First I apologize for taking so long to write since September. I totally lost track and take full responsibility. But what are my thoughts on how the year I progressing this year? Well being that we have just finished the first ever leadership summit and NAIT’s Next Top Model within 4 days, I can say its feeling pretty good. I’m very happy with what the campus culture department has accomplished thus far in the year.

With that said I think a quick recap is in order.

Finding our Grove: Well, put simply. September was crazy; orientation after orientation, speaking to students. When would I have ever thought that THAT would be my job. I’m grateful. You get to stand in front of a new crowd and inspire them for the year to come. But at the same time you’ve got 5 events coming up and you cant seem to get them out of the back of your head. One thing I found was tough was focusing. Focusing on one thing at any one time. It makes it tough to accomplish all of the things you have to accomplish. Somewhat of a double edged sword I guess. But anywho we got through it, as a team. We were there for each other as executives and it was a milestone as far as I’m concerned.  Bellow is a picture of us getting our picture taken on the stairs before you go on the pedway to the HP centre.

East Coast party: We decked out the nest with fishing nets hung from the ceilings and had an east coaster play us some sweet tunes with his acoustic up on stage. Some people were dressed up in gum rubbers etc. But the main attraction I think was the screeching in process. Yes I know! We had people who wanted to participate come up on stage, say a rhyme, kiss a fish and take a shot of screech and then after were awarded their official documents. The nest was probably ¾ full for this one, which in comparison to last year’s equivalent the Prairie Party wasn’t as popular.

Ball Hockey Tournament: I would just like to start this one off by saying the girl Ooks have a decent team! The NAISA execs played them in a celebrity game and lost in overtime I think. Or a shout out I can’ t remember anymore but it was very close. Other than that though we had a full roster with lots of teams and great hockey. The Petroleum Engineering Technology students took the tourney down though. It was raining pretty hard but we all managed to have a great time.

Shinerama: This one was great because of the cause. For those who don’t know Shinerama is an all day fundraiser done nation wide to raise  money for cystic fibrosis. The  NAITSA crew was up reaaaaaal early blowing up balloons and setting up for our volunteers for when they arrived. A big shout out to Teagan Gahler our Shinerama coordinator for this year. She did an amazing job and raised somewhere in the ball park of 13-14 grand!  Below is a picture of Jenna and Jacqueline getting balloons ready at approximately 6 am.

Full Moon Party: I had a ball at the full moon party. We had DJ mikey wong come in and he rocked it. Actually the whole night was jam packed. We had Mo badass, Christian Hansen, Mikey, and then a headphone disco to close things off. To be totally honest after 9:30 pm I was dead tired. I had to take a seat for a while. Everyone had a blast though and that felt really good.

I guess what ill say in my blog to kick things off is to try my best to set the stage for the rest of the year.

If I have one piece of advice to give to you even though this sounds entirely cliché, that piece of advice is to get involved; to take that step and make that choice.

Decide to take that initial step and walk into our office. Take that leap of faith and get involved in a club, or at an event, or as a senator, or even as a security guard. It doesn’t really matter so much as to what you do, it’s more about the fact that you took that initial step; because in reality, that’s what we need as an organization. We need the people to come in and take that initiative, to take that leap of faith.

I can remember when I first got here. I was sitting in a seat in the engineering annex (aka L building). I remember the teacher had just got done doing his spiel and so did the student president of our petroleum engineering technology student executive. Then a random dude stood up and started to explain to us this opportunity to run as a senator for NAITSA. I remember him saying that it was a small commitment and looked great on a resume.

The first thing that started to run through my head as I listened to him speak, was how I used to be involved back in high school and how I was pretty good at it. I mean I can honestly say that I enjoyed those times, which so happened to have taken place more than 4 years ago.

Then I started to picture that one line at the bottom of my resume stating “SENATOR” and how it would be exclusive to MY resume, the advantage to my future employer, and what that would mean. Then I started to think of all the money in extra scholarships that I would get because I was involved at such a prestigious level within this school. To be honest I was feeling pretty good about it.

Almost simultaneously I began to realize that half the people in this room were second years. I mean what does that do to my chances of winning this? Then, well what if I lost! What would that mean? A huge hit in the pride factor that’s for sure. Then, well a second year really deserves this more than I do I thought. I mean they would kind of have seniority over me, wouldn’t they? Doesn’t putting in your time count for something? Well I know it does for me, but is this the place where a rule like this would count? In fact there is probably second years who have been planning for this since last Spring and have 50% of the room were sitting in ready to give their votes.

With all that going through my mind I hadn’t realized that I had taken myself out of the race even before I had put one poster up.

But then luckily my brain made a come back and said “well.. if that’s the case then what would it really mean if I could win, what if I could actually pull this off!”

Wow a first year actually taking this down! And what about next year? What could I get involved with next year? I pictured myself feeling unstoppable.

Looking back I’m not sure if what I thought was right, or wrong or even normal but I know one thing is true. Actually making that choice to go down to the NAITSA office and pick up a package put me on a route to something that completely changed my life.

It’s that decision that is responsible in itsself for where I am in my life right now, VP Campus Life. And its that decision that has me sitting here at my office on a Saturday afternoon excited to share a story with you because I love what I do.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t tell you this to impress you. I tell you this to impress upon you, the importance of going above the classroom and beyond the basic curriculum.  The friendships I’ve been blessed to be apart of, the “real life skills” I’ve learned over the course of the past two years, and the memories that I have close to my heart are things ill never let go of.

So I guess that might have been a bit deep haha. But you know what? My goal this year and the entire reason why I’m sitting here right and ran for this position is because I want to change people’s lives. I want you to look back on this experience and say to your self “wow”, I’ll never forget what NAITSA has done for me. I’ll never forget that memory. Now what that specific memory is can be different for every body and I cant tell you what exactly that would look like. But I do know that I have memories like that from a university I used to go to. I know that those memories are something that I’ll never forget, and those experiences have changed my life.

You may be asking “How do you plan on doing something like this Tyler?” Well I believe it lies in enriched experiences. I truly believe that putting the money back into the students is how you do this. To create an event that really blows you away or that you can take from and apply it in your every day life. To jolt you emotionally when someone from the International Justice mission comes in to speak at a 30 hour famine about human trafficking right here in Edmonton. Or when an Olympian comes in to speak of incredible odds and how they’ve over come them. Or that night on a riverboat where everyone was dressed up like pirates and rocked out to a cover band all night long like they’ve known each other all their lives, or maybe its helping you discover a hidden talent like playing guitar! It doesn’t really matter what the event is, we all have our ways of having fun, what does matter though, is what you take away from our events, and how our events can help you have the best possible experience here at NAIT.

I think I’ll leave you with a quote from a TED talk I just finished listening to. It was about James Cameron’s life, his quests to the bottom of the ocean, and how his creativity and brevity led him to creating the biggest blockbuster of our time, Avatar. In it there are two main themes in my opinion and here is one of them:

“Failure is an option, but fear is not”.

Is it that time again?

I love the week right before school begins to get into full swing. There are so many new faces around the hallways and suddenly the institution isn’t silent and has that dull roar of voices in every hallway.

I’m excited about a few things. First of all, last week the Dean of the School of Trades, took me to visit the Rig Tech students where they were doing their fall-safety portion of their course on a practice mini-rig which was kind of rad.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to actually chat with any of the students one on one since they were technically in class and busy giving their instructor a hard time (jokingly of course) for forgetting to put on his gloves. This was funny, because earlier he was telling all of the students to ensure they had full personal protective equipment on.

Next, I got a tour of their classroom where they get to simulate what it is like working on a real rig. Don’t even ask me to explain how or what it entails… but I took some cool pictures!

Other than the above, I’ve been busy with orientations, which has been really cool. I love speaking at orientations and I love it when I get a student stopping in the office saying “I heard you speak at my orientation, and I want to get involved…” It’s really neat to see new students so interested in what’s going on at NAITSA.

And of course, like all of you, I too have to get back into the groove of school as I pick up my textbooks and course-packs for semester. I’m taking what I think will be some very interesting classes. My classes this semester are: Quality Management, Immunology, Urinalysis, and Physiology. It should be a busy and fun semester. If you’re in any of those classes this semester, you should definitely send me an email or drop by the office. I’d love to find a few study-buddies (as lame as that may sound).

Last but not least, I’m also looking forward to NAITSA’s Pirate Party. Last year it was a blast and this year I can’t wait to grab a Value Village pirate outfit and have a few cold ones while going up and down the North Saskatchewan River listening to some wicked live music. Go buy tickets! They’re bound to sell out pretty quickly!

If you see me in the halls say hi, and don’t forget that my door is always open.

Cheers!

~Tess

Why you ask? Well because we have an opportunity here, as a group of independent individuals, to collaborate, come together and create something magical this year. Interdependence.  I feel as though one of the most powerful things is a group of individuals who each have the same common purpose (putting students first), are independent (responsible, proactive, and accountable), and who can come together to take the necessary steps to ensure they work as a team to create interdependence.

Some of you may realize that I am referencing Stephen Covey’s book the Seven Habits of highly effective people, and you would be totally right.  To be honest I wasn’t able to put all of this together until today when we were talking about our smart goals and going through our deep dive. Then it all started to come together as I have explained above.

I started to realize that we were taking the steps to ensure we knew there was no room for slackers and that they probably would not be helped if they slacked off. Which I think may be a little rough but at the same time I agree with it personally. But we also realized the importance in checking in with each other when things are getting hectic in the office, and that were here to support each other when one of us is having trouble

If we don’t check in then we risk missing out on some great opportunities to collaborate together and possibly create some legendary things. If we don’t check in we risk drifting as a team. If we drift as a team then our impact will be much less. And if our impact is much less then have we really served our purpose? Have we truly done everything we could to ensure that every student feels welcome in the NAIT community? Have we ensured we gave the students everything we had and left it all on the field so to speak?

Probably not.

I finally blog again.

The last month has been hectic to say the least. I’ve been busy with a couple of student issues left over from last year, working hard on getting ahead on my SMART Goals, developing some internal organization policies, taking part in the interviews and selection of a new Provost and Vice President Academic for NAIT, starting the beginning steps of planning a conference that NAITSA and SA MacEwan are hosting together, preparing for a new Senate, and a few other things on top of all of that.

One of the more fun things I’ve been working on as of late is learning my way around taking and editing video footage. This is something that I’m very excited to be bringing to the students this year on the NAITSA website. You can expect, in the upcoming months, to see video blogs by the executives, videos of our events, “How To” videos, and so much more.

I’ll leave you with one last tidbit, and that’s to encourage you to get as involved as possible this year. There are so many ways to make your time here so much more valuable than just receiving a piece of paper. Drop by our offices to find out what opportunities there are!

Enjoy the last few weeks before classes start. Cheers!

~Tess

Coming off of the summer and getting ready for the fall and all its antics with the plethora of events, new students to welcome and communication to uphold with the office, as well as NAIT definitely holds its challenges in trying to maintain some work life balance lol. But then again, that’s why I ran.

So what is the KESA deep dive you ask? Well I’ll first have to explain a bit of background before I go into what a deep dive is. At the beginning of our term, the other three executives and my self, as well as the past execs went on a retreat where we set the stage for the whole year. Creating our expectations of each other and establishing a platform for accountability, success, and what it all looks like to us as NAITSA executives.

We did this, and then were sent home with some homework; to come up with some smart. Throughout the summer my smart goals have evolved a bit, and I think its safe to say that some of the other executives have also. They mainly rest on what my platform was when I ran and ensuring I deliver on what I promised this year.

The deep dive was a get together once again to confirm our smart goals. But more so to have a getaway where we can check in with one another and listen to what we each have to say, where were coming from and to see how we’ve each grown and how our situations have changed since our first retreat.

To be honest I wasn’t really sure what the deep dive was before we sat down. But I can tell you that after coming out of it I’m extremely excited to have the team I have behind me right now. I think this deep dive was more about making sure that as executives, we’re all on the same page with what our objectives are; making sure that our smart goals are in line with what our purpose is as executives of a students’ association, and to enforce the fact that we’re in this one together.

When I say we’re in this together I mean we are here to help each other out when one of us are having trouble. Let me stress that this does not mean we are here to bail each other out when someone has slacked off and just depended on others kind of like a sponge soaks up everything around it for its self.

What I mean is that we are expected to act independently at this stage, seeing as we are executives of a post secondary institute. So it is very important to make it clear in these types of session, I feel, that we bring that forward and let each other know that personal responsibility, and accountability are expected at this point (not being dependent), but at the same time we can’t afford to just act independently either.

The past few weeks have been very busy.  The work on the windows in the office is finally complete after much noise which was unbearable at times.  But you probably don’t care; you’re wondering what I’ve been doing for you lately.

The Executive Council has been busy preparing for students returning in September.  Many events have been planned and approved and I’m excited to see your faces at the beginning of the year.

Much of my time has been spent answering questions around the new U-Pass.  There are many questions around the program, but the volume of calls is not what I’d anticipated it would be.

I’ll be meeting with the Minister of Advanced Education next week where we will be discussing Post Secondary Education and ideas to make it better.

On a more personal level, I’m ecstatic to see the firing of Eskimos General Manager Danny Maciocia.  That was long overdue.

That’s all for now, enjoy the last few weeks of summer.

Tim

Hello NAITSA members! 

Well the new semester is quickly approaching and I am preparing for the best year yet. I am excited for all the opportunities and services that we will be providing this year and I cannot wait till these halls are no longer empty.

A great way to get the most of your school experience is to get involved in your NAIT community. Since I started at NAIT, I have participated in many of the extracurricular events around campus including Business Connex of NAIT, a student run club. Through this I have met new people, learned new professional and life skills, got a great job, and had a great time doing it!

I know the saying “open door policy” is overused, so I won’t…but I do believe this, and I strongly encourage you to stop by and give me a shout. I took this job primarily because I believe in the student body and all that we can achieve. The more students I meet the better I can position myself to represent you and meet all your needs. I would love to hear what you have to say on a one on one basis in the hallways or over a beer.

Whether its related to school or not, I am here to help you succeed. I am in my 4^th year of my accounting degree and as a result I have had the opportunity to experience many of the services on campus. I really enjoy guiding students through their stay here at NAIT and helping them find the opportunities at NAITSA that will provide them the most value.  

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to come say Hi or poke me in the hallways.

Take care,

Govind Pillai

Hello again,

The past week saw the NAITSA Executive Council travel to the beautiful and scenic Red Deer for the Alberta Students’ Executive Council Goal Setting Conference.  ASEC is the provincial advocacy group for over 120,000 students from 12 post-secondary institutions. I happen to be the Vice Chair of ASEC, so I was quite busy the entire week.

The objective of the conference is to get input from the membership (12 students’ associations and unions) regarding our goals for the year well as policies which need to be created.  Both of these were accomplished and much will be done this year to help students on the provincial level.  Some professional development was also done, including a speech from the mayor of Red Deer, Morris Flewwelling, regarding lobbying on a municipal level.  Jason Roth, NAITSA’s Director of Advocacy, gave a speech on lobbying provincially and Michael Donlevy from Red Deer College spoke about effective fundraising.

I also met with Mayor Mandel this morning to discuss the City Center Airport and LRT to NAIT.  Both provide important opportunities for future NAIT students.

Until next time.

Tim

Here’s the pic of my office under construction.