News

We have produced a 4th issue of our Newsletter for Academic-related members, now called Soapbox – we have created a Return to site survey, please take a few minutes to complete the survey. We want as many responses to the survey as possible.  The survey can be completed by anyone at the OU with a Student support (Secretarial & Clerical or Technical) or an Academic-related contract, union members or not.

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We would like to invite you to take part in this short survey of Associate Lecturers, carried out by the OU branch of UCU. The survey is open to all Associate Lecturers (whether or not they are UCU members), and we would encourage you to share the link with AL colleagues by email. A link to the survey will also be posted in the AL Common Room. 
 

We received sad news about Roger Walters, our former Branch President, on Friday 25 February. 

Message from the Executors: Roger passed away on Friday morning in the nursing home at Market Harborough. We had been warned by the staff and his GP that his death was imminent following him contracting a number of infections. He had been deeply asleep for the last couple of days and was comfortable and not distressed.

Ballots have been posted in hard copy for the National Executive Committee election which closes on 2 March. The NEC comprises the Higher Education Committee and Further Education Committee. Our branch is considered to be in the South England region for voting and the deadline for voting is 2nd March, please return your ballot paper several days before. If you haven't received a ballot paper by now, please contact UCU for a replacement using the online form.

A group of ALs from our AL reps committee have produced a second issue of our AL newsletter, view the newsletter here.

Please send comments or feedack to ucu@open.ac.uk. 

The first issue of the newsletter is on the AL newsletters page.

Our UCU rep for Acadenmic Services (David Conway) has sent another issue of the Helping Hands newsletter.

As we are now well into the festive season, I hope you all are looking forward to some rest.  I think we all need it after a testing year, to say the least!

The holiday season, aside from how much you decide to celebrate it, gives us each a time to reflect. I wanted us to think about how the pandemic has affected everyone in the HE sector and consider ways we can support them.

Our UCU Regional office have produced images that you can use as your background image in Teams meetings - click to download and use the images. 

Image 1 - It's my time for a break

Image 2 - It's my time to exercise

Image 3 - It's my time to exercise 2

UCU is fighting to protect staff and students in universities during the pandemic crisis and you can help by signing our petition calling for fair funding and online learning in higher education.

We have now published the dates of our Branch meetings for 2021, from the January 2021 meeting onwards we will start to use Microsoft Teams instead of Skype for business.  All OU UCU members are welcome to attend branch meetings. 

View meeting dates