students want to see and connect with the membership.”

Jill Griffin can be reached at external@dsu18.ca. You can also visit the DSU online.