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