The Student Union's members of the board and staff are divided into different sectors, and the two main sectors are the community sector and the advocacy sector. The community sector includes the board members responsible for organizational affairs, culture and events, and business relations. It also includes two staff members, the specialist in accounting and communications specialist. Vice-chair leads the community sector.

Olli Karvonen, Vice-chair

The environment of the community sector has remained challenging throughout the year and we have unfortunately not been able to do most of the activities that would take place in normal circumstances. One highlight in spring was the “Service office goes outdoors” event, to which many of you found your way. 

I have been a part of the recruiting process of tutor coordinators and instructors, and I am involved in the tutor project. I, for example, was involved in planning the new tutors’ training that was held during spring. 

I am also responsible for leading the community sector and making sure our sector is doing the right things, at the right time, in the right way, and that the board members of our sector have everything they need to succeed in their tasks.

We want to make the next autumn the best possible for our students. The vaccination programs are progressing well and we hope that in the autumn we can organize events in a normal way again. See you in the autumn!

Sara Alasuutari, Organizational Affairs

Due to the corona situation, a big part of the traditional organizational activities has been impossible. However, it has been a pleasure to see everyone's hard work during the spring. Other student unions in Finland have told that the organization life has been winding down due to the situation, but from my point of view, the organizations in Vaasa have become even more active than before. Many organizations have developed their operations and administration, not to mention the time and effort put into online events. One of the highlights of the spring was definitely EtäWappu. The amount and variety of events organized exceeded everyone's expectations. We have also arranged online workshops and webinars for organizations as well as developed a “järjestöhyvis” concept (people responsible for events being safe and equal for everyone). The people selected to take on this role will participate in a workshop at the beginning of the fall semester.

Even though the spring of the organization sector was great, I am looking forward to life hopefully getting back to normal in the fall. Networking and working together are the best aspects of organizational activities, but for now, they have been almost completely missing. A lot of exciting plans have been made for the fall, so hopefully, we get to bring all of them to life.
 

Board members in front of snowy Domus Bothnica. The Student Union took part in Tutti ry's lumenveistot event.

Henri Miettinen, Business Relations

Business relations have progressed very variably in the early part of the year. While new types of projects and collaborations have been outlined, Korona has slowed down a lot of our activities. In particular, cooperation agreements regarding our events have been almost completely silenced. This has left time to rethink and develop things, especially ideas on what sort of cooperation agreements we want for the Studen Union in the future has been refined. We are taking a direction towards offering a wider selection of membership services so that we would reach our members even better and that our activities and benefits would be attractive in the future as well. 

In the fall, my goal is to get more sport and fitness events and membership benefits. Exercise is one of the best ways to meet new people, and we must do our part to ensure that each member finds their group and can network during their time in university.
 

Aada Mäkelä, Culture and Events

During the spring, the corona epidemic has still severely disciplined the community sector, however, I have still been able to organize some nice remote events. 

At the beginning of the year, I interviewed and recruited a new event team. In February I organized VYY's anniversary celebrations as the Student Union turned 53 years old! 

Soon after that, the focus was turned to EtäWappu, which event schedule I coordinated. There were also few events from VYY. 

In the midst of these large events, I have met our cooperation partners such as Teatro. I also got to train the new tutors for this fall about the events and our event organizing guidelines. 

 A very rewarding spring despite the current situation. Hopefully, we get to meet in person in autumn again. 

Sima yoga was organized during remote wappu.

Maria Mellanen, Communications Specialist

In regards to VYY’s communication, there have been few bigger projects in addition to the day-to-day communication. The first project has not been visible to members, but at the end of 2020, we started to develop our internal communication practices. Last month I conducted a short check-in survey of the new practices and the results were quite positive. It made me very happy that the changes had a positive impact on our ways of working!

The second big project for the spring was giving a small update to our graphic manual. Together with the board’s members responsible for communication, we updated our colors to a more cohesive scheme and designed new social media post templates. The templates have made appearances on our channels, have you noticed?

Remote wappu and municipal elections have kept me busy during spring, but now the focus has also shifted towards autumn. New students, the tutor project, and upcoming representative council elections are some things I am looking forward to!

Community sector's Olli, Sara, Henri and Aada at the Student Union's remote anniversary celebrations.