WhatsApp News Feed Posts – 2023
Post 1 of 10 – Introduction
First, thank you for joining this group. I have been told that for some it has been a bit of a leap of faith – the rather menacing name & logo leading some to believe the invite was a SPAM/ malware account. Apologies for this – we had not foreseen it – and the WhatsApp bio being limited to a set amount of characters I imagine did not assist matters.
Anyway, I am happy to report it is not malware and in this first post I hope to explain a bit more about what is going on…
This group has been formed to create awareness about student Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) in the Egham & Englefield community. All residents are welcome to join whether they have been affected by student ASB or not. And that includes students – this is definitely not a student bashing exercise: the majority of students are a great contribution to our community and some are even affected by fellow student ASB.
Members of the group can either play an active or a passive role. Starting with the passive; a member may just want to find out more about this topic. They can belong to the group and simply read the weekly post. Moving towards the active; members may like to discuss this topic with family, friends & neighbours. Members may also perhaps like to share the group’s link so that family, friends & neighbours can follow the narrative first hand. Also, if you are unfortunate enough to experience ASB caused by students you will be advised on how to report incidents with Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL).
The campaign has also scheduled into it a reporting phase. Members will be asked to report any student ASB they experience in a month-long reporting period starting on Monday 5th September. But to recap – members can play an active or passive role – we are just happy that you are interested in a topic that affects the community.
Having spent some time discussing student ASB with my family, friends & neighbours, I am also aware that the topic is divisive, with some preferring to avoid it altogether. We are hoping to address this with the campaign and to make the subject less of a taboo.
We are looking for a resolution to the problem though and think by working together we can find one. The campaign has one main aim – to make RHUL realise that student ASB is a problem for the community, for them to recognise that they have a degree of responsibility for the behaviours of students that belong to their organisation, and for them to devise and implement a conduct policy that is effective for managing the small minority of students that are persistently anti-social, especially those students have been advised as much.
So hopefully that gives you the main gist of what is going on. Further information will follow here in a weekly post. (Please note that previous posts will also be posted at the foot of the new message for the benefit of new people joining.)
Please note too we have turned off commenting in this group – it is hoped that this group will get quite large and you may not want to be pinged every two minutes. Near the end of the campaign a link to another WhatsApp group will be shared for those members that would like to share experiences/ express their views.
Again, many thanks again for joining this group. We hope that you will find the following posts and this campaign interesting.
Best
A Gnat