Setting
In Brooks bar immediately before the PG pizza social.
Present: JC (Vice-President), SM (PGM Chair), NN (PGM Social Sec), JW (PGM Vice-President), RM (PG Academic Rep), OT (4th Year Rep), ÁB (PG International Rep)
Apologies: HH (PG Welfare Rep), EM (President)
Absent: BD (PGM Treasurer)
Update from President’s Forum & MCR PresComm
SM: On Thursday I had many meetings. BPR2 is a big thing. BPR1 was the review that happened last year. It was a review of college staff structure. BPR2 is reviewing porters and cleaners. Last year the student consultation period happened during the holidays and exam period. JC (PVC colleges) has promised that that won’t happen again, but someone at President’s Forum gave the impression it would.
Collingwood doesn’t have an MCR exec. The former MCR president has now left. Their JCR president is currently running things. We’d like to do an inter-MCR bar night at Collingwood this term so that their students might go. It seems to be less bad than it was last year. There’s a big issue with conflict between the JCR and MCR over financial independence. There are multiple possible plans to try and fix this.
To PG and not to PG is going to go uni wide. It will be very similar to when it was in Cuth’s. We might be able to use the SU budget for cross-college collaboration. There’ll be an event at the SU with some PGs that finalists can come to to ask questions.
Dates
RM: On 28th there’s a military dialogue between my department and Cuth’s about drones. There might be some spaces left. EA has recommended a speaker for a research forum in the week starting 10th Feb, the day will depend on this speaker. He’s a psychologist. I’m hoping to have 3 speakers at this one but I don’t want them to all be male. In the week of 24th I’d like to do a research slam. Then the week after that we could do a presentation guide session for conferences. More focussed on the presentation that the content.
SM: That could be instead of the research forum. We could do it in week 9.
NN: I’d like to do karaoke.
SM: There are lots of other karaoke events this term so maybe we should do it next term.
NN: We should also do a cake/coffee crawl. Like a bar crawl but with cafes.
SM: Let’s do that on the Sunday of week 5. The Collingwood event will be week 3 or 4. It’s been suggested that we could do something for dissertations, open to finalists and PGs.
RM: It could be combined with the research slam.
SM: Let’s move the research slam to the beginning of week 4 then. We’ll do it in the SCR.
OT: We could also do another trip somewhere. The issue is that people might not want to give up a whole day.
ÁB: We could also do a brunch. It was well attended last time.
SM: Let’s do that at the end of week 7.
Trip Outside Durham
SM: EA wants to do a trip during the Easter holidays. I don’t know if anyone would be around. She wants to go to either the Boer’s Museum or Lindisfarne. I think we should prioritise Lindisfarne or Hadrian’s wall in final term.
Inter-MCR Formal
ÁB: OT and I are writing. Do we know how long it needs to be or how many actors?
JW: Last year we had 8 actors and we finished writing it on the day. It’s meant to be split between courses, but with each scene only 2-4 minutes.
ÁB: We were thinking of a murder mystery sent in 12th Century Durham when the Cathedral was built in which the Bishop is murdered. A new clue is found in modern Durham that helps them solve the murder.
SM: EA has informed me that we need to trick the police.
JW: We could alternate between modern and medieval scenes.
Action: ÁB, JW and OT to finalise the script before week 6.
SM: Once we have the character set we can find suitable actors.
Ripped Off
SM: CG (Communications Officer) wants to know whether we’d like to collaborate with ripped off over the rise in MA fees. It could be a campaign, bar crawl or protest.
RM: A lot of Masters students don’t really care because they’re only here for a year.
SM: It would be good to be involved but I don’t know how.
JW: Numbers and mobilisation might be an issue.
RM: It will have to be an inter-MCR thing for numbers.
SM: DE (PG academic officer) is researching this.
Action: RM to speak to CG.
SM: Even if we just do a banner it’s something.
RM: I could write a Bubble article.
Welfare
SM: HH has sent me some notes.
HH: SHAG week is in 2 weeks. Then there’ll be one on allyship. It would be nice to have some input from PG internationals.
ÁB: Hit me up HH
HH: There’s also eating disorder awareness week. Then we’ll have something on stress and burnout, PG tailored but not PG specific. Also come to welfare events and send me ideas for the stress campaign and any other campaigns.
SM: We could put our brunch during the stress awareness campaign.
JW: Last year we had our coffee drop ins, that was consistently attended by a few people.
Mature Students
SM: MatSA are hoping to hold an event in Cuth’s this term. Our mature students’ rep has resigned, and I’m not convinced anyone else will run.
International Students
ÁB: We’ll do a film at some point. International and a drama.
SM: It could be end of week 4, or week 7 or 9.
ÁB: I’ll do it in week 4.
SM: How about a comedy, or a movie people can eat snacks to?
ÁB: I look into it. The French film.
JW: Untouchables.
Pizza
We all stay to wait for others to arrive so that we can order pizza. Most of us are more excited for the pizza than the socialisation.