Advocacy
Advocacy is largely invisible. Perhaps the biggest and most important task is to investigate advocacy cases. This task involves reviewing various documents, such as the degree regulations, sending emails and, if necessary, meetings with the teaching staff.
The challenge of reporting of the advocacy is that things are often confidential in one way or another. Often, the students who have contacted METKA are best able to tell about the usefulness or uselessness of METKA’s advocacy.
In addition, some advocacy issues are moving slowly forward and sometimes progress happens in bigger leaps. Sometimes there is no reform going on in Metropolia or nationwide in which METKA could participate and take a stand. That is when our advocacy in particular is that invisible grinding. Sometimes, on the other hand, we make a lot of outputs when things are topical. The task of METKA’s advocacy is to influence students’ affairs and make ourselves unnecessary. However, the work does not end immediately, as the world is constantly changing.
Tutoring
Tutoring is perhaps the most visible part of METKA’s operations. Each student has met their own tutors at the beginning. More than 300 tutors are trained each year, as each group has its own tutoring team to help get studies started.
Coordinating tutoring is a big task. It involves, among other things, training the entire 300 person gang and planning training. Facilities, speakers, lunch and other necessary equipment will be provided for the training.
METKA does not require membership from tutors, although many other student unions do. This is often discussed in different contexts, but METKA believes that everyone should have the opportunity to tutor.
Events
The Covid pandemic has dimished the field of events tremendously. Just when we were able to organize events again, the Omicron variant came and stopped everything.
More events are often expected from METKA. Before Covid, according to an event survey conducted in 2019, non-alcoholic events in particular have been desired. METKA strives to take into account a wide range of preferences when planning events. For example, MetroSport, which is open to all students, brings together actors in sports and well-being. At the event, you can try different sports or get your tight neck treated by Metropolia’s osteopathy students.
For lovers of more traditional student events, Metropolia is definitely one of the best places to study! Metropolia has 12 student associations that organize events. In good times, there could be several events a week. Very few events in student associations are restricted to students in a particular field. For the most part, everyone is welcome, although the ticket price may be a little cheaper for a member.
Sports
Sports services for students were integrated into METKA’s membership in 2018. At the same time, Zone was created, which provides services to students from all Universities of Applied Sciences in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Before Zone, METKA produced its own sports services. The member obtained these services by paying for a separate sports pass, the price of which was not included in the membership.
Today, Zone’s services are included in the price of membership. The services started at the same time as the membership fee increased significantly. Many people might wonder if the membership fee went up because Zone was incorporated into the membership. At that time, however, preparing for the decline in membership and developing operations became part of membership at the same time.
Affordable access to sports services for all students is an advocacy issue: we want to offer every student the opportunity to move cheaply compared to, for example, the monthly fees of commercial operators.
In addition to Zone, METKA has two sports projects: Metropolia On The Move and MyActiveCampus. The goal of both is to get students moving, not in the form of sweat exercise, but by developing campuses into places where it is easy to increase activity.
Member services and communication
Member services and communications go through all METKA’s. Member services include M-piste service points, chat and all matters related to membership information. METKA has one full-time employee to make sure that everyone’s Kide.App memberships, Zone Sports Passes etc. work fluently. The task involves a lot of handwork, and the rather time-consuming task of member services is really important for METKA.
METKA strives to communicate its operations openly and regularly. However, communication channels only reach some of the students. Only some students follow METKA’s social media or visit METKA’s website. Newsletters are only sent to members.
While reducing paper usage and switching more and more to digital are basically a good thing, posters and table triangles still have their place in communication. By placing paper ads where students move, we also reach those students who do not follow our digital communication channels.
This post is also available in Suomi.