News

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 [email protected]. 

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

Our AL reps committee has produced a new newsletter, you can view the newsletter here and please send any feedback to [email protected]. 

Our Branch Administrator, Deb, has made bunting ready for the day that we can work at the Open University campus again - it makes a good background image in Microsoft Teams meetings and you are welcome to use the file.

Download the full size image from Dropbox

Instructions for changing your background image in a Microsoft Teams meeting. 

Two of our reps have sent out a new newsletter called Helping Hands to all UCU members in Academic Services - you can view the second issue here. The first issue was sent out in April via email, see link below.

August 2020 - issue 2

April 2020 - first issue of our Helping Hands newsletter