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SSBCS
Future Plans
& Hiring Applications
Greetings from Jay Blake and Elijah Walsh, the current Co-Presidents of the Commerce Society!
Our apologies in advance for the long read. However, we have so much to share with you that we couldn't afford to cut things short.
We're writing you today to let you know about what we have planned for the society's future.
First off, we'd like to express our thanks for the support the society has received this semester. Both of us only took the co-presidential positions in late December, and we were so happy to see great attendances at our Price is Right Game Night, Real Estate Industry Night, and the 49th Annual Business Dinner! Ourselves and our team have put many hours into planning these events, and it's incredibly rewarding to see our fellow students have a good time. Now that we've had our largest events of the year, the society is now planning for the future.
Looking Forward
The 24-25 academic year will be the Commerce Society's 91st year of operation, but more importantly it is the year of our 50th Annual Business Dinner, making next year one of our largest landmark years in history. Along with this fact, us two presidents intend to use our positional opportunity to create some of the things we've wanted to see at SMU since our first year.
We both started here at SMU in Fall 2021, excited to embark on our university journeys, complete with solid academics, but to a larger extent, establishing lasting fellowship with our fellow students through distinct events, opportunities, and occurrences only possible in the four (to five) year stretch that we attend post-secondary.
Although we weren't disappointed with the Sobey School of Business' academic rigour, community fellowship has observantly been an aspect that we haven't seen fulfilled as advertised as we both enter our fourth year. There are multiple reasons, circumstances, and policies to blame for this lack of comradery among all Commerce Students, and apathy is an understandable gut reaction when there's no good examples of alternative paths forward. This was certainly part of our mindset until a recent trip into the past...
Around late January, the two of us found some documents and photos of the old Commerce Society from the 90's to early 2000's. This revelation sent us on a historical scavenger hunt, complete with late night archive digs and tearing down the office for all artifacts from the Commerce Society of time's past. We discovered numerous ambitious projects our society embarked on, like running a softball team, building a daycare playground, and even skydiving!
The Commerce Society was a major factor of SMUs community and improved both the academics and culture of fellowship for countless students. They represented Commerce students, and Commerce Students felt represented by them. With knowledge of what the Society was, our scope drastically changed on what the Society can be.
With an upcoming landmark year and our goal to improve fellowship backed by historic inspiration, we've got many factors on our side to make next year a return to form for the Commerce Society! Here are some of the many things that you can look forward to next year. Keep in mind that everything here is not set in stone:
Future Events:
Event | Timeing | Place |
|---|---|---|
Meet/Greet | Wed, Sept 4th | LA 287 |
Price is Right Game Night | Thurs, September 5th | McNally Main Auditorium |
Dodgeball Tournament | Depends on Varsity Schedule (Mid September) | Homburg |
Smoker | Thursday, September 26th | Gorsebrook |
BBQ | Monday, October 7th | The Quad |
THEE Pageant | Tuesday October 29th | LA 290 |
Sushi Social | Tuesday, November 5th | LA Private Dining Room/5th Floor Student Centre |
RBC Workshop | Tuesday, November 12th | LA 171 |
Wine/Cheese | Thursday, November 21st | LA 290 |
Meet/Greet 2 | Wednesday, January 8th | 5th Floor Student Centre |
Oval Skate | Tuesday, January 14th | Oval |
Smoker 2 | Thursday, January 23rd | Gorsebrook |
Ski Trip | Mid February | Martock |
Blood drive | Mid-Late February | The Exchange |
Marketing Industry Night | Thursday, Feb 27th | AT 101 |
CPA/RBC Workshop 2 | Tuesday, March 4th | LA 171 |
50th Annual Business Dinner | Thursday, March 28th | Best Venue available |
Here is an explanation of some of our new/non-self-explanatory events.
Smoker - This was an event we did back in the 70s every month. Both students and BComm profs would meet up to socialize, smoke, drink, and listen to live music. We're going to bring this back just the way it was once a semester. The only difference will be the presence of a couple of fog machines in the absence of chain smokers in the Gorsebrook .
BBQ - A classic barbecue in the quad. Hopefully, we'll be able to collaborate with multiple societies for this.
THEE Pageant - Name pending. 8-12 contestants will battle it out in four categories (Fashion, Talents, Physical Activity, and a thought-provoking Interview), to be voted by our panel of professor judges as Commerce King/Queen.
Sushi Social - Pizza is overrated and overused, so we're having sushi. A fun event to socialize while chowing down on some rolls.
Ski Trip - This is something we did in the 90s all the time. A day trip by bus to Martock for a group ski.
Blood Drive - a collaboration with Canadian Blood Services to collect blood donations, which is always in demand. Might do this as a competition with a Dal society to see who collects more blood.
50th Annual Business Dinner - This year for the dinner we'll have 12 months rather than 3 to prep for it, and we intend to go all out with a significantly larger venue, many more sponsors to network with, and no holds barred on decor!
Volunteering
We were so happy to see the overwhelming demand to volunteer for RMHC this year from our members, and want to offer a larger supply for this demand. To that end, we will have at least 5 different short-term volunteering opportunities with non-profits and charities for members throughout the academic year rather than just one.
Umbrella Societies
One of the most unfortunate things for Commerce related societies in recent years is that they have been having trouble getting off the ground. To help with this, we wish to revive an old system of the society where we take other Commerce related societies under our "umbrella." The framework of this would be the following:
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The Commerce society would assist societies with gaining the support and membership to get off the ground and ratify.
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Each society under the umbrella would work together to cross-promote events and keep collaboration events regularly on the table.
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Each society would remain autonomous under their own executive leadership for operations. The Commerce society will not run the show.
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The umbrella will only contain societies that fall under Commerce.
If you're considering starting up a society related to commerce, approach us sometime in the future, and we'll see what we can do to support!
Collaboration
We intend to work more closely with other societies in general to support each other in the pursuit of giving benefits to our student peers. We wish to cross-promote and keep potential collaboration talks open between the many unique and awesome societies SMU currently has.
We're also looking at opportunities to connect with our Commerce Brothers-In-Arms at Dalhousie, opportunities of which have been disappointingly lacking in recent memory despite our half mile separation.
New Newsletter
We want our weekly newsletter to be one of the best sources you can have to stay in the loop for different opportunities. To that end, the newsletter will expand into a newsletter with separate sections.
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What we are doing.
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What other SMU societies are doing.
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Non-SMU Opportunities.
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A small piece of society or SMU history.
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An interesting SMU related photo submitted by one of our members
This effort will also require a revamp of our website, so everything you see from our newsletter is reflected on our website, and vice versa.
New Merchandise
We plan to design and offer a new society shirt that has a better manufacturing quality and unique design to have a shirt that our members will want to wear. Depending on demand, we may expand to other merch such as hoodies or quarter zips. We intend to open up logo commissions from members as well to bring in a separate logo than just the SMU Acorn.
New Team Structure
Our executive team will need to grow in order to accomplish everything we want to. With that in mind, we are going to add some new roles to our executive team and add associate positions to certain roles that will need more manpower. The idea will have the director/coordinator/officer roles be execs who have a bit more responsibility and past experience. Meanwhile, the associate roles will be for those with passion and not necessarily having past experience. The responsibility will be somewhat lower for associates, but there will always be opportunity for any member to go beyond their expected tasks, especially if they want to lead their own projects/events.
This new structure will raise our team of 11 to a team of 22, containing the following roles:
Role | Description |
|---|---|
Co-Presidents (2) | The all-rounders who plan and lead events and operations. |
Vice President - Internal | Assists Co-Presidents in planning internal events and manages society members who perform tasks falling under internal activity. |
Vice President - External | Assists Co-Presidents in planning external events and manages society members who perform tasks falling under external activity. |
Administrative Assistant | Records minutes for meetings, keeps files and systems clean, plans activities and events with Co-Presidents and VPs. |
Financial Director | Uses various accounting templates to balance books, writes cheques for society expenses, works with Co-Presidents for preparing fundraising events. |
Internal Engagement Officer | Finds and communicates with SMU sources for collaboration and support. Also puts up posters on campus and will speak in front of classes to promote our galas. |
External Engagement Officer | Finds and communicates with external sources for events involving external organizations. |
IT Director | Creates, monitors, and updates website and various ticketing systems. |
Volunteering Coordinator | Researches and contacts non-profits and charities for preparing volunteering events and directs the volunteers in said events. |
Social Media Director | Creates society posters and posts said posters on our social media platforms. Also maintains our social accounts in general. |
Creative Marketing Director | Writes the scripts, records, and edits short form video content for our social media platforms. |
Communications Director | Creates the weekly newsletter with updated content in each newsletter. |
1st Year Representative | Represents the first year student body as a source for society inquiries from new students. Also works with the Internal Engagement Officer to promote our events. |
If you have read everything up to this point, well first off thank you! Second off, we hope you're as excited for some of the stuff we have planned as we are. We (Eli and Jay) intend to dedicate a lot of time over the summer preparing the Society to start next year off strong, and plan to keep going strong through the whole year! If you have any ideas yourself for us to improve the society, or events you'd like to see, etc. Let us know in the form below. We promise to take any suggestions seriously and will consider implementing them!
Final Remarks (Hiring Opportunity)
Seeing as you read up to this point, you're probably someone that we would want on our executive team! As we stated, we're going to need a larger team to accomplish what we wish to do, and many of our current executive will be leaving, so there are plenty of positions that we will be filling very soon.
Working as an executive for our society will allow you to volunteer for the largest, most consistently running non-profit society at SMU. While holding an executive position is a non-paid role, you will gain professional experience, lead some independent projects, and reap the rewards of having a reputable position within SMU on your CV. We also have an office on campus with a printer, fridge, and coloured LED lights if that helps as an incentive.
Although the vast marketable experiences you'll undergo as an executive are certainly good additions to your CV, we really want candidates that share our goals. This isn't some up-in-the-sky idea, we as Commerce students, literally in the School of Business, are the best equipped to make change happen, and as you can see from ideas, we want transformative change. The Commerce program represents well over 1/3 of all students on campus, and it's about time that their flagship Society start acting like it, and we need you to help us get there. We want you to be on those prints that students 20-30 years down the road look up to as examples on how to make an impact on their fellow students, while having the time of their lives at university. You can make change happen, and we wouldn't be putting in all this work if we didn't think that to be true.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a society at SMU that will be operating at our level of organized structure and accomplishment. We (Jay & Eli) have consulted many experts and will be dedicating countless hours over the summer towards building a structure and instructions to make all role tasks operate efficiently, to save our executives from excessive busywork and crunch.
If you're ready to get on the front-lines of transforming the student experience here at Saint Mary's, surrounded by supportive peers that share your vision, we highly encourage you to have a look at our list of available roles and consider applying to be an executive!
Below, you'll find a link to a document outlining in detail the tasks, workload, etc. of each executive position, along with essential information for anyone interested in working for the society. The document also contains a link for you to apply to be an executive for the 2024-2025 academic year. Applications are open now until May 1st at 11:59 PM. Following your application, we will let you know if you've been selected for a 20-25 minute interview to see if you'll be a great fit for the team. We look forward to potentially working with you in the future!