Secretary

Grace Hinks

Lancaster

Hey! I’m Grace and I’m currently in my final year of studying History at the University of Nottingham, I will be graduating this year and looking at taking a step away from education, but still want to be as involved as possible with SSAGO, hence running for Team Pink!

A bit about me:

This past year I have been the Social Secretary for SNoGS. Through this position I have gained excellent experience in working within a Committee whilst developing my problem solving, organisation and management skills. As Social Secretary I've had to plan, organise, and advertise a multitude of events for SNoGS, so have plenty of experience in these areas, but I’d love to give a new kind of role a go! As Social Secretary I also focused on (and had a lot of fun) creating helpful forms and documents for future Social Secretaries to make events easier and quicker to organise in future years. I have enjoyed encouraging people to join SNoGS and increasing membership numbers alongside my fellow committee members, something I’d love to bring to a national level. I am also a consistent attendee to national events, meaning Reps would be easy and fun for me.

I LOVE admin and organisation, just ask anyone that knows me! I’m a big believer that you should be able to find important documents and information without being told where to find it, so anything produced for SSAGO by Pink will be stored in an accessible, clear manner and be as intuitive as possible. I even took it upon myself to organise the SNoGS GDrive for fun, as well as produce plenty of documents for the club to aid future committees. I have also taken a keen interest in policy during my time at SSAGO and would like to explore this further! As a History student I am very good at typing and I will be able to keep up while writing minutes for meetings. 

I’ve been a part of Guiding since I was 5 and I loved every minute of it and I have also been a young leader for Rainbows, Brownies, and Guides! Unfortunately for me, this opportunity was disrupted by Covid, but SSAGO allowed me to continue my experiences and I’m extremely grateful for this, as it has allowed me to reignite my love for all things Scouting and Guiding, as well as have incredible experiences while at University. I am extremely passionate about SSAGO, I can easily say that it has been the most enjoyable part of University for me, and I would love to help SSAGO on a national level to give back to the Organisation. As previously said, I am a final year student, so I would love to be on Team Pink to allow myself to continue my SSAGO journey after graduating.

What can I bring to the role?:

As Secretary, my main aim will be to engage with members in a fun and friendly manner, whilst ensuring that any items published by SSAGO are accessible, as I am aware how daunting long emails or documents can be to people! I already have a few ideas for this, including looking at publishing a heavily summarised paragraph alongside minutes, highlighting the key discussion points of the meeting, to allow a good understanding to be gained at a glance. This will hopefully allow people to gain a better understanding of how SSAGO works at a national level, and potentially get people interested in a Team Pink position down the line! I also would like to include summaries at the end of emails to allow people to easily access information, and hopefully increase engagement at a national level. This means if people do not have time to read an email that has been sent out, they can still access all the key information needed! 

I am aware of the changes occurring within SSAGO clubs based in Wales. As Secretary, I would like to explore the possibility of publishing minutes in both English and Welsh, as well as ensuring that important documents have an accessible Welsh translation, to help these clubs reach their full potentials! 

Finally, Team Pink looks like fun, so I'd love to be considered for the position of Secretary!