EnviroWestern Member's Guide to Involvement

What is EnviroWestern?
EnviroWestern is a service of your University Students' Council, providing action, advocacy, and tons of awesome involvement opportunities for all of Western. In short: we are the student answer to environmental issues. We are structured similar to a club (we started out as one), but because we are a "Service" (and funded by the USC), we do not have membership fees. We are also well organized, and have lots of amazing resources at our disposal to help us make things happen. PrideWestern and the Women's Issues Network are similar, in that they too are membership-based USC services.

How often do we meet? / What is a "Project Team"?
The way we're organized is actually a bit complicated, but once you understand it, you'll see why it works well for us (and for you!). We only have a few general meetings per year (a minimum of 2, and as many as 3 or 4 depending on various factors). There are several more meetings/events that occur during the year within our "project teams", each of which focuses on a particular issue or activity, has its own project leaders, its own mailing lists, and its own meetings/event. The number of meetings/events you are invited out to will depend on the number of project teams you sign up for (you can sign up for one, none, eight, whatever you like!).

If you're not on a project team, there are still a lot of "general" things that happen, which everyone is invited to be involved in (like EnviroWeek), but the project teams are meant to operate fairly independently. The reason we do this is because, the issues we focus on are too diverse to expect everyone to want to be involved with everything we do. Splitting up into units of smaller project teams makes communication easier, makes the people involved more focused, makes us more efficient, and ultimately it gives you a huge amount of flexibility as a member in what to be involved with.

How do I sign up for project teams?
There will be sign-up sheets at the first meeting. Alternatively, you can learn about and sign up for projects on the "our projects" section of this website to be added to the mailing list. Project Team leader emails are also listed all together on the Executive page.

What kind of Committment do we expect from you?
We do not have any expectation of a "committment" from you to be involved. We do our very best to provide you with opportunities to be involved in projects that are having an impact on campus, and work with other people who share your passion. We provide the organization, the leadership, and the budget to make those projects possible, but it's up to you, and your time management skills to what extent you become involved in our activities. When you sign up for EnviroWestern and our project teams, you'll be invited out to meeting/events, and (although we hope you can come to some of it) we certainly won't punish you if you don't.

Are there exec positions available?
We will be looking for experienced and enthusiastic members to fill vacancies at our AGM in September and at the end of the year in April.

Even if you are a first-time member, leadership positions are a possibility. You can even lead a project team of your own if you have a good idea for one. One of the good things about being split into project teams is that it offers a lot of opportunities for our members. You can get a better sense of where you would feel most comfortable contributing after being with us for a while.