Present: AK (President), EM (VP), EC (Chair), JB (International Rep), JC (PG&M), EB (Librarian), MM (Social Chair), LM (Senior Welfare), SM (Communications), AB (Treasurer), EP (Outreach), MP (Sports & Socs)
Apologies: JG (Facilities), EB apologises for having soy sauce on stir fry
Absent:
Setting: AK’s flat. Most of us just did a naked photo.
Agenda:
What is the Fashion Show? AB
Social Comm Discount AB
No Alumni at Michaelmas Ball? AB
Sabbatical Treasurer AK
JCR Meetings EC/AK
a) Opinions on fresher’s pages
b) Relevance of points
c) Hive mind
d) Talking without permission
Application Based Positions
Meeting:
Reviewing last minutes meeting
AK did not write up the proposal because of personal reasons.
EC has not asked SP (SRO) to have the orders up by the next meeting and doesn’t think he will have them up by this meeting either.
Don’t know if JG changed a bulb.
AK proposed things to the facilities proposal to the alumni association and they are thinking it over.
JC has written a draft of the application process for the standing orders.
What is the Fashion Show? AB
AB: One of the things we gathered from the last JCR meeting is that the fashion show are poorly defined, they aren’t in the standing orders.
JC says they are actually a society at the moment.
AB says they are a very different format so it’s worth having a discussion and defining them so we know how they fall in our framework.
EC says they are a society in the standing orders but the president is an electable position in the JCR which is not a society thing – their structure is more like that of a committee.
MM notes that in other colleges it’s part of social comm – something like formals manager where the social chair isn’t actually in change.
JC says end of 2017 they where made into a committee and that was better but never got changed in the standing orders- hence the confusion.
EC notes that they work as a committee rather than a society so it would make sense for them to be a committee again.
MM asks why can’t they be independent from us completely?
AK says it needs to be a JCR position so that they have to abide by health and safety regulations.
MM would like it to be an extension of social comm.
JC says but if they were just an independent committee then we could just have the social chair sit on it.
Most people agree.
EC says it’s a good point because then we don’t need to rewrite all of the social comm standing orders, and can just write new ones for the Fashion Show.
JC notes that a few years ago they were independent which was iffy because all the money was going through a personal account which was illegal
EP understands that the JCR signs so they are liable…
AK says it’s an issue because they have our JCR name attached to it, so when things go wrong it’s linked to us.
EP asks whose fault it was that the risk assessment wasn’t done?
AK says there was that time when the compares were really iffy and there were tab articles about us as a JCR not the fashion show as a committee. If they are going to be linked to us then we need a way to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen.
EP and MM say that they should be a separate thing but we should have the president or social chair who are responsible for making sure they have all the documents and paperwork.
EC suggests this could all be done easily if they were a committee.
EC notes that this has all already been discussed in a JCR meeting and decided on [EC is reading the minutes], but no one put this change into the order.
But, we do also need to pass a motion specific to them as these old minutes aren’t exactly what we are proposing now.
JC and EC say that they need to pass a motion saying that all the alterations/ decisions made in the JCR minutes in the last three years need to go into the new standing orders.
EB asks if Fashion Show is the only thing we’ve had to clarify this for? There aren’t any smaller events etc?
AB and AK say that the other things like this are in social comm.
JC notes that it is an issue that smaller events run things and don’t consider health and safety.
AK notes this is more about the size of fashion show and the fact they have lots of things they don’t check.
Are we all okay with this? Yes.
JCR Meetings EC
EC: We had some problems after last meeting, particularly with the fashion show motion. They didn’t think the exec conducted themselves very well and they felt that they had a lot of the exec all going at them at once. So, there are a few things we want to change in meetings 1) I think the issue in the fashion show was that AB asked our opinions on our facebook group and we all came out of that with the same opinions. So, only speak if it’s relevant to you. Don’t make points for the sake of making points because we can feed off each other too much at times. 2) think before you speak. I watched it back when I got home because that’s who I am as a person and don’t repeat yourselves because we complain that meetings are long but we all say the same points. Is this contributing to the conversation? It feeds into this environment where people get tetchy when I tell them we can’t hear their point 3) Can people please speak when they are spoken to – it’s hard to keep control of the room.
AK adds that we received a complaint directly to college and it mentioned the behaviour of the exec committee so, even though we are there thinking about our personal opinions, we are all there in our polos and are therefore are seen as the same group. We all care a lot so are passionate but it can seem aggressive and people take it as the exec behaving in a certain way. Re the fashion show stuff, it was dead in the water but we let it drag on. We need to make the environment accessible.
EC reiterates that we need to view ourselves as one of the exec not just individuals.
We wanted to write a short correspondence for the beginning of the first meeting.
LM thinks this would be good because she felt sorry and embarrassed for the fashion show people in that meeting.
EC notes that this has shown that there are some groups in the JCR that the JCR already have some views about like darts, or rugby or fashion show – but we need to put these views aside.
AB recommends a zen moment.
LM notes that if we want fashion show at meetings then we need to say sorry.
AK has met with the fashion show president they both apologised for their respective committees. KU has said she is going to come to our meetings and now AK is going to go to their meetings and be nice and encouraging.
SM notes she was at assembly at this point, and notes that there was a super controversial motion that was discussed there and it was so so efficiently dealt with. They had a back and forth between for and against then questions.
JC notes this is how it’s meant to be but the JCR is unruly.
This would be a good way to make it a bit more balanced.
EC notes this is hard because sometimes people make points that aren’t either for or against things, they are just points.
Social Comm Discount AB
AB: So, I didn’t realise that social comm get the same discount as the exec and guaranteed tickets. This is unfair because no other method II positions get discounts and exec don’t get guaranteed tickets. Running social comm, they are just doing the jobs they ran to do.
MM says this was brought in last year to be an incentive to make people want to run.
EC doesn’t’ think it was an incentive. DG thought it was because they put in a lot of effort into events.
AB says they should be allowed guaranteed tickets not the discount.
EC: it’s about things like having to give out wristbands and help sort out buses when they want to be preing with their friends.
AB: But were welfare on duty at all in the ball?
LM: Not in theory, but in practice yeah they were.
AB: So they do that, it’s their job, like Gov comm give up their right to voice opinions in meetings etc, and male and female welfare don’t get any perks.
MM: it’s hard to understand how not willing people are to work. The discount is a way to motivate people to clean up when they are drunk and things. There are so many people in these position at the moment who don’t commit and get their perks.
EC: it’s different because outreach members, for example, don’t have to pay going to their outreach events.
EM: the discount isn’t working as an incentive. There is a big discrepancy with the amount of work done by members on social comm.
MM: I will be stricter with that.
EC: maybe less of a discount?
AK: one thing we spoke about last year, was talking about whether SRO and M/F welfare should get discounts?
Lots of feeling that welfare should get discounts because even when they shouldn’t be on duty they are.
LM suggests that we do something like Collingwood do, which is their welfare go to Grey balls to help out with welfare there, and then the grey welfare come to their balls so their own officers can enjoy them.
AK likes it, but there were incidents at this ball and LM was told not to get involved but it still
AK: Can we have a few more reserved tickets for other officers from colleges? Yes, says MM
MM: is St John’s ambulance trained for metal health things? AK says no.
EB: LM, you are going to know so many people who know you personally and will ask for you by name so you are going to have to make a rule for yourself to not go and help people so you can have fun.
Everyone really likes the idea of having another colleges’ welfare officers at our balls.
LM would like to have another team of people there.
Is there any college that we would like to buddy up with? LM will talk to people at this welfare thing tomorrow.
ACTION POINT: LM will discuss this with welfare group tomorrow.
ACTION POINT: AK will discuss with other colleges for summer ball rota idea.
BACK TO DISCOUNTS FOR SOCIAL COMM
JC says that maybe social comm people run for the role wanting to help organise events and then they turn up and still have to do stuff on the night which they didn’t expect.
MM: when people are drunk it just doesn’t work.
But I agree that maybe the discount is too large because people were just doing odd jobs but that’s why the standing orders stay it’s at the descension of the Social Chair.
AB: On a practical note, how will this work?
AK: How about, people pay for their tickets before, and then people get their discount money back afterwards if they have contributed enough?
EB notes this would mean that someone who didn’t do lots in the run up but did do stuff on the night and could redeem themselves.
JC: this means people would motivate people to be helpful on the night for fear of not getting their discount.
MM: So they pay the full then submit reclaims after?
EC: does this apply to the exec as well?
AK: yes, I mean we’d really have to mess up a lot to not deserve it.
AB: then we are changing to emphasis of discounts as a reward to work throughout the year.
EC notes that the exec discount is also down to the descension of the president.
MM: does this apply to managers? They get free tickets.
We don’t really think this is a problem. They inevitably put enough work in.
LM: I thought we were talking about it being unjust. M/F welfare should have it if SRO does.
There will be a motion for this.
Conclusion: We are all going to be harsher and social comm will get their discounts after as a reclaim.
So, should social comm have less than 40%?
AB: If exec get it for work thought the year and help on the night, and social comm do less than that then it should be lower.
Everyone agrees.
Debate about whether it should be 20% or 25% – the difference in numbers are fairly meaningless but 25% sounds nicer. EB is a big fan of this.
MM doesn’t know. But she needs to think about it in terms of the role not individuals.
EP also thinks that lessening the discount means people who run are less likely to do it for the wrong reasons.
MP thinks this is a hard discussion to have when do don’t know how much money this is saving us.
JC and AB say its more about the principle of it.
ACTION POINT: Masha is going to write a motion for changing this to 25%.
Also adding a motion to bring in M/F to the 40% exec discount.
No Alumni at Michaelmas Ball? AB
AB: Just don’t think they should be there at dinner if we aren’t really expanding capacity.
SM: Is this a big problem?
AB: Not massive but we shouldn’t stop students going when we have limited positions.
Everyone agrees with this.
Application Based Positions JC
JC: has written up a proposal for what this might look like, posted it on our group and we have looked at it
AB: You’ve not mentioned the transition from method II positions. The way you’ve phrased this makes it look like a whole new method whereby anything that isn’t method I or II becomes application which isn’t true. JC is going to word this better.
JC: so how do we feel about holding multiple positions. Applications are a new thing, and traditionally we said people can only hold one method II position.
EP notes that people are on two committees at once at the moment.
MM thinks it’s not an issue.
JC says with the number of committees we have at the moment it would be quiet limiting to stop people being on more than one. Maybe we should have it that people can have two method two or application positions.
EC what about method I?
JC if you have method I that should be it because the role should take up so much time.
MP notes that he’s kind of on the welfare campaigns team at the moment but there is currently nothing that says he can’t be as it’s not technically a method II position.
EC: so when it comes to applications in the standing orders, because it doesn’t have a name that’s why it’s not referenced, but if we treat it as a method II then you shouldn’t have it.
We could leave this particular incident because you didn’t know you’d have to give up welfare when you ran.
JC: this motion wouldn’t apply to you because it’s already happened.
AK: this isn’t based around MP, it’s just about the future.
EP: for the interest of avoiding criticism it would make sense to make people who hold method I positions shouldn’t be on other committees.
MM: I would love to be on international comm.
EC: it’s not relevant because you can’t do your job and be a fully committed member of the committee as well.
EB: how are we defining which ones are application? Like are library volunteers application positions?
EM: Now that we have recently passed a motion that means committees are really large, it’s not so much of a problem to have people in two committees because they are less likely to be taking away an opportunity from someone else.
AK: I wouldn’t apply this to the library because it’s sort of crosses a weird college/JCR line and even though you are ours, the Library isn’t.
EP notes that this is a bit like the bar situation.
JC: Yes we would need to define it, and could define that it doesn’t apply to assistant bar steward and library volunteers.
EP: then do we also need to define who has to come to JCR meetings- i.e. if they have to come to meetings if they are application roles? because every other committee does.
Agreed that they do have to come to meetings or send apologies.
Everyone also agrees that people can have two positions; two applications, or one application and a method II, and two method IIs.
AB: against this, there are a lot of method II roles that are specific positions while the application positions are more vague without specific job titles a lot of the time. So holding two with specific roles is a hard.
JC; I don’t see the difference between a JRO sitting on social comm or sitting on outreach.
AK: I think the only exception should be made should be you can’t be more than one minority rep.
EC: I think AB is sort of saying that there are application roles that should be elections; i.e. events manager on Outreach.
We are over complicating things? Yes.
EC: We should have a list of exceptions to the rule: i.e. “people who should only hold one positions”
Sabbatical Treasurer AK
AK: this is going to be controversial. MP is up to date.
So, we mainly spoke before about a restructure with an assistant treasurer. Then the trustees just decided they wanted to dissolve the charity and become a DSO.
In the call I had with the trustees, one of their reasons for being a DSO was the relationship with the exec is incompatible. I told them that the exec all know that the trustees have the ultimate power and told them that we’d talked about knowing a sabbatical treasurer could be an option.
I don’t have all the figures at the moment because I’m trying to work out there the money would come from. But money is the only real downside. It would be the same cost as the president’s salary and her flat which comes to about 18K. I am going to come up with a budget as to where the money could come from and will try and send this over in a few days but it’s probably going to take a while for all of us to come to a decision about what we personally think it’s best. We need to understand because members of the JCR are going to need to understand this decision.
In conversations with the trustees, they could say that they think we have an ultimatum between being a DSO or having a sabbatical treasurer.
The only reason I’m bringing this up now, is because the treasurer election is coming up in January, but also, I can’t make the next meeting and am the most invested in the idea. We don’t have enough details to take it through the next meeting.
We might have to move president and treasurer to meeting 2.2 because we’d need to change the SOs if it were sabbatical and can’t have that in the same meeting as the big elections.
The only way we can make it work is by raising the levy by £6 and then other cuts in other places – like we have 1.5k budgeted for the trustees so could be able to shave bits off things like that.
The Pros are; There are lots of issues with us not being charity compliant. Assistant treasurer would help but it’s not a big enough step towards being compliant and it wouldn’t mean that we could guarantee that it would work every year. But we can almost guarantee if someone had it as their full-time job.
I’ve been looking into being a DSO; one of the downsides to being an independent charity is that there is no peer support for the president when things go wrong- but having another sabbatical officer means they could help each other out and it would be a major benefit. Presidency can be quite isolating.
Would a sab officer have enough to do? It wouldn’t be just a treasurer role, it would also be about looking into ways to invest our reserves and then some other days about the policy and legal things that we need to have to be a properly functioning charity. But if you look at us vs Grey, they have all their policies and procedures in place and are a lot further along than we are. At the moment, there is a lot of work falling onto the student trustees, me and AB so a sabbatical officer could help with this massive work load- the president wouldn’t have to support the treasurer so much as they wouldn’t have to have a degree so could do their job better. The sabbatical treasurer and president would be equally responsible for things – something going wrong wouldn’t all be on one person.
We’ve only just had a full board, and now one of them has left so we need to get in a better position for trustees to want to stay.
JC: We could have an emergency meeting very early on in term to discuss just this, and then run the elections as normal?
AK: that wouldn’t leave a lot of time for people to realise they could run for the new treasurer role.
EB: it’s also good to define that the role isn’t purely treasurer based because there are so many law elements and it might change who wants to run for what.
MM: Isn’t it a bit late for people who are graduating to have to keep waiting to see if they get a role late in the year/ or then what if the position just doesn’t get filled. That’s my only worry.
AK: but there are a huge number of maths, finance, and economics graduates. It looks better on a CV than a student treasurer position so it would appeal.
EC: I think we need to consider where we are going with decisions- do we want to bring this to the JCR meeting to gauge opinion? Or do we want a vote?
Everyone thinks we should bring it to the JCR meeting.
JC things it should be correspondence and say that people can email if they have questions/ comments because a discussion won’t be productive to have a discussion.
People seem to think this is a good idea.
EC: from the trustee meeting tomorrow, can we establish our position with the trustees. If they are saying that it’s a sabbatical treasurer vs DSO, then we need a referendum every 4 years anyway…
EM: a referendum wouldn’t be binding – the trustees can always vote on what they actually want.
AK: but if the trustees voted on it after we had had a referendum then the student trustees might take that into consideration with their vote.
EC: what would people be voting on?
AK: if the trustees say it’s sabbatical treasurer vs DSO then it has to be….
AB: think we are getting ahead of ourselves, I think the trustees are likely to bring up the external book keeper.
JC: so, we are going to wait and at the JCR meeting next term and going to discuss all of the options the trustees think are viable and then run some number of referendums based on that.
EB: if we had to rejig budgets, would we have to run that through the JCR as well?
AB: This would be next years budget so it would all be involved in the budget meeting.
EB: in terms of looking through the budget, when will that be done?
AK: End of Wednesday? I’m only going to do one option as to where it can all come from.
EC: back yourself.
EC: if we have a sabbatical treasurer, I assume that’s starting from July 1st,
AK: no. Did CM (Pres 17-18) tell people this? It’s running from 1st August to 1st August as she didn’t think we needed the handover month.
JC: They can change the contract without changing the terms of office.
EC: so, whatever month, are the trustees going to have a solution for the rest of this year? Are we going to have a short term solution until there is a sabbatical treasurer.
JC: Cuth’s Day subsidy was recently increased by a mad amount. It was still good before it had that 3k increase. So that could be a place to get some money from?
MM: why was it increased?
JC: we had too much income at the time and needed something to do with so I thought it would be good to put it there.
AK: in the future we might have a sabbatical treasurer who would be able to invest that money in more sustainable ways.
MM: what about reserves?
AK: no, it has to be sustainable.
EC: what’s the outcome? Did you want us to have opinions?
AK: not now when people haven’t seen the proposed, and haven’t had time
AOB
EC: so the motion about voting by cacaus. Everyone kicked up about it and it was passed without a lot of people realising the general aye was coming next.
If people want to repeal and rerun that motion then it should tell EC because she can’t make that position herself.