A guest blog today from Andrew Cooper, who shares his experiences of being on the HELOA UK Committee.
Over the past five and a half years, I have had the privilege of supporting HELOA members in two roles, first as the Professional Development Conference (PDC) Manager and then as the UK Vice-Chair (Membership & Administration). Starting on the UK Committee (UKC) shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, I developed our first range of online events as we adapted to a new way of working and then started as Vice-Chair shortly after our Associate Membership was voted through during AGM.
As Vice-Chair, I helped to look after the administration of charities and worked closely with Dawn and Louise in the HELOA Office, to ensure all of HELOA’s processes ran smoothly. Other duties included looking at membership engagement and running our legal duty of holding an AGM. With a variety of duties, good planning, time management and flexibility is key, but looking at solutions creatively and bringing others together is also key to success in the role.
As a volunteer I do most of my hours outside of work, either on weekend mornings when the kids are watching TV or in the evening after work. I have been lucky that all of the universities I have worked at have supported time when needed during office hours. Being a member of the HELOA UK Committee (UKC) enables personal growth, but also brings benefits to your university, as members share best practice and sector updates based on our experiences.
My hardest time whilst on the UKC was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was the PDC Manager. I had to stop all plans for in-person conferences and switch to virtual delivery, however this set me up for my current role as the first Hybrid Delivery Coordinator at the University of Liverpool.
I said in my election pitch when running to become the Vice-Chair that I would use data to best support our members. My proudest achievement has been to put this into action and can now see our engagement from members, which is used to support our activities. Each year we have seen an increase in engagement which is a testament to all of the volunteers at HELOA.
Being the Vice-Chair has helped my personal development. Managing the Office and our Associate Member Rep gave me line management experience I could use in interviews. I’ve also developed leadership skills as a Trustee and helping to run the charity. However, the best personal growth has come from our members. I have learnt so much from them sharing their best practice and been lucky to meet people I never would have if not in role.
There have been many memorable experiences, from running three AGM’s (including our first online one), working with our Associate Member Reps, Alastair and Chloe, and working with amazing volunteers across the UKC. Apart from creating data driven strategies, my most recent achievement was working closely with FindAUniversity to create a new forum for our Postgraduate facing colleagues, which has seen new networks created.
It has been an amazing few years. My advice for anyone who is interested in either working in the Training Team or as the Vice-Chair for Membership & Administration is just do it! You develop so many skills and it is important to have the confidence to voice your opinion, to continue developing new ideas to support members.
During my time I have ran three AGM’s, developed new systems to support members and have grown the membership to over 2000 members. I’m excited to see what happens next. I would like to thank all of the members of the UKC I have worked with over the years, my colleagues who have supported me at the universities I have worked at, but most importantly you the members. Thank you for your trust and support and I look forward to seeing you at future HELOA events, with both of us being delegates.