Never too old to learn something new
Reading University Students’ Union (RUSU), in conjunction with the Reading Experience and Development (RED) Award, is running a range of Skills Development Workshops. These are aimed at all students who would like to gain some further knowledge and experience in areas such as leadership, presentation skills and training.
Some of the courses are aimed more specifically at members of sports clubs, societies and volunteers such as organising events, marketing your club or society, managing budgets and writing for the web.
All the workshops are free to attend and will look fabulous on your C.V. Spaces on these workshops are limited so you must register your attendance by emailing margot.bishop@reading.ac.uk
A workshop about making the most of your skills.
Do you feel confident in selling your skills effectively to potential employers? Endsleigh had designed a 'Self Branding' workshop called 'Selling Yourself' to help you identify your personal brand and create a lasting first impression.
Spaces will be allocated in a first come first serve basis so please book early as we expect this workshop to be popular.
back to top
The aim of this module is to emphasise the need to budget and keep track of expenditure. There will be explanations on what is meant by budget, income, expenditure and accounts. There will be examples of how to start a budget or income/expenditure spreadsheet and a chance to talk about fundraising and how you can raise money to supplement your income. Your grant and reserve accounts will be explained in detail and the session will end with an in-tray exercise designed to make you think about how you spend the money in your club/society account and what activities you can offer your members as part of their membership.
« back to top »
The aim of this module is to give advice and information on how to organise an event for you club, society, volunteer group or even a social event for a group of friends. It will advise on all the areas you need to consider such as budget, health & safety, publicity, entertainment and insurance. It will also look at some simple project planning methods to give an idea of when you would need to start your planning in order for everything to be in place for the event. There will also be some advice on how to use your committee to achieve the end result and how to get other members of your club/society involved.
« back to top »
The aim of this module is to look at writing for the web and why it is crucial to get it right. It will start with a comparison between writing on paper and writing for the web. Writing styles differ depending on the media used and some people find it more difficult to read off a screen and prefer things to be in print. The design of your web page can instantly influence someone, but only if you get it right. This workshop will give hints and tips on how to make a web page stand out, how to make it visually interesting and what sort of language to use.
« back to top »
The aim of this module is to look at presentations and how you can deliver them in a positive, confident and assertive way. It will look at the purpose of presentations and how we can make the listener understand what is being presented to them. It will look at the clarity of the message and tools that you can use to assist you in the delivery of your presentation. It will also look at the difference between aggressive and assertive behaviour and how this can affect your presentation. Self-confidence can also affect a presentation and we will look at how you can balance your confidence. The final part of the module will be a chance for you to put together a short presentation to deliver to the rest of the group.
Monday 28th May, 2:00pm - 4:30pm, RU Boardroom
Friday 22nd June, 12:00noon - 2:30pm, RU Boardroom
« back to top »
The aim of this module is to give hints and tips on how to deliver training to members of yours clubs/societies or even peer-to-peer. It will look at different learning styles and how to tailor your training to cater for all these different needs. It will give different ideas of training methods you can use and how people can learn more easily from different methods. We will look at how to structure a training session and break it up with icebreakers and energisers. There will be ideas on facilitation and how group dynamics could potentially disrupt a training session. Finally you will be asked to put together a training session on a given topic and deliver it to the rest of the group.
« back to top »
The aim of this module is to look at leadership and what makes a good leader. It will explain the difference between a manager and a leader and look at some positive and negative leadership role models and why they were so influential. Leadership is a very broad topic with many theories. We will look at a couple of those theories, assessing their advantages and disadvantages. Finally you will work out what your own leadership style is and discuss how knowing this might influence you in the future.
Tuesday 19th June, 2:00pm - 4:30pm, RU Boardroom
« back to top »
The aim of this module is to look at teamworking and what it means to work in a team. It will look at the benefits of working in a team and explore some of the theories of teamworking including Tuckman and Belbin. You will carry out a Belbin analysis to determine what sort of team role you have and how this could affect your interaction within the group. Once you know what team role you play you will be joining NASA to make some crucial team decisions!
Tuesday 12th June, 2:00pm - 4:30pm, RU Boardroom
« back to top »
This module will explain why communication is so important. It will look at the communication model in depth and explain some of the reason why messages can be misinterpreted and misunderstood. It will go on to look at some of the barriers to communication and there will be some exercises to reinforce these. Communication media will be looked at, in particular the most appropriate methods for particular situations.
Friday 15th June, 12:00pm - 2:30pm, RU Boardroom
« back to top »
The aim of this module is to look at why it is important to market your club/society and what you hope to achieve. It will look at what marketing means and what your club/society has that is unique and will make students want to join. You will write a positioning statement for your club/society – a unique selling point – and look at how you could incorporate this into your advertising, website and other promotional material. We will look at different ways and media types for getting your message across and look at how corporate branding can help and give you the advantage of corporate backing. We will look at newsletters and if this is a good method of getting information out to members. Finally we will look at sponsorship and ways of fundraising for your club/society.
« back to top »