Committee address

Tahlia Morrissey, Secretary Coming into the role halfway through the year was an experience like no other, however I was welcomed by the enthusiastic and motivated team of UTSOC. As the UTSOC Secretary I was a part of the leadership team. This meant I was involved in each portfolio and helped directors with their initiatives and ideas. My role also included organising meetings, all things admin and providing a helping hand to portfolios. Some of the highlights of this year have been putting together our ‘Minute with the Clubs’ submission, winning club trivia in Semester 2 and making masks for Pay it Forward week. I have loved working with each and every member of our UTSOC team in this challenging year.

Olivia Migliorino and Keeley McAlinden, Socials Co-Directors Following the cancellation of planned events UTSoC Welcome Back Drinks and First Year Camp in March, the Socials team had to rethink the hosting of social events and pivot online to maintain engagement with UTSoC and Committee members. This was first executed through our UTSOC Kahoot! Trivia Night through Zoom in March, which generated a great response with 88 attendees. Sponsorship from Redbull also allowed us to thank our members for attending the event through the provision of free RedBull products! Turning our focus to targeting First Years, the socials team in partnership with the Education team hosted the UTSoC Digital Escape Room. Finally, as part of an online series UTSoC Boredom Busters, we launched weekly videos throughout May with a diverse range of iso-activities during lockdown. With a positive outlook for next year, the socials team have also confirmed venues for the UTSoC End of Year Ball 2021.

Abby Clark, Marketing Director This year, the primary challenge for the marketing portfolio was to bridge the gap left by physical interaction between the society and our members. As time went on, it became evident that social media was going to be one of the main locations for our uni experience in 2020. Our social media pages evolved around this, with consistent emphasis on solidarity and opportunities for connection. Through effectively and creatively delivering UTSoC’s initiatives and opportunities to our audience, we have ensured that they could make the most of this year despite its challenges.

Natalie Maiorana, Partnerships Director With the Partnerships portfolio being a very outgoing sector, it was heavily impacted by the changes brought upon by COVID-19. However, the Partnerships Team have taken initiative in reconstructing our UTSoC website, so that it may truly reflect our society’s professionalism and values. The biggest focus for the website has been showcasing the opportunities UTSoC offers for current members, prospective members and organisations.

Ruby Hartley, Social Justice Director The Social Justice Portfolio has had a busy year keeping up with the many world-wide events that needed a social justice perspective! We started off with continuing the previous year’s Mental Health: Smash the Stigma campaign in connection with Batyr, helping people cope during COVID-19 isolation. In second semester, we participated in Pay It Forward Week to create Covid-care packages for homeless people in the CBD. The main component of this was making reusable hand-stitched face masks, an activity that allowed our members to connect with each other, while making an impact on the community! Additionally, throughout the year we have raised awareness about social justice issues such as BLM, and also celebrating international festivals/dates.

Pia Cutler, Creatives Director This year the creatives team has produced a number of graphics and videos for UTSoC. While the pandemic restricted opportunities such as first year camp and ball where our content was unable to be published, there was still a huge need for our skillset from the society. Creatives worked incredibly hard with Publications this year to produce a number of original graphics for both the website and the magazine (enclosed in these very pages). Over the course of the year, creatives has also worked with social justice, careers, education, marketing and socials to create numerous event banners and promotions for various initiatives. The Boredom Busters initiative gave our team the chance to edit video footage to provide entertainment and inclusivity on an online platform. Creatives also received the opportunity to work with FASS to produce videos for students which outlined how to tackle university work in an online environment.

Amy Benson, Careers Director UTSoC Careers in 2020 focused on providing students with tangible employability skills to further their career journey in communications. We grew our popular Facebook careers group to over 1300 members and launched our first Ebook Resume Guide, a digital resource specifically tailored to communication students on how to create an impactful resume. We established strong relationships with industry partners and UTS Departments (Webprofits, ArtBound Initiative, UTS Careers & FASS). We also utilised our internal publication, The Comma, to produce four careers-related articles, our most popular one being “Digital Internships: Can I, should I, will I?”, which was sent to every single UTS student in a university-wide email. In collaboration with Activate UTS, we facilitated the most successful Job Truth Series to date which had over 60 attendees and industry guests from Samsung, Buzzfeed, Depop and the AFL.

Rebecca Lahanas, Education Director This year, I’ve had the incredible honour of developing UTSoC’s online mentoring program, Big Orange Little Orange (BOLO), which is now in its third year. BOLO matched up first years with more experienced students and helped them build genuine connections. This ensured that over 65 first year students had a good first year at uni and met other likeminded people, despite being in a global pandemic where face to face classes weren’t possible most of the year.

Jade Ng, First year representative As the elected first year representative, I helped spread the word of UTSoC to fellow first years. I was in charge of social media tailored for first years, so I’ve been running the first year comms page and reaching out to first years personally. I helped BOLO to think of ideas and ways to connect with new uni students and facilitate friendships. Most notably, I organised an in-person BOLO catch-up halfway through semester 2. The catch-up was an outing to “dodgy dumplings” and drinks, whichfinally gavestudentsthe uni experience we were all craving! The biggest highlight of being first year rep was organizing a first year meet and greet at the beginning of semester 2 once the campus opened up. The event took place at Central Park and reached max capacity considering the COVID restrictions.