USSU Centres

Hello World!

So, very soon in the library there will be a display of the top photos from the USSU & PHE ‘What Do You Do For Your Mental Health’ Photo Competition. This is the first time that the USSU Help Centre and Peer Health Educators have ever done a photo competition and it will hopefully become an annual thing.

The competition’s winner Miguel Kriser won $250 cash. There were ten photos picked from those submitted that will be displayed on the main floor of the Murray library. I hope that you all take the time to look at the photos and read the captions. These students did a fantastic job and have a variety of different things that they do for their mental health.

Also on my agenda is getting everything ready for the incoming coordinator. It’s kind of fun to think of everything that I’ve done and figure out a way to explain something that is now second nature to me in simple terms. I’m getting very excited to meet this mysterious person who will be the new coordinator. Since I’ve been the coordinator for the past two years its going to be very strange not having it as my second home come May.

<3 Alex

Posted by jsj110 at 04:02 PM | Permalink

Hello World,

I believe that it was this past week that the job postings went up for ALL of the USSU Centre Coordinator positions. The upcoming year will be a challenge as there are no returning coordinators to turn to for ideas and knowledge of what worked the previous year (though the staff at the USSU will forever be the best resource). It is exciting however, because with each new coordinator comes their experiences, ideas, and interests. Presumably the new coordinator will be semi-familiar with the Centres before they assume their position, but they are able to use their interests to develop new initiatives and campaigns for the Centre. For example, Pride Centre Coordinator Keegan Epp is a kinesiology major and involved with Huskie Athletics and has been able to use these connections to start an Athlete Ally program on Campus to encourage Athletes to show their support for the Queer community.

There are a ton of perks with this job. You get to be involved with the Student’s Union, which is basically for students by students. You get to create a sense of community through your Centre. You get to recruit sweet people to volunteer and hang out with them. You get to think of fun things to do on campus to raise awareness over certain issues (such as Mental Health). You learn a lot. Like a lot. You have the opportunity to have the job on campus for two terms (i.e. two years). There are sweet staff events, like bowling, golfing, or meetings with cake.

If you are looking for a job that pays okay, involves a lot of interaction with students, is on-campus, and with sweet perks then APPLY! You can’t get the job if you don’t apply.

<3 Alex

Posted by jbv373 at 09:55 AM | Permalink

Hello World!

We recently had Mental Health Awareness Week, which was wonderful! We also had a panel called, ‘Suicide: Let’s Talk About It’. We had representatives from Avenue Community Centre, Saskatoon Suicide Support Group, an Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) Facilitator, and Dr. Alex Wilson from the Department of Educational Foundations. The discussion was very interesting and each speaker’s topic overlapped well with the other speaker’s.

We also had a series of booths in the tunnel for the week and were handing out free apples, oranges, bananas, popcorn, condoms, lube, pamphlets, and buttons. The displays ranged from one for our Mood Disorder Support Group to a Canadian Mental Health Association Booth to a Feel good naked booth. We had lots of people asking questions and raised over $60 in donations to the Canadian Mental Health Association in Saskatoon (We were asking for pennies so $60 is a ridiculous amount of pennies). The week was very fun. I love working with the Peer Health Educators, they are all so wonderful and nice. It was also nice having my volunteers out in full force; they’re all very good at what they do!

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the tunnel or who helped out and made this week a success!

Alex

Posted by jbv373 at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Hello World,

There are many reasons why you should volunteer for the USSU Help Centre. I will list a few:

1. It’s super fun.
2. We sing Disney songs in unison and only occasionally well.
3. We constantly quote and reference community, Big Bang Theory, and How I met your mother.
4. We have a microwave and a great lunch hangout space.
5. We are a community.
6. There are sweet perks like learning how to make buttons and where obscure buildings and offices are.
7. It’s a great place to meet awesome people.
8. We care and want to help you succeed.
9. We have copious amounts of popcorn, which you can learn to make and eat for free
10. We hang out after volunteering hours too!

So if you’re looking for something to help take up the time in your long breaks or to put some extra experience on your resume or just to meet new people please think about joining our team!

<3 Alex

Posted by jbv373 at 10:43 AM | Permalink

Hello World

January is here and as it’s still early in the month everyone is being as lazy and/or productive as possible in this calm before the storm. The USSU Help Centre is about to get ridiculously busy. I’ve already had loads of people coming in for the exam file even though midterms are still a month away. I’m a bit envious of their enthusiasm. It is my last semester as a University Undergraduate student and I believe that I have finally reached the ‘final year slump’. This is a time when students who are about to graduate start losing momentum and really just glide on by. I’m hoping that this slump is only temporary and Skyrim induced, as it is my final semester and I will be working—or should be working—diligently on my honours project and last 100-level social science credit.

I’ve been planning Mental Health Awareness Week for several months now and it is fast approaching. For this week there will be a panel regarding suicide in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan with panelists from Avenue Community Centre, Living Works (an Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Trainer), Aboriginal Student’s Centre, and After Suicide (a community-based Support Group). I am hoping that this talk will encourage people to start talking more about the fact of suicide as it has always been a rather taboo topic. There will also be an ASIST training the weekend (January 28th/29th) before, which helps people to recognize people having thoughts of suicide, intervene, and connect them to help. The following week there will be a SafeTALK (February 6th), which helps train people in a similar way to ASIST, but in a less intensive and shorter time period. If you are interested in partaking in either please contact help.centre@ussu.ca for more information!

I will talk more about Mental Health Awareness Week as we get closer to the date.

Hope your January is stress free or at least a bit more relaxing than December was.

<3 Alex

Posted by jbv373 at 03:45 PM | Permalink