The Journal provides free space in our print edition and online for parties on the referendum ballot. All statements are unedited.

Triennial Review

Queen’s Half the Sky

Queen’s Half the Sky is an on-campus club whose main objective is to create awareness of particular issues affecting women globally, nationally, and locally.

More specifically QHTS focuses on women’s education, maternal and reproductive rights, ending sex trafficking, and economic empowerment for women. QHTS recognizes the need to address these various issues domestically and in our own communities, which is why each year we select multiple local charities to donate to. This year we have selected the HIV/AIDS Regional Services and the Dawn House as the local organizations to receive our donations. Not only locally, but internationally we support organizations that align strongly with our vision; this year we will be supporting Girls Not Brides; an organization dedicated to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfill their potential.

The revenue from a student fee will make a huge difference for QHTS. Additional funds will allow us to run awareness campaigns, organize events, and ultimately create a space where students who are interested in our vision can come together, take collective action, and have a hand in making a difference or women on a local and international level.

The student fee works to allow us the resources we need to run a more successful club, hosting larger events and educating more students on issues that women face everyday. QHTS caters to a niche subject; the student fee helps us to increase our presence on campus via events such as speaker series, club nights, and clothing drives throughout the year.

Queen’s Health Outreach

Queen’s Health Outreach (QHO) prides itself in being a student run, non-profit organization dedicated to health awareness. QHO is continuously evolving alongside of partnering communities on intuitive, through a needs-based peer educator system. QHO aims to enhance the organization’s sustainability by partnering with like-minded organizations both locally and internationally.

In past years QHO has used the money received from the student fee to fund the resources required to deliver engaging and effective lessons to grade-school aged students. This includes resources for classrooms and outreach events that unite the students with their communities. The money has also been used to assist with the total cost of a Peer Educator on initiative. QHO is an equal opportunity organization who strives to allow all students the opportunity to apply for the position of being a Peer Educator without worrying about financing the program. Through the student fee, all students as Queen’s are assisting in making a positive difference for youth both locally and abroad. 

 Students for Wishes

Students for Wishes® Queen’s University is the Kingston volunteer branch of Make-A-Wish® Eastern Ontario. We are the first and only entirely student-run branch of the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Canada, and part of the largest wish granting organization in the world! We are dedicated to improving the lives of children in our community, and 100% of our fundraising proceeds go towards wish granting and raising awareness about the Make-A-Wish Foundation both on and off campus. As the Kingston volunteer branch of Make-A-Wish, we are responsible for all local fundraising as well as granting the wishes in Kingston. Through granting the wishes of local Kingston children with life threatening medical conditions, we seek to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy.

Any funding received will go toward offsetting a small amount of costs associated with hosting and raising awareness for our annual events. All left-over funds go directly toward granting the wishes of local Kingston children with life-threatening medical conditions. To provide a more tangible figure – fees raised from Queen’s University students help grant one child’s entire wish (whether that be to see their favourite celebrity or to take a trip with their whole family!)

SHRC

Vote yes…yes…YES! (to the continuation of the SHRC’s fee, that is)

The Sexual Health Resource Centre (SHRC) is a confidential, non-judgmental, feminist, pro choice, queer-positive, non-heterosexist, and sex positive information and referral service for all things sex, sexuality and sexual health. We operate out of JDUC 223 selling safer sex products and toys at cost, lending books out of out sexual health library, and providing information and referrals to clients. We are also active in the broader community, distributing condoms through on-campus dispensers and at local events , and presenting sexual health workshops to campus residences and other groups.

Additionally, we provide accompaniment services to the Women’s Clinic for clients accessing abortion services and the Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Unit for clients who have been sexually assaulted. We are an active contributor to the community and truly a one-stop shop for all your sex and sexual health needs!

The SHRC is a completely volunteer-run and not-for-profit organization, and has been serving Queen’s and the surrounding community for forty years. We have had a mandatory fee since 2004, which has helped us to greatly improve the quality and accessibility of our services. The mandatory fee allows us to train volunteers, maintain condom dispensers, provide teach-ins for thousands of participants, and expand our product selection and service offerings. We are seeking continued financial support from the Queen’s community this year, and urge you to vote YES in favour of maintaining our $1.00 fee. Gaels and Kingstonians alike are grateful for your support!

United Way

The Queen’s United Way Committee is composed of 10-15 members (plus an additional 10-15 volunteers) and serves to fundraise for the United Way Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox, and Addington (KFL&A) branch, as well as raise awareness about the United Way and the United Way’s agencies on campus. The Queen’s United Way Committee focuses on three pillars: fundraising, outreach, and awareness. On this basis, we create events – such as the United Way Kick Off BBQ and the Annual Food and Clothing Drive – that raise money and resources necessary to provide support to members of the Kingston community.

The Queen’s United Way Committee is particularity proud of fundraising for agencies the directly support student wellness, making our committee an integral part of the Queen’s student experience. The student fee itself has been used to support United Way funded agencies in providing services that enhance the wellness, experience, and functioning of the Kingston community and its members. The student fee is used by the United Way KFL&A to support a broad range of organizations that aim to strengthen the Kingston by providing vital services such as counselling, mental health support, a sexual assault centre and food security among many others. Overall, the student fee gives the United Way KFL&A the opportunity to provide essential, high quality and accessible services to the community and students, while simultaneously creating student leaders and positively changing the way the public perceives Queen’s students.

Queen’s Soul Food

Soul Food is a non-for-profit organization that is dedicated to addressing issues surrounding poverty and food security. Hunger is one of the most easily solvable issues as there are enough resources for everyone. One of our major initiatives that we do utilizing the student fee is our cafeteria run. Everyday after dinner, we send volunteers who pick up the unused, leftover cafeteria food and deliver them to shelters around Kingston. In the past we have regularly delivered food to Dawnhouse, Kingston Youth Shelter, In from the Cold, and Ryandale. Usually there is one volunteer per cafeteria (Ban Righ, Leonard, and Jean Royce) that has access to a car so they drive to and from the shelters from the cafeterias. However, there are times when we are unable to locate a driver and rather than abandoning the run that night, we tell the volunteers to use a taxi. A major expense for us is taxi usage to ensure that the shelters have food. Queen’s Soul Food also hosts events that promote awareness about poverty and food security such as speaker events and awareness on campus. We raise awareness in the cafeterias about food waste as well with posters and pamphlets. All the activities that we have undertaken were to promote awareness for poverty and food security.

Queen’s University Best Buddies

Queen’s University Best Buddies is a campus affiliate of Best Buddies Canada, an organization that aims to provide people with intellectual/developmental disabilities the chance to have experiences that many people take for granted. Queen’s University Best Buddies facilitates and supports friendships between students and individuals with intellectual disabilities in the Kingston community. Students are paired with a buddy and are responsible for contacting their buddy regularly and meeting their buddy biweekly for a one-on-one activity. These friendships are intended to be similar to any other friendships and time spent together may include going for coffee, watching movies, going to the mall, attending a local sporting event, engaging in physical activity, or another mutually enjoyable activity. At least once a month, we host chapter-wide group events where everyone is invited to socialize with other buddy pairs and enjoy refreshments, crafts, dancing, and various other activities.

In the past, we have funded our activities through opt-outable student fees, which we hope we will continue to do in the future. We receive the majority of our funding from student fees and, in past years, this money has been sufficient to cover all our expenses. The money we receive from student fees pays for food/catering, decorations, equipment/room rentals, craft/activity supplies, and miscellaneous other costs associated with running our numerous chapter-wide events held throughout the year. This year (2015-2106), we have the following events planned: October is a Halloween Party, November is the Kingston Santa Claus Parade, December is a Christmas Movie, January is a Kingston Frontenacs hockey game, February is a Valentines Party, March is an Easter Party and April is a Spring Fling/End-of-Year Party.

Queen’s Social Investment Initiative

The Queen’s Social Investment Initiative (“QS2I”) is the first university-based impact investing organization in Canada. We engage and assist local development groups in low-income markets that have the potential to create employment/growth capacity for their communities. Our investment fund is sourced from annual student opt-out fees, which is in turn used to make business loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries through our local field partners. Our local field partners currently include Peter Morrin, a Queen’s Engineering Alumnus, and Educate!, a Clinton Global Initiative recognized NGO that provides entrepreneurship training to high school students across Uganda. Through investments, QS2I’s goal is to increase the access to capital for young, educated entrepreneurs, reducing youth unemployment and assisting in breaking the cycle of poverty for future generations. Through education, QS2I’s goal is to increase awareness and knowledge on campus about impact investing, microfinance and social entrepreneurship. We also seek to connect passionate students to organizations and individuals who work in the field for learning and career opportunities. We do this predominantly through two annual events, the Queen’s Microcredit Competition and a Symposium on Economic Development, as well as other smaller events.

Students for Literacy

Queen’s Students for Literacy was established as a branch of Frontier College, a Canada wide literacy organization in 1899. Queen’s Students for Literacy runs three different programs, Literacy Outreach, Prison Literacy Initiative and Read for Fun. Each program focuses its efforts on helping different groups in the Kingston community build their literacy skills and foster a love of reading and writing. Our read for fun program, consisting of over 100 tutors, services over 100 elementary school students in the Kingston community, building their reading, writing, and numeracy abilities. Often these children utilize our free one-on-one tutoring program to build upon what is learned in the classroom, and to provide additional assistance and customized learning not available at school.

Our Literacy Outreach program works with children and adults staying at Lily’s Place and Interval House shelters in the Kingston community. Building a love of reading and providing additional academic and mentorship support for these kids is our primary objective, while providing child supervision for parents in the process. Our Prison Literacy Initiative program consists of more than thirty tutors who work with inmates at Joyceville minimum, Collins bay minimum, medium and maximum security prisons. Tutoring sessions aim to work on individual projects, skill development and group learning sessions, all with the goal of providing these people with the tools for success in life after their time in prison, with the goal of reducing recidivism.

Funds acquired through our student opt-out fee are essential to providing our tutors with transportation to the 14 locations in the Kingston community where our tutoring takes place. Without our student fee we would be unable to provide transportation for our tutors, lack the funding required to cover recruitment, hiring, club administration and miscellaneous classroom supply costs.

Queen’s for OOCH

Queen’s for OOCH aims to raise funds and awareness for Camp Oochigeas. Camp Oochigeas is a non-profit camp for children with cancer whose goal is to allow these children to be children once again. They also run programs for children affected by cancer (bereaved siblings), day camps, and activities in Downtown Toronto. Many students at Queen’s are familiar with OOCH and the work that it does, and our organization provides a community for people who believe in summer camp for all. In the past, we use our student fee to purchase goods for our events, so that all the money that we raise can be donated to Camp Oochigeas.

Sustainability Action Fund

The Sustainability Action Fund (SAF) is a grant operated out of the Commission of the Environment and Sustainability (CES) that awards money to groups looking to either run new sustainability themed projects on campus or to improve their existing operations. For example, in the past couple granting periods, we’ve funded the first ever Queen’s Sustainability Conference, a campus greenhouse (in progress), the Queen’s Solar Design Team’s incredible solar-powered house, local food for the AMS Food Bank, and lots more!

Any individual, club, organization, or service is eligible to submit an application for student-run projects that increase campus energy efficiency, reduce waste, educate the Queen’s community on sustainability-related issues, or any other environmentally friendly initiative that will impact students. This student fee is extremely beneficial for the Queen’s community, as it provides more opportunities for students to get involved in environmentalism and actively encourages the implementation of more sustainable projects at our university.

Queen’s Legal Aid

Queen’s Legal Aid has been helping people in the Queen’s and Kingston communities for over 40 years. Those of you who have been to Queen’s Legal Aid will know that we provide free legal services in a number of areas of the law. Queen’s students currently pay a mandatory $5.00 student fee to Queen’s Legal Aid. As a result of this fee, Queen’s students automatically qualify for our legal services without having to meet our financial criteria.

If you have a landlord who is trying to evict you, or refuses to do needed repairs, Queen’s Legal Aid may be able to help. We may be able to assist if you had too much fun one night, got into trouble with the police, and were charged with a minor criminal offence such as drug possession, assault or shoplifting. We may also be able to go to Small Claims Court when your deadbeat housemate will not pay any of the bills. Specifically for students, we offer assistance with the Ontario Student Assistance Plan problems, or when facing the AMS judicial prosecutor. We also provide Notary Public and Commissioner for Oaths services to certify documents and commission Statutory Declarations.

Your $5.00 levy also helps support the work we do for low-income Kingston area residents. Not only do we provide a valuable service for our students, we help to achieve access to justice for our community.

We hope that you never have to use our services, but many have needed us and found it extremely helpful. Your $5.00 helps us help you.

If you have a legal question you’d like some help with, or for more information, please drop by our office at the Queen’s Law Clinics, 5th Floor, 303 Bagot Street (La Salle Mews building) or call us at 613-533-2102. Everything is confidential.

Thank you for your support.

Queen’s University Blood Team

The Queen’s University Blood Team works with Canadian Blood Services to raise awareness about blood donation on campus. We work to reduce the stigma associated with blood donation on campus and in the Kingston community through education. As well as providing an accessible, easy, comfortable and safe spaces for donating blood on campus. Our team facilitates on campus blood clinics once a month in either the BioScience Complex or the Athletics and Recreation Center(ARC). We also run a LifeBus bi-weekly that brings students from campus to the Kingston Blood Clinic to donate blood. To promote our LifeBus, we run a booth twice a week in the ARC to allow students to sign up for blood donation appointments. Additionally, the Queen’s University Blood Team runs Special Events throughout the year including several large OneMatch Get Swabbed events. OneMatch is Canada’s Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Registry and through these events we add interested students into the registry. We believe that through encouraging students to donate when they are in school, we create life long donors who will save hundreds of lives.

Vogue Charity Fashion Show

Vogue Charity Fashion Show (VCFS) is the largest student-run fashion show at Queen’s. Every year we strive to combine charity work with the arts in a creative and innovative way to catch the attention of the Queen’s Community. Throughout the year we put on various events which culminate with an annual fashion show in the Spring. All of the proceeds are donated to a different local charity at the end of the academic year. Our show combines the talents of models, dancers, musicians, choreographers, designers, makeup artists and many others. VCFS strives to put to use the amazing talent found here at Queen’s in order to improve the community that we are all a part of. Further, we hope each year to promote our charities with enough success that they are able to maintain a strong presence on campus after our formal partnership concludes.

Last year VCFS donated $43, 000 to Jack.org to help raises awareness for issues related to mental health and fund their “Bounce Back” program here at Queen’s. This year VCFS is supporting the Happy Soul Project, an amazing initiative that aims to remove the stigmas attached to differences with the end goal of having everyone embrace their differences with pride. We will be helping to fund their “Kick-it Capes” initiative which sends capes to children in need, allowing them to be their own heroes in their time of need. The funds collected will be used to help us throw events that will raise awareness for the Happy Soul Project and any leftover will be donated to the charity at the end of year.

QBACC

Queen’s Backing Action on Climate Change (QBACC) is a student-run environmental activism group that seeks to respond to the seriousness of climate change and other prominent environmental issues. As such, we hope to engage the Queen’s and Kingston communities with the environmental problems faced by current and future generations. QBACC is part of a growing movement of global citizens concerned about the future of our planet, and aims to send a strong message to other institutions and to all levels of government that action on climate change is an urgent priority.

We also hope to motivate and empower students to make greater efforts to be sustainable – challenging them to think beyond recycling and eco-friendly consumerism. Hence, we provide opportunities to adapt a more sustainable lifestyle. Keeping this objective in mind, this year on October 22nd, we have put together a career networking event in the renewable energy industry to help students embody sustainability in their futures.

It is important that we foster a sustainable relationship with our environment. Likewise, at QBACC we believe in the right to a healthy environment. As a result, we have decided to participate in the Blue Dot movement, a project of the David Suzuki Foundation, to ensure that clean water, fresh air, and healthy foods are recognized as human rights in Canada.

For our actions to bring about true change, we recognize the need to provide everyone with the opportunity to engage with these issues. Consequently, QBACC is always seeking new members, including students, faculty, staff, and other members of our community. If you are interested in getting involved please email us at queensbacc@gmail.com.

New or Altering Fees

MEDLIFE

MEDLIFE is an international NGO that provides access to medicine, education, and development in impoverished communities, with the ultimate goal of sustainably improving quality of life. MEDLIFE develops relationships with residents of the areas they work in to ensure that aid remains continuous and projects are geared towards each community’s unique needs. With the help of student volunteers, medical professionals hired in Peru, Ecuador, and Tanzania set up mobile clinics in low-income areas. At Queen’s, our club has two main purposes. The first is to recruit and prepare students for volunteer service trips to Peru, Ecuador, and Tanzania. The second is to raise money for the MEDLIFE Fund, which supports follow-up medical care and community development projects. In addition, we work to raise awareness about issues of global health and development. With the student fee our chapter will be able to expand it’s efforts on campus and reach a larger proportion of the Queen’s community. In hosting fundraising events for the MEDLIFE fund including a conference, global health seminars, academic tutorials and a benefit concert our chapter will be able to expand and increase the volume of these events. In having a larger budget to operate with our chapter will have the opportunity to create new initiatives for students to get involved and take part in – while raising funds for the MEDLIFE fund. In promoting MEDLIFE’s name on campus more students will be made aware of the opportunities MEDLIFE can provide to them, such as taking part in a mobile clinic trip. In embarking on a MEDLIFE trip over reading break or summer break students are given the opportunity to make a global impact. Upon returning home MEDLIFE strongly encourages students to continue their involvement within their local community. The Queen’s Chapter strongly values this principal and with the student fee we hope to incorporate

OPIRG

The Ontario Public Interest Research Group – Kingston at Queen’s University (OPIRG) is Queen’s campus based centre for community-based research, education, and action supporting social and environmental justice. We believe we cannot address problems in isolation, but that issues must be examined and challenged through an intersectional approach.

OPIRG is unique in that we do not just do research or education or strive to create change, but we unite those three actions into one organization. Not only do we inspire and support critical research, we use that research to develop educational campaigns and to create lasting change. OPIRG is student driven and directed; our Board of Directors, research projects, and educational campaigns are all student-lead.

A great example of our work is our latest campaign: We Believe In A Campus Free of Sexual Violence. This campaign was started by Queen’s students working on an OPIRG research project. By examining the best practices of university campuses across Canada this research has created recommendations on how Queen’s University can become the first campus to end sexual violence. OPIRG is now leading a campaign to make these recommendations a reality on our campus. The optional student fee that we are requesting will go to campaigns like the one above. It will fund guest lecturers, events, campaign materials, volunteer committees, and help eliminate financial barriers for students who would like to participate.

We are seeking a $3 optional student fee. It will allow us to enhance the support and resources we make available to Queen’s University students who participate in our educational campaigns and our research projects. During our 23 years at Queen’s University, our research and educational campaigns have made an undeniable mark on our campus, and all our work has been made possible with the dedication of Queen’s University students.

Queen’s Space Engineering Team

The Queen’s Space Engineering Team (QSET) is designing and building a Mars Rover for competition in the University Rover Challenge (URC) in late May 2016, hosted by the Mars Rover Society in Utah and the European Rover Challenge (ERC) in early September 2016, hosted by the European Space Foundation in Poland. QSET’s mission is to provide an environment where students can develop industry transferable skills, while providing the flexibility and freedom required for successfully planning, researching, and implementing solutions to open ended design problems. During competition teams operate their rovers from designated command and control stations. These stations are metal trailer units or tents with tarp walls restricting visibility of the course. The rover is judged based on 5 tasks: Sample Return, Astronaut Assistance, Equipment Servicing, Terrain Traversing, & Presentation. Our goal is to continue using the funds from the student fees and apply them directly to the costs of covering our materials for the competition.

USCC

The Queen’s branch of the Undergraduate Ontario Science Case Competition allows undergraduate students to apply case based learning to a challenging, educational, and fun research oriented problem. It was founded on the principle that science is much more than memorizing pieces of information and regurgitating them during an exam. It’s about curiosity, it’s about exploration, and it’s about taking risks. The competition involves developing an original research idea in the form of a grant proposal which is aimed at tackling a real-world challenge, and back up the idea with current scientific research. The competition has two phases: a local phase which is involves only students here at Queen’s, and a provincial phase based out of Western University, which involves students from across Ontario. Annually, over 200 undergraduate students participate in the competition, many of which advance to the provincial round. As such, transporting students to Western can be a huge financial burden and is the limiting factor which determines how many students we can afford to send. Student fees would be implemented to help ensure at least some costs of transportation could be covered, increasing the

Levana

Levana Gender Advocacy Centre is a Queen’s University organization committed to creating and nurturing a radical community of Queen’s students devoted to fighting gender oppression and advocating for broad ideas of gender empowerment (for those of any or no gender). Levana operates on an anti-oppressive framework and therefore is committed to confronting all forms of oppression and working to dismantle oppressive systems and hierarchies including patriarchy, white privilege, colonialism, classism, cis privilege (non-trans privilege), heterosexual privilege, and able-bodied privilege.

Levana hosts events, workshops, and programming throughout the year that are intended to spark conversation and build community. We have different working groups (Lunchtime Chat Series, Feminist Film Series, Feminist Book Club, Trans Student Issues Working Group, Conferences and Panels Working Group) in which Queen’s students can get involved as participants or as volunteers. We also provide funding for projects and initiatives that align with our mandate. Last year alone we provided than $1, 400 to student-led initiatives! We have an alternative resources lending library with over 800 individual book titles and an always-growing collection of ‘zines for Queen’s students to borrow.

We hold regular office hours (come visit us in the Grey House!) and provide support, referrals, and advocacy for Queen’s students on issues relating to our mandate. We strive to create a safe space on campus and to work towards building a Queen’s community that is passionate, connected, and engaged. 

If we acquire a student fee, we will use this funding to enrich our programming, host trainings and workshops for students, sponsor stimulating conferences and events, and continue to financially support student initiatives through grants and volunteer opportunities.