Graduates of the Dealing with Committee Paperwork course
One of the most intimidating things about joining one of UNISON’s committees can be the amount of paperwork that comes your way. The Dealing with Committee Paperwork developed by UNISON’s Learning and Organising Services is designed to make that easier.
The course covers:
- using four speed-reading techniques and how to effectively skim and scan
- practical support on report writing
- identifying your learning style to work for you
- reading with a clear purpose
On the most recent course, held at UNISON Centre on 13-14 September, were recently elected members of UNISON’s national executive council, Police & Justice and Community service groups, national women’s, Black members’, and disabled members’ committees. And feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Michelle Goodman from the national executive council called it ‘very interactive and informative’.
Attendees welcomed the opportunity to try out the skills they had learned. ‘Being able to practise the skills taught was very good,’ said Mitsy Harmon-Russell from the Community service group executive.
There was praise, too, for UNISON education officer Davinder Sandhu. ‘Brilliant tutor who explained things in a manner that was easy to understand,’ said Declan Clune from the Police & Justice service group executive.
Davinder said, ‘This is a very practical course designed to give our committee members the confidence and skills to deal effectively with large amounts of paper. We determined everyone’s current rate of reading at the beginning, and after practising the speed reading techniques every single person increased the amount of words they could read per minute. The group worked very well together and we were also able to do a visual stress awareness assessment to help them identify coloured reading rulers that will help them read even more quickly.’
The worst part of the course was… having to deal with a lot of paperwork! That was the tongue-in-cheek comment from one attendee. Unfortunately, there’s no way around that!