The Union has been advertising a full-time paid technical role, but so far there have been no adequate candidates.
A new job description has been written, which — compared to the previous one — was considered to be more acceptable to Ents.
In the mean time, it has been suggested by the Union's management that Ryan could take the role on a part time basis: 20 hours per week.
There were no objections to Ryan in particular taking such a role, however, there were some questions raised regarding whether this would interfere with his role as Convener. Queries were raised regarding how his work as Convener would be clearly separated from that of the paid role.
Queries were also raised about how the dynamic of Ents may be affected, with essentially one Ent being paid at an event to supervise other Ents, who are there voluntarily and doing a broadly similar job.
In response to questions raised regarding the purpose of the new role, it appears to be in order to ensure health and safety regulations are adhered to and that the venue is safe for customers, volunteers, and staff.
It is expected that the person carrying out the new role will receive some form of training in order to allow these duties to be fulfilled.
Queries were raised as to why volunteers could not instead receive any necessary training to ensure that the venue is safe for customers, volunteers, and staff. In response to this, it was pointed out that many Ents had already received such training in previous years.
It was also pointed out that there are many voluntary organisations carrying out high-risk work, and so it is certainly not unprecedented for voluntary groups to operate to a high safety standard.
Queries were raised as to how exactly a part time role could address the liability concerns, seeing as far more than 20 hours of work takes place in the venue and that therefore it could not all be supervised by the person in the paid role.
A suggestion was made that a similar structure to the University's Ambassador scheme could be used. That is, roles are voluntary until a certain level of proficiency is reached, at which point the role is paid. Still, questions were raised as to why payment is necessary at all, and how many paid roles would be available.
Ryan will take this feedback to the Union's management and discuss alternatives, such as sharing the role amongst other Ents or further training for volunteers.