Minutes - 13 Oct '07
Minutes (13/10/07)
Date: Saturday, 13th October 2007
Time: 10.30am - 2pm
Venue: BPP Law School, 68 - 70 Red Lion Street WC1
Chair: Carol Thompson - president
In Attendance:
Allison Kramer - King's College London
Angelika Procak - Essex University
Clemens Kueppers - Kingston University
James Dawson - BPP Law School '06
Jivaan Bennett - King's College London
MHA Salek - London University (Ext)
Simone Carrea - UCL (Erasmus)
Timothy Rawlings - LSE
Ulrich Zanconato - UCL (Erasmus)
Apologies:
Amelia Aladho
Franziska Hirsch
Gemma Carolissen
Latoya Austin
Failed to attend:
Annabel Poon
Chandni Sood
Edel Woods
Effy Robinson
Lucy Baker
Maria Arbuzova
Michala Dobiasova
Monique Wyatt
THE INNOCENCE PROJECT
1. ELSA will go ahead with the Innocence Project. Four members will attend the training weekend at Bristol University on 2 - 4 November and then report back to the committee.
Bristol University Innocence Project
Innocence UK network website(Innocence UK network)
Leeds University Innocence Project
2. Salek will contact councils to enquire about the possibility of a room for the Innocence Project. Carol will contact London University contacts, Middle Temple and Inner Temple to enquire about same. James will make enquiries at Westminster and Lincoln's Inn. Time scale 2 - 3 weeks so that we know by the time we go to Bristol.
THE LAW REVIEW
1. Clemens will assume responsibility for this. He will present his plan at next Saturday's meeting. It was unanimously agreed that an annual printed law review (with quality content) will enhance ELSA London's reputation and lead to more sponsorship opportunities. Bearing in mind the huge number of law schools in and around London, getting enough content for the Law Review will not be a difficulty.
2. It was also agreed that the format of the printed/hard copy law review should be A4 rather than A5.
3. Research needs to be done on the actual printing costs of the magazine and what size print run will be the most economical. Once we have some quotes, Carol will contact friends in Lithuania to see how competitive their pricing will be.
4. Free copies of the printed law review will be given to sponsors (actual and potential), ELSA London members, UK university law libraries, National ELSA boards,and local UK ELSA boards (e.g. Bristol, Cambridge, Durham).
4. It was agreed that in addition to the printed Law Review, we will have an online law review. ELSA London first attempted this in 2005/2006 but the idea was never developed to its full potential due to lack of qualified volunteers willing to assume editorial roles.
5. An ultimate goal in years to come, would be to establish a strong ELSA London Law Review brand and to have a dedicated website so that maximum exposure both nationally and internationally can be achieved - something similar to the Harvard Law Review
ELSA NEWSLETTER
1. It was agreed that the newsletter should be revived. Carol produced one issue in December as a pdf but the new ELSA London website will have Turning Pages software which will make reading an online newsletter or magazine much easier. Salek agreed to help produce the newsletter.
2. As with the Law Review, perhaps the best articles from several issues of the newsletter could form the basis of content for a glossy bi-annual magazine?
ELSA MAGAZINE
1. It was agreed that an ELSA Magazine is different to a Law Review.
2. Whereas the Law Review should be a prestigious and serious academic publication marketed primarily towards academia, the legal profession, law students and sponsors, the magazine should be an advert for ELSA London as a group. It should be used to publicise activities, events and achievements. It should contain entertaining and informative articles with pictures etc it should appeal to all students, not just those studying law.
3. It was agreed that some case reviews or legal updates could be included in the magazine - provided they were current. These should not, however, be the main focus of the magazine.
SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES
1. Ulrich was very keen to organise a lecture or panel discussion but it was pointed out that there are already a number of such free events happening in London.
ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES
1. It was agreed that staging a Moot Competition open to teams from all UK law schools would be a good idea. It was decided that the Moot topic should be one of the core law degree modules rather than a niche or specialist subject as this would encourage greater participation.
2. Ulrich and Simone agreed to organise a moot competition - topic as yet undecided.
3. It was felt that it would be a good idea to run some workshops so that members could get the chance to develop mooting and/or debating skills. James said that he would make enquiries at Lincoln's Inn to see whether there might be any lawyers willing to help with this. Ulrich said he would make enquiries at UCL. Angelika mentioned that Essex had several experienced mooters who might be persuaded to help provided not too much time commitment was required. It was agreed that the workshops need only be a couple of hours and that once people had been trained, it should, hopefully, be possible for them to pass on their skills to others in subsequent workshops.
4. Ulrich, James and Angelika will report back to the committee next week on whether or not they have found some workshop trainers.
5. We will look at running other competitions, which will be easy to organise e.g. debating, essay writing, etc providing we are able to get more helpers.
MULTI MEDIA
It was agreed that ELSA London needs to look at marketing ourselves through multimedia. In addition to the social network, we will look at creating training videos (filming workshops and competitions) and corporate style videos (explaining ELSA) which will be uploaded on to the new website and the social network groups. Carol was going to approach media students for volunteers, but Angelika said that she had a friend who was a professional film-maker. The group unanimously agreed that Angelika should ask her friend to help us. She will let us know his answer next week.
SOCIAL
Allison said she would be happy to arrange a social but she felt that Halloween (31 Oct) was too soon. She will look at possibilities for Guy Fawkes (Nov 5th) but again there were issues with different Reading Weeks. She will do some research and provide feedback to the committee next Saturday..
EUROPEAN VOLUNTEER SERVICE
Carol will be attending a training course next week in Edinburgh where she will be able to network with key stakeholders and also learn about which projects are likely to be successful when applying for grants from the European Commission. She will then submit an EI ("Expression of Interest") under Action 2 of the Youth in Action programme for ELSA London to become an approved sending organisation. If we are accepted, it will mean that we will be able to cover 100% travel costs of volunteers that we send away as well as provide them with some pocket money while they are away. FAQs about EVS
FUTURE MEETINGS
It was agreed that the next meeting should be held at BPP on Saturday 27th October. The meeting will have a short agenda. Thereafter, it was agreed that Committee meetings should initially be held at two-weekly intervals. It was agreed that Saturdays would be the most convenient day and that the start time should be 11am.
