Hello! My name is Bianca, I am part of both the website development team and the Board of the Romanian Student Association. Today, I want to tell you how it is to be part of an association and show you the advantages and disadvantages of being part of the Board. Let’s begin with some explanations.
RSA membership and Board
Let’s break down how RSA works! At the Romanian Student Association, we have 3 types of memberships:
- Regular member: you pay the annual contribution and have access to member-only events, and discounts, and can further join a committee.
- Committee member: you are a member and choose to join one or more of the three committees (Events, Educational, Digital), each with their focus and tasks. As a committee member, you brainstorm and plan events, attend regular meetings, and volunteer at the events.
- Board member: our board consists of 3 mandatory positions (President, Treasurer, Secretary) and 3 additional ones (Internal Affairs, External Affairs and Social Media Manager) which are in charge of the committees (Educational, Events, Digital). Each year, as a member, you have the chance to apply for any of the positions. We supervise the committees, and members, and go over events and project proposals. Moreover, we take care of the well-being of the association and its members and focus on RSA’s mission to be achieved.
My story
In 2021, I started studying Business Information Technology at the University of Twente. At first, I knew only a few people from Romania who were already studying here or had just begun their studies. From some of them, I first heard about the Romanian Student Association, one of the many associations at UTwente. As I was a first-year Romanian student just starting to understand how student life and university work, I decided to join an event at RSA. There, I met very friendly people from different years of study and specializations, with diverse backgrounds and from different places, all with one thing in common: they were all Romanians trying to integrate into this largely international environment and have a small space feel like a glimpse of home. This was the moment I decided to join RSA and the Digital Committee.
A few months later, after working on small tasks like content creation for Instagram or giving feedback for event posters, an opportunity arose: there was a vacant position in the Extended Board of RSA: Head of Digital Committee. Even if I did not know at the time if I could take on such a position as I had only basic knowledge of team management or creative software, I decided to take the chance and apply. Fortunately, I was accepted, and my Board journey began. Since then, I have been a board member of RSA for 2 years. Due to internal changes, there is no Extended Board anymore, only the main Board, consisting of 6 positions. Currently, I am the Social Media Manager of RSA.
My attributions
As Social Media Manager, what I usually take care of is the brainstorming and creation of all of our marketing campaigns. In other words, every time we begin a project or decide to organise an event, I have to make a strategy plan, which consists of all platforms we want to use, what visuals we have to make if we want to use a paid promotion or not, and how we are we implementing the strategy and when. Usually, we follow the same strategy:
- Set platforms and types of promotion. Our main focus is online promotion through Instagram and Facebook, but we also promote events using WhatsApp (our WhatsApp community and local communities that share events) and email. Besides online marketing, we also use offline promotion: printed posters and flyers spread around the campus.
- Create visuals. Usually, I create the main poster first, then adapt the design to all other platforms. Even if we have a main branding for RSA, we aim to have unique branding for each campaign.
- Plan paid promotion. For some events, we are using Instagram Story Ads that require specific content and follow the platform’s guidelines.
- Set timelines and share. After the visuals are done, we set the timing we want to use for each post and story and follow those when starting the promotion.
As a Board member, I attend regular meetings with my colleagues, sometimes attend committee meetings, and closely supervise the Digital Committee. Moreover, I try to attend all events so I can support our members, focus not only on the “before event” promotion but also on the “during event” promotion, and update our community.
Why should you apply for Board?
For me, joining the association and then the Board was a decision that helped my further development in many ways. Therefore, let me tell you what advantages I had during the past 2 years:
- Teamwork: I have learned to work with different types of people in different contexts, from more formal ones such as organizing events and planning to informal settings such as board game nights.
- Planning: at RSA, I have learned how events are organised at UT and outside UT, and how to create a marketing plan
- Networking: RSA is a place open to everybody, even people from outside of Romania. I have met people from different backgrounds with diverse expertise, made new friends, and discovered new opportunities.
- Time management: even if the association and board do not take too much time usually, as the Social media manager I had to learn to divide my time to balance my studies, work, and board duties.
- Creative space: in my position, I had the chance to explore and expand my design skills. For example, with the portfolio I have created for RSA, I had the chance to get my first paid job at Green Hub Twente.
Why should you NOT apply for Board?
Even if there are valuable experiences and skills to gain when joining the RSA Board, there are also many challenges to tackle. Let’s see some examples:
- Preconceptions: unfortunately, there are still people who follow conservative stereotypes about Romania and the Romanian community and as an association, we had to focus on how to minimise these situations and bring a new perspective.
- Time-consuming: even if there is not a constant number of hours to be put on for the Board, there are periods when we get pretty busy. For example, as our target audience is mainly students, we often organise informal events such as parties at the end of the modules and the preparations overlap with the exam period.
- New generations, less implication: newer generations arriving at UT are less interested in activities like volunteering and are harder to work with from a board perspective.
Further remarks
All in all, I believe that joining the Romanian Student Association is a great opportunity for any student, and I encourage you, our reader, to seek any opportunities that arise, you may never know how they can turn out! For me, joining the association and the Board represented a first step in a journey of self-discovery, skills development and new experiences.