Expanding our network

Dear friends,

As per our activities at this stage, we are gonna expand our network to other UQ postgraduates from different study programs/courses. At the moment, most of our mems from Development Practices, Social Sciences programs, some other from finance, economics and agricultural sciences (check out our facebook group, we have more than 50 mems now but I don't know why what's wrong with the technical that the number automatically updated on our site for the facebook only shows 32 mems now! :D --> can anyone gives me a hand to solve the problems?). So please I call for your attention that use your personal network to invite more freinds to join so that we can build up our network and expand our social relationship. That means we are investing in our social capital.

Nothing comes if we do not try to get it!

Cheers!

Remind!

Dear all!!

This is just a friendly reminder that our food gather event are coming soon, so please check our facebook (just click on the facebook logo on your left hand site to automatically link to the event) to make sure you registered and let other know what kind of dishes you would bring to the event. This is for ease of us to organize the event because we want to see different kind of food from different countries and also share your cooking skills with other mates ;). Sound interesting hey mates!!

We are heading to the end of the semester. Good luck to you all!

P.

Collaborating with students' associations

Dear mems!

Again I am trying to connect with students' associations to organize an event together to promote our UQ student culture diversity through common activities as proposed in the project activities. I checked the students' associations on the site and I guess there are about at least 15 associations of different countries in the world. And I know some associations they have had great gather with their mems and play music, cook food, ext.. as far as I know that is Vietnamese and Indonesian ones. Other associations they organized events of different forms but I have not had a chance to join. But I think it would be great if we can somehow link all together in some common activities so that we have chance to learn from students coming from different countries and culture background and that should be fun. So I sent all students' associations that have linked with UQ Union through UQ Union website (below I pasted the email for your reference). However, after a week patient waiting I have not got any feedback from them yet, so I guess there is something wrong with the function of the web that somehow does not allow my email to reach them, or maybe they are just not interested in my proposal or just too busy to reply and call for their mems attention during this hard time of the semester.

Time is so rush and I think I will try to reach them by their emails but have to find out their email addresses first. Anyone volunteer or interested in this sort of connecting activities with students' associations, please let me know by posting a comment below or sending me an email, so that we can work out it together.

-------------

Dear Representatives of Clubs and Societies,

May I introduce my name is Phuong, a current UQ posgraduates from social science school and am currently conducting a project aiming at improving interconnections among UQ postgraduates, dedicated to a course namely Community Planning, Engagement and Governance (you can find more information about the project at the web address http://uqinterconnections.blogspot.com/p/about-project_17.html).  Building interconnections creates chance to learn about other cultures and to work with different people and is also a way to promote culture diversity.  My belief is that students' associations and clubs are the best places for UQ students to enrich their student life both in the campus and outside the campus. There are supporting services provide great opportunities for networking and socializing and there are needs of networking and supporting each other, however, still there not as many students know where to seek supports and how to network with other students as they should. I am wondering if all students' associations and clubs can somehow linked together to promote ourselves, and create a chance for postgraduates to change from stressful studying to joyful and effective studying and living. It would be great to have a chance to network with students studying different courses. Therefore, today I am writing to you to call for your cooperation in organizing an event aiming at networking and culture exchange for postgraduates. My initial suggestions would be that we organize an outdoor gather and invite students from your associations to join and perform music, facilitate games and bring food dishes to share. If you are interested in this networking, we can discuss further activities and how to organize the event.

I am looking forwards to your responses

Warm regards,

Phuong

Feedback from Mates@UQ

Hi mems! In line with our tentative activities, I sent an email to Mates@UQ to seek for a collaboration in making their services accommodating better our needs of networking with other UQ students and enrich our student life. This meeting if happened would aim at discussing the way Mates@UQ could better approach and become more popular to postgraduate students and also propose sort of Buddy Seeking Form that would help students to seek for their accompany mates in study, social activities or sport activities. Unfortunately, they are under transition period and that means we have to wait until next semester. I pasted against here our correspondence for your reference.  Meanwhile if you have any other suggestion for our collaboration with other services and student organizations just post your comments or send me an email. Tks mates! Mates At Uq [mates@uq.edu.au] Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 4:14 PM To: Miss Thi Lan Phuong Thai Cc: Katrina Wood [k.wood@uq.edu.au] Attachments:

Hello Phuong, I visited your web page and hope your project is planning out the way you hoped it would, it is very exciting to see you have the same interest in important topics such as student engagement. At present Mates@UQ is going through a stage of transition and would like you to approach us again at the beginning of next semester at the following email address: mates@uq.edu.au I would also like to point a minor (yet important error) the correct name of our program is Mates@UQ  Wishing you all the best Marjorie Marjorie Castro Engagement Officer The University of Queensland Phone: 61 7 3346 9721 Fax: 61 7 3365 7559 Email: m.castro@uq.edu.au CRICOS Provider Number 00025B Unless stated otherwise, this e-mail represents only the views of the Sender and not the views of The University of Queensland -----Original Message----- From: Miss Thi Lan Phuong Thai [mailto:phuong.thai@uqconnect.edu.au] Sent: Friday, 21 May 2010 5:11 PM To: Marjorie Castro Subject: Making an appointment Dear Marjorie, May I introduce my name is Phuong, a UQ posgraduates from social science school and am currently conducting a project aiming at improving interconnections among UQ postgraduates, dedicated to a course namely Community Planning, Engagement and Governance (you can find more information about the project at the web address http://uqinterconnections.blogspot.com/p/about-project_17.html). Building interconnections among UQ students will create opportunities to learn about other cultures and to work with different people and is also a way to promote culture diversity.  Acknowledging that UQmates are providing great opportunities for socializing and experience a joyful side of a student life and there are needs of networking and supporting each other, however, still there not as many students know where to seek supports and how to network with other students. As we seek the same interest in improving interactions for UQ students, I hope you can spend some time next week with me to discuss further and see how you think of my suggestions for engaging students to your services. I am looking forwards to your responses Best regards, Phuong