Student Union attempt to take over events
CAMPUS EVENTS have come under threat from renewed attempts by the Student Union to centralise control over them. Under new proposals one SU committee will have the power to dictate the genre, branding and nature of a college’s events. The decision-making power of individual JCRCs will be decimated.
The absurdities of this scheme are already coming to light, as college chairs have voiced complaints over ‘restrictive’ branding. Langwith is one example of many bizarre scenarios, as it would be the only college to be able to hold live music events, dampening the expansion of successful events such as Club D or Planet V.
Rich Croker, Chair of Derwent JCRC, commented that the plans “need a lot of adapting to get to the stage to make it successful, and I do think that each new set of Ents Reps should be able to impose their own sense of identity on their kind of events. They should have their own time. They’ve been elected to a job; they should be allowed to do it.”
In a damning indictment of the new proposals, James Flinders, Chair of Halifax stated, “YUSU couldn’t run a bath, never mind a Halifax event.” He went on to say that there was no need for change, “we’ve shown with the launch of Xtra that Halifax events are both successful and profitable. We will continue to provide excellent events for the benefit of Halifaxers.”
Attacking the proposed centralisation of event control, Colin Hindson, Chair of Goodricke JCRC, stated “the JCRCs are separate from the Union and we’d never want to lose that.” Criticising the amalgamation of the Union and JCRCs, Croker asked where it would end. “Would that mean that the whole of welfare would get centralised if one college has a bad welfare system?
“You can try and even out everything. I mean you could argue why does 700 people from Derwent get involved in college sport, whilst Halifax has 200 out of 2,000. Eventually you’re going to try and balance out the whole system. It’s crude.”
Stifled events
Concerns that innovation in college events will be stifled by channelling ideas through one body instead of all the colleges have been raised. Several college chairs believe that as a result of a lack of competition, the incentive to improve events will be dampened and that it will be more difficult to gear events to distanced colleges such as Halifax.
These sweeping changes to a tried and tested system have been proposed under increasing pressure from Commercial Services to improve bar sales. Through a central branding and marketing programme, the SU hope to ensure that events sell out.
However, many students have commented that this proposal misses the point. Evidence from Ents records for the past term has shown a continually successful series of events, which have for the most part either sold out completely, or nearly sold out.
Rich Croker attacked the need for branding plans. “One of the great reasons Club D sells out, is because it just sells out is not true. I know on our Freshers Bar Crawl we had 330 people, which is nearly half our college and there’s no other college that’s got that number. Not even Halifax that’s got nearly 2,000 people.”
“There are a lot of people that go to Club D just because it’s Derwent, not necessarily because it’s that brand of events or music.”
That these successes in ticket sales are not paralleled in drink sales have been highlighted by a first year student attending a Halifax event. “I go home to get rat-arsed in my kitchen. I don’t go to the actual event until about ten because the drinks are too expensive.”
Complaints over high drinks prices have been sidelined by issues steeped in the jargon of brand fluctuation and marketing proposals. These prices were raised to a ‘ridiculous’ level at the start of the academic year, which has resulted in a lower level of drink sales at this year’s events.
The obvious solution indicated by many students is that prices should be lowered, or improved promotions should be executed - rather than attempting to artificially control the ‘diversity’ of campus events, and take powers away from JCRCs.
Political move
These radical moves away from JCRC independence have been hailed by many commentators, including those within the current SU, as a political move. Robbie Dale and Nat Thwaites McGowan are rumoured to be running for the posts of SU President and Services respectively in the forthcoming SU elections.
One member of the SU executive hinted at his suspicions that the officers who had proposed the plans were using it as a publicity measure, asking at the UGM held in Week five, during a round of questions about the Ents Proposals, what posts the two officers were going to run for.
This has obviously raised criticisms that the proposal could be part of a piece of profile raising on behalf of the candidates who created the Ents plans.
Their proposal has already been shot down on numerous points, including extreme plans to funnel income from events into a central pot rather than into the pockets of individual colleges.
Whilst these plans may prop up those colleges that are consistently losing money at events, it is feared that successful JCRCs will have their income taken off them to support other events. The chair of Derwent has voiced fears that “we’re going to be losing partly our income from it (Club D). We don’t make a huge amount, but it’s something.”
Worries that this will either lead to these ‘successful’ events being financially unable to improve themselves, or that they may be supported with more income, neglecting less successful college events, have come to light.
YUSU financial black hole
A cause of great concern in the original proposals was that YUSU would take a double share of the income from events, and thus would be favoured over colleges. Robbie Dale, Societies Officer, has defended these measures, “that’s to cover RAG, student action, liberation and that sort of thing. It would cover all of the non-JCRC events.”
However, these plans have been branded ‘unfair’ and as a way of ‘propping up’ failing YUSU events, such as the RAG event that was held in late January. This was a complete disaster with only 95 pre-event ticket sales and hardly anyone turned up, so the event was forced to close down at 11pm.
Thanks to a barrage of complaints from JCRCs, Dale confirmed that plans for financial redistribution have been put on hold, “as far as it goes the financial side is going to be a bit of a no-brainer at the moment.”
A complete revision and amputation of these proposals have been called for, but as it stands the marketing and branding central control plans will still go through. This presents a stark future for independent and tailored college events.
At the time of going to print, Dale and Thwaites- McGowan stressed that the plans were under revision due to the excessive number of complaints.
“Rather than propose something this week in ents that perhaps some people aren’t completely behind, we’ll do this extra consultation over the next few weeks and it will be back in ents as soon as everything is ready.”
