The RCN Student Bus

2010 is well underway...

2010-04-16T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's April already!

We can't believe we're already six months through our one year, one off tour with the RCN Student Bus.

We've had a couple of quiet months with a few weeks off in the late winter as we recovered from the snow and started making plans for the better weather!

One of our most notable visits recently was to The House of Lords to lobby MPS to sign up to our Nursing Counts campaign and express their support for nursing in the UK. We had over 70 MPs visit us on the day including David Cameron and Nick Clegg! Gordon Brown was unfortunately out of the country but it was a fantastic day and our four students worked so hard in the chilly weather.

We've been shopping we last wrote and now have chairs to put out under the awning on sunnier days so that we can chat to visitors both on and off the bus, before you know it we'll be installing picnic tables and an ice-cream machine - we are so excited about the summer! Although the small temperature rises so far have proven that the bus can heat up incredibly quickly so we'll need to get the water machine fixed soon.

Our tour visits for the rest of the year are picking up and we're really pleased to have our first dates using the bus as an exhibition stand at the NEC in Birmingham, there are very few exhibition halls we would be able to fit into so we're very much looking forward to this.

The poor bus has had some bumps recently so the vinyl wrap on the outside has been given some attention to clear up some of our edges, it's amazing what some 'go faster' stripes from Halfords can do!

We're happy to confirm that we are definitely taking the bus to Northern Ireland! We'll be there for around two weeks and one of us in threatening to canoe just to get a picture of the bus on the ferry!

The bus is now open to all and everyone so we're attending a lot more hospital sites, these days still tend to be quieter than university days so we're trying to work on our marketing strategy, maybe it's not obvious how informal a bus visit can be? If you're in the area, the bus will be at the Holiday Inn hotel in Chatham on Thursday 22nd so please pop in and say hello.

Otherwise we'll hope to see you at RCN Congress in Bournemouth the following week!

A new week and almost the end of our pilot tour

2010-02-08T11:07:00.000-08:00

After a successful week in the East Midlands we spent a day in North Wales today, Bangor University in Wrexham to be exact! We had a fantastic day, more than 80 visitors came to see us including a handful of lecturers and a group of midwifery students. We ran FOUR seminars! Dignity, NMC Pre-reg Review, CV and Interview Techniques and Accountability, some students took the day off placement to come and attend all four which was great for us!

We found the majority of students at Bangor already knew about our online library so we had less demonstrations and more discussions about how their courses were going and the potential closure of the Wrexham site.

Professor Betty Kershaw presented three students with certificates for a new e-learning package on infection control which sounded like a fantastic course, all the students said they really enjoyed it.

The staff at the university looked after us so well! We were provided with lunch which was delicious and they'd put posters and flyers up everywhere to advertise out visit. They've asked if we would visit their site in Bangor so hopefully we will be able to arrange that soon.

We're looking forward to a good couple of days in the South West, our Communications Officer Tracey Roberts has been working really hard to get some local MPs and Counsellors along and we will have regional RCN staff along to support us as well, so all we're missing is you students!

We're hoping to bring the bus to an upcoming conference; Positive Choices in Leeds on the 9th April, around 500 Learning Disability nursing students should be in attendance so we can't wait! This is in the almost-definite-stages, just a few things to sort out and then we should be able to confirm the visit.

Do keep an eye on the RCN website for new bookings in your area, we have definite sites for our week in the Yorkshire & the Humber region now and those for our Scotland week will be finalised soon: www.rcn.org.uk/studentbus

Our West Mids week

2010-01-29T07:37:00.000-08:00

We've just packed up after a couple of successful days at the University of Birmingham, students also came and visited us from the University of Wolverhampton and Birmingham City University which was great!

Stuart Young, our student representative for the West Midlands had rallied the troops for us and came and spent the two days talking to students and recruiting new student information officers for the region.

Two of our visitors were first year students who were having to plan a teaching session of their own, they were quite nervous so Gill Robertson our student adviser sent them to one end of the bus to practice presenting to us sat at the other end! They did really well although did not return on our second day as promised to deliver the whole presentation! We wish them lots of luck.

A few students were asking about CV tips so Gill spent some time either talking them through key points to include or testing their handshakes!

Sally and Rose from our Corporate Relations team joined us today, it was lovely to have them along to talk to students. They have both been really involved with the Student Bus project from the beginning and so they're great at getting stuck in with us.

We have been busy coming up with ideas of what to do with the bus next and we are very happy to hear any that you may have! If you know of any events that nurses, nursing students and health care assistants are likely to be at, or if you want us to visit your university or hospital please do let us know.

We are looking forward to the weather warming up! The bus can be nice and toasty with a couple of heaters on and if we close the doors for a few minutes every now and then, but the cold does hit you when you walk outside! No doubt once the weather warms up it will become a bit of an oven!

Next week we are in the East Midlands so I will hope to see some of you there!
Have a great weekend.

We're back on the road!

2010-01-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

Apologies for such a long gap between posts, the last few weeks of our first tour were fantastically frantic with the student team all over the country and arriving home at the wee hours on occasion which left little time for blogging.

You may have already heard through our other social networks that we saw an incredible 2468 visitors board the bus in the first six weeks which feels like an amazing achievement for us. The faith we've had in the bus has really paid off! We're being inundated with emails from people asking if the bus will come to their area, or telling us off for missing them out! We really did approach all the universities in the areas we were visiting so I'm sorry if we haven't been on your doorstep this time round....

Based on our 2468 new bus pals we have already decided to extend the RCN Student Bus tour!! The bus will now be with the RCN until the end of October meaning we'll be visiting the regions of the UK we haven't been to yet and hopefully taking the bus along to some big events such as the RCN International Research conference, London Gay Pride Parade, Glastonbury perhaps..... we have lots of ideas that we're working on so if you have any suggestions please so let us know! We're delighted at the response we've had so far.

So, today was our first 'proper' day back on the road since all the snow - we lost two weeks of our tour as the bus was snowed in and university and hospital sites either closed or told us it just wasn't safe enough to come. We're planning to reschedule all those dates so that you won't miss out.

We were at Coventry University today, right outside the Student Union and near the beautiful cathedral it was a great spot and we met some fantastic students and lecturers!! It was great to hear from more students that are really enjoying their courses and despite being only a few weeks in, telling us how passionate they are about their branches of nursing. We met a lot of health care support workers who were being sponsored to complete their training. Some told us how daunting it was to go back to the classroom and start thinking critically again - I hope they will persevere so that they can become like their colleagues just a couple of months ahead of them and loving the challenges being thrown at them!

We did find it incredibly cold today, we had two heaters on full blast and had the doors half closed for most of the day to try and keep some of the heat in. We need to remember our hats and big socks for the end of the week when we're in Birmingham! No seminars today but lots of students hung around for a chat about their career plans and/or confusion about which direction to go in.

On Wednesday the bus will be in Hereford with our colleagues from the West Midlands regional office at Hereford Acute Hospital, we hope you'll go along and see them if you can! Thursday and Friday the student team take over again with two days at the University of Birmingham, if any BCU students are about please come and say hello too - unfortunately we haven't found a suitable date for us to visit you yet but we're working on it!!

More soon...

We're nearly half way through!

2009-11-25T02:44:00.000-08:00

We can't believe we have nearly completed the first six weeks of the RCN Student Bus tour, time flies when you're having fun!!

We've now seen over 1700 students and are currently on our second day at University Campus Suffolk in Ipswich, our first day saw 176 students board the bus so let's see if we can beat that!

We were shocked to find last week that many London based nursing students didn't know about the RCN Library when they are the closest to it, the students here in the Eastern region seem to know a bit more about it which is great, but we've been doing plenty of demonstrations of how to find the online journals and do literature searches.

Our Twitter followers are continuing to go up and we had a student yesterday mention he had been following our pictures on Flickr and Twitter which was great to hear, he was a bit of an expert and advised us to tweet a bit more often which we're now working on!!

We have another three day week next week, visiting the University of Southampton, Buckinghamshire New University and Partnerships in Care site The Dene which we're looking forward to. Plenty of emails are coming through from universities we are visiting in the new year including requests for seminars to be held on our top-deck, we're hoping to encourage a few more universities to allow students some time to come and see us as that is when the seminars work best. Although our Student Advisers can deliver many talks, delivering them in a couple of minutes can sometimes be tough!

The press from the Student Bus launch is all starting to appear, RCN Bulletin, Nursing Standard and the RCN website are featuring it and we had a journalist from local paper the Eastern Daily Press come and see us yesterday so we're hoping to see pictures printed there too.

On quieter days students have time to discuss their issues with us more fully, we have met many with concerns about finances and we've discussed the Department of Health's student cupport consultation quite heavily, some students are also struggling when they are given placements far away from home. We've heard that the jump from the first to the second year can be really tough, and recent figures suggest that this is when most nursing students drop out of their course so we're talking about what support we might be able to offer for you there, if you have any ideas let us know!

A busy couple of weeks!

2009-11-20T01:42:00.000-08:00

We've been around and about the last couple of weeks since our launch. Hopefully you will seen some of the press from the event, we're in Nursing Standard, the Bulletin, Activate and all over the RCN website!

We had a couple of days with Canterbury Christ Church University, one at their Medway campus and the second in Canterbury. We saw just just over 200 of their students which was fantastic!

Since then the bus has had some work done, we found that the movement and vibration of the bus was opening the upstairs windows so the rain was getting in! We also had one cupboard with a lock but no side wall...

We've been in London most of this week, St Georges, Kingston Hill and now St Thomas' Hospital where we've met some lovely students on placement and HCAs who are interested in what the RCN can offer them.

We've found a lot of students, even ones in their third year, that don't know that the RCN has a library! And the biggest nursing library in Europe for that matter, so we've been using the cyber cafe quite a bit to talk people through how to request and renew books, do literature searches and contact our librarians online.

We have had a lot of queries about the recent announcement that from 2013, nursing will be come a degree-entry profession. Diploma students are hearing rumours that they will have to get a degree in order to continue nursing and we've had some students on board who have been quite upset at the prespect of this. It is absolutely not true that any nurse qualified before 2013 will need to complete a degree in order to stay in practice. With or without a degree you are qualified as a nurse and this is what counts.

The NMC have some really useful FAQs about the changes and you can find these on the student area of the RCN website: www.rcn.org.uk/development/students

We've had some new bookings for the second part of our tour - we're now visiting students at the University of Nottingham's Lincoln site in February and we're holding a provisional date for their Nottingham site.

We can't believe we're already in the third week of our first bus tour, it will probably be over before we know it! We're having so much fun meeting existing members and new ones!

Over and out.

The Official Launch

2009-11-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

Today was the bus' official launch day and it started off with a challenge! Despite months of planning unfortunately some Westminster residents decided to park in the parking bays suspended for the bus to park in outside HQ. We managed to contact one car owner but the second almost ended up being towed! We did try to secure some space opposite the offices nearer the park but were told this couldn't happen without prior asgreement from the Fire Service, Police and St Johns Ambulance!

In the end we were able to squeeze in and the launch went off as planned. We had the RCNs Chief Executive and General Secretary, Ann Keen the Health Minister, Maura Buchanan President of the RCN and Sandra James Chair of Council along! Absolutely fantastic and everyone was in really high spirits. We discovered it is not possible to get onto the bus in a pencil skirt and that no matter what the RCN Student Bus has some tremendous support behind it.

We got some fantastic photos, with members from the ANS Executive Committee (more commonly known as RCN Students) in brand new T-shirts seeing the bus for the first time and having a poke around along with RCN staff. After we had finished the fantastic cake the student team and students headed off on the bus to get some pictures outside some key London sites. Our photographer Steve was such a good sport, jumping off the bus and running round landmarks to get the best shots. The funniest were of the bus crossing Tower Bridge, Steve was interrupted by a couple of tourists who wanted their photo taken so we had to cross again!

We'll make sure some of the photos are available on Twitter shortly.

It was a relatively short day really but so much was achieved, we've created some real buzz at the RCN about the bus that willb follow us through the tour and I hope will encourage students to keep an eye on us and come and say hi when we're in your area. Please do get your requests in soonb if you want us to visit your university or hospital, we will soon be discussing what to do next year!

We're off to another launch tomorrow, for our sponsors Partnerships in Care at their North London Clinic in Edmonton, we'll hope to see some of you there!

Fabulous Friday in Carmarthen

2009-11-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

Still on a high from a fantastic week so far we had a bit of a lie-in this morning before heading off to St David's, an ex-asylum not a grade two listed building housing Swansea universitys Carmarthen campus. The bus couldn't park where planned because of all the low trees with preservation orders! We made do in a different part of the carpark, not far from the School of Health Sciences.

Swansea uni had given their students timed slots to come along to visit us which was a great help as we had time to re-stock regularly and tidy up sweet wrappers!

We ran three seminars but spent more time chatting to students downstaiirs on the sofas or at the computers. Compared to the rest of the week you could call today 'quiet' but we still had a huge 185 which brought our final number this week up to a massive 927! Such a fantastic number for our first week, we had lots ofr positive comments today as students said they were not used to having face to face contact at such a remote site. This of course, is one of the best things about the RCN Student Bus as we are coming direct to our members!

We packed up slightly earlier today knowing we had seen most of the students who were around and doubting that more would emerge from the torrential weather! For those of you planning to visit the bus when we're on your site - upstairs is definitely the warmest part of the bus! Plus you get extra freebies if you go to a seminar! It's not really bribery...

Lucky for us, Colette from Liverpool Victoria offered to give us a lift all the way to Cardiff! So our journey home has been shortened by an hour, great news after a fantastic but exhausting week. The focus now is getting ready for our national launch in London on Tuesday, if you're around please do come along we'd love to see you.

It's been a great week in beautiful south Wales, who knows, we might be back next year!

Have a great weekend all.

Our Day at Swansea University

2009-11-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

It was an early start this morning as we caught a taxi along the seafront to Swansea University, having not realised how close we were to the university we had a bit of a wait for the bus but enjoyed meeting some members of staff and finding a cup of coffee to get us ready for the day.

The bus turned up looking fab and we were relieved to see it come round the corner as problems with the gears had us worried it might not get there!

It was the first time Adele had seen the bus 'in the flesh' and it was great to get her on board and show her round. We still had some balloons left over from the launch yesterday so we popped these up around the bus to draw extra attention - not that you can miss us!

We were set up pretty quickly and within half an hour a huge delivery of more freebies arrived which Lisa had sent us from the office in London, we had some great pads of paper and pencils from our sponsors Partnerships in Care so we laid these out upstairs for everyone who attended a seminar.

In the end we ran seven seminars today!!! It was the first day they had really worked and this is down to Swansea University giving their students a study day to come along and see us. We had lots of requests for the CV and Interview Techniques talk and Adele ended up running this three times, including once downstairs whilst the seminar room was full for another talk!

We were joined by Danielle from our office today who got stuck in with the members, it was great to welcome another colleague onto the bus to see what we're up to and she'll be with us tomorrow in Carmarthen as well. The staff at Swansea Uni were really supportive and we kept getting caught by one lady taking photographs, if anyone sees these printed anywhere let me know!

Our total number of visitors was 293, another fantastic day with lots of useful questions and issues raised. A lot of 3rd years expressed concern that there weren't any jobs for them as the Trusts are being amalgamated and we had visits from students on other courses who were interested in nursing as a career.

We got pretty quiet after 2pm so packed up soon after this ready to travel to Carmarthen for the night. Whilst on the train I had a message to contact our Chief Executive and General Secretary Peter Carter who wanted to find out how everything was going and congratulate us on how many students we've managed to see so far. It was a great end to the day, I remember the day we took the idea of the RCN Student Bus to Dr Carter and from the minute we'd finished talking he was 100% behind the project and just as excited as us! I'm really looking forward to him seeing the bus on Tuesday and launching the rest of the tour for us, right outside HQ in central London - so we should get some good piccies!

More good news is that we now have 100 followers on Twitter! So word about the bus is spreading and people are interested to find out how we're getting on, great stuff!

Our Day at University of Glamorgan

2009-11-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

...and what a day it was!! We arrived at UniGlam in the rain to find the bus already there - Steve, the driver, anxious about a problem with the gears had taken it up last night!
we set the bus up and Viv Evans from RCN Direct came to help us along with Andrew and Barry from Partnerships in Care who are sponsoring the bus! ( Incidentally if you want to work in mental health and in secure settings etc then do let us know and we will put you in touch with PiC who offer a range of these services.)
We were mobbed until about 11.00am and then Tina Donnelly ,Director of RCN Wales came to launch the bus for Wales. Given that it was still pouring and all our helium balloons were starting to collapse we moved the launch to the lecture theatre with 170 access to nursing students who were there for the day. Tina, Gill and Ruth Davies, from UniGlam all spoke briefly and the bus was officially launched!!
With seminars on CV and portfolios and Dignity taking place this afternoon in our top deck seminar room we finally closed the bus for the day having seen a massive 420 students!!!!
What a fab number and our thanks to all who made it possible, in particular, Moira Davies, Admissions tutor from uniGlam who worked like a Trojan! - Thanks Moira
....and now we move to Swansea!
Hope to see you there!

The Bus at Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff

2009-11-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

A rainy start to today, we regretted parking the car at the other end of the carpark!

Lisa, Gill and I arrived at Whitchurch Hospital around 8.15am to find the RCN Student Bus proudly parked up just along from their main entrance.

We spent a good hour and a half getting everything set up, deciding where to put the freebies, how to lay out the publications and other bits and bobs.

Oli and Dave from RCN systems came along again to help us set up the wifi cyber cafe, signal was proving a problem but they managed to get everything up and running for us fairly quickly.

We had some issues with the generator on the bus, we could have the lights on, but if we wanted to use the coffee machine as well... the generator would cut out! Our driver Steve tried all sorts of tricks and we managed to keep it all ticking over for most of the afternoon but we did give in at one point and sat in the darkening bus nursing a hot chocolate each!!

We met some fantastic nurses and students today, Helen Bennett, Head of Mental Health Nursing at the hospital has been a great advocate for the project and had encouraged staff to come along. We also met some of our local RCN Stewards who came to say hi which was lovely, another surprise was to welcome three Senior nurses onto the bus who enjoyed having a poke around the bus and sat upstairs for a while with the RCN's Mental Health Adviser Ian Hulatt.

Ian was with us to deliver a seminar on self harm and will be with us in Swansea on Thursday and Friday too, it's great to have other people from the department along to see the bus and get involved. He was very chuffed that we managed to get a photo of him in the bus drivers seat!

Also along with us was Tanis Hand, the RCN's new Health Care Assistant Adviser who will be working really closely with Lisa. Tanis delivered a seminar for us on Accountability and helped us try out the equipment upstairs. It's a shame someone decided to make a coffee halfway through her slot!!! But the delegates left happy and full of praise for the seminar, so well done Tanis!

The weather cheered up a bit later on and we managed to get some good pics of the bus in its spot, check out Twitter to see these: http://twitter.com/RCNStudentBus and keep up to date with our progress.

We had a great day at Whitchurch Hospital, Helen Bennett, Head of Mental Health Nursing there has been a real advocate for the project and had encouraged all staff to come along. Our whole team loves getting out and about to meet our members, without whom we couldn't do our jobs effectively. We need your issues, stories and questions to help inform our work so please do come and see us on the tour if you can. We'll even make you a cup of coffee, you just might need to drink it in the dark!

Lisa returned home this evening and tomorrow night our Student Advicer Adele Bird will be joining me for our two days in Swansea while Gill Robertson drives home. I can't wait for Adele to see the bus, it's quite something to see it in the flesh after only seeing designs on paper!

First though we have our day at the University of Glamorgan and our Wales launch where Tina Donnelly, RCN Director for Wales will open the bus for their students. There will be balloons and cake and hopefully lots of students too so we'll have plenty more pictures to share with you.

Laura
RCN Student Coordinator

The first viewing

2009-11-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

Quite a day! The student team had a two to three hour drive to Lydney to meet David and Oli from the RCNs systems department who are helping us set up our cyber cafe!

The bus wasn't quite ready for us so we went off to Taurus Crafts centre just down the road for a cup of tea and to get the laptops all linked up with the wifi dongles and make sure we could access any important documents from the bus.Taurus crafts has some fantastic shops full of handmade jewellery, pottery and cards. Our favourite bit is the cafe, managed and run by people with learning disabilities. There is always such a warm welcome, the service is great and you can see how much everyone enjoys working there.

The vinyl wrap for the bus, which is basically the outside decor - big stickers, were finished just before the rain started which was a relief, we've heard there has been some pretty serious flooding in Swansea where we are headed at the end of this week so we're crossing our fingers that the weather doesn't get too rough! Whose idea was it to sit on a converted bus for twelve weeks over winter?! Ah yes, that'll be us! At least we didn't go for an open top!

We got back to the bus just in time to stop the plasma screen being installed downstairs rather than upstairs in the seminar room! There were a few fraught seconds but it was hung in the right place within a few minutes. The seats upstairs are so comfortable and there is loads of leg space which we were a bit worried about at first, Rob and his team have done a great job creating an inviting space for students that is also a bit fun!

The bus really does look fab, we can't wait to get it properly loaded up with publications and freebies (oops, the magic word!) tomorrow and have our first visitors. We'll be at Whitchurch Hospital from about 8.30ish so if you're in the area please do come and see us.

Some pictures from today will be going up on Flickr so do have a look, just search for the RCN Student Bus.

More tomorrow!

Laura, RCN Student Coordinator

Only a few days to go!

2009-10-30T04:06:00.000-07:00

This is the last day in the office for the RCN Student Team and one of the last for the bus to be in the garage! The London Bus Export Company have been busy converting our Metrobus into a colourful travelling conference and advice centre and we're just about ready to hit the road next Tuesday.

On Monday we'll stuff the bus full of publications, useful guides and yes, pens, and maybe some other freebies. We'll also be setting up the cyber cafe and checking all our wifi gadgets work and hoping that despite a new floor upstairs our presenters will still have room to stand up to deliver their seminars!

Today in the office we're reading through all our maps and directions ensuring we know where we're going and that our bus driver Steve has everything he needs. Everyone in the department is really excited about seeing the bus but they will have to wait until the 10th November when we have our national launch in London!

We've been packing up boxes ready to fill Student Adviser Gill's car for the drive over the Lydney where our bus is waiting, the journey will no doubt involve one of us being tightly packed between boxes but bags of sweets and singalongs with the radio should make it bearable...

Keep an eye out for us on the road, if you see the bus you can text the RCN and get a free car sticker!