After taking on the role of treasurer for the Penryn Campus Orchestra last year, I was initially shocked looking at our budget sheet by how much we were paying Falmouth University’s Academy of Music and Theatre Arts (AMATA) to use their rooms for our weekly rehearsals. I therefore set one of my priorities for the year to open a discussion in trying to understand why we were paying such prices for a university venue and negotiate a reduction for societies. At first, I thought this would be a fairly quick resolution, but I soon found it difficult to make any real change.

I initially reached out to AMATA to try and organise a meeting, but after some back-and-forth, it was clear that even a meeting was not on the cards. I contacted the Music Department but after some initial progress, all communication fell through, and I felt that I needed external support to make any real progress. I then reached out to the other music and dance societies that rehearse in AMATA, and learnt that this is an issue that has been brought up for several years, and as a result I searched for a way to try and get backing behind our proposal. While looking for ways to increase support, I came across the Make A Change tool on the SU website, and with the support of all the other societies that book AMATA rooms, I decided to write up my proposal advocating for free AMATA room hire for all affiliated societies.

After submitting my proposal on the Make A Change page, I again reached out to the other societies that used AMATA, and I was really pleased to see such great support for the proposal, passing the 10 vote requirement within a day of approval. A few weeks later, I was then given the opportunity to present my proposal at the Student Forum, by which point the proposal had well over 50 votes. At the Student Forum, I had the chance to present my proposal, and attendees had the opportunity to ask me questions, critique and discuss it, followed by a vote of whether the proposal should be adopted. I was really happy to see such great support from everyone at the Forum, and the proposal was both overwhelmingly passed and voted as a Union Priority, with no votes against. This meant that my proposal was adopted by Jadelle (Falmouth SU President), who leads on the proposal’s actioning, and the proposal was raised to university leadership.

The results since my Make A Change proposal have been really encouraging. With lots of help from the SU and Jadelle, I was finally able to meet with an AMATA representative earlier this term and discuss the collective viewpoint of our campus’ societies. Although there are still lots of barriers and resistance to our proposal, there has been some motivating progress. AMATA is slowly implementing an updated system allowing Exeter students to book out stores without having to email in advance, and there was an agreement to review and clarify current policy on both Falmouth and Exeter students using stores and equipment on and off-campus. It was also agreed, at the very least, that there would be no increase in room hire rates in future years, which provides some short-term assurance to our societies. Although there is as of yet no willingness to offer reduced prices, I am now also entering discussions with university leadership to explore society funding to compensate for this.

The use of Make A Change has meant that I’ve been in close contact with lots of the SU team, and it’s been fantastic to see their support - we’ve met to discuss alternate funding sources, use of other venues and other opportunities we could be using while the proposal is being worked on. Having the support of the SU as a result of the proposal has been a great asset, and has opened the door to lots of discussion and support that certainly wouldn’t have been possible without. My proposal is still being worked on and will definitely be a slow process, but hopefully progress will continue to be made towards societies being able to use university rooms without charges!

You can sumbit your own ideas to Make a Change, here!