Societies express anger over UGM motion
A motion put forward at yesterday’s Union General Meeting (UGM), proposing changes to the societies grant allocation process, caused controversy among many students in attendance.
The motion, which was proposed by Nick Scarlett, the YUSU Student Activities Officer, argued that the current system of funding “could lead to a degree of nepotism” and “may favour some Societies unfairly at the expense of others.”
It suggested that in order to ensure the full budgeting process no longer lay under the remit of one sabbatical officer, all societies who receive grants of more than 5 per cent of the overall budget, which equates to around £4,000, must have their funding application approved by the newly formed Societies Committee.
The motion maintained that this would lead to a more “democratic” process, as “societies and clubs who apply for substantial grants should be able to justify their allocations to representatives from across their respective fields at the Societies Committee and York Sport Committee.”
Should the motion pass, it would currently affect seven societies on campus, including a number of York University Media (YUM) societies, FragSoc and two sports clubs, all of whom make up a large proportion of the YUSU societies budget.
However, many students, both those in societies affected by the motion and those who are not to be included, spoke against the proposal at last night’s UGM.
While Scarlett opened the proceedings with his speech, laying out his reasons for supporting the motion, Chris Montanaro, Chair of Debating Society, responded on behalf of those societies who felt they were to be unfairly affected by the proposals put forward by the Student Activities Officer.
He argued that the new system put forward would “actually subvert the democratic checks of the current system”, for in the existing process, as Scarlett was elected by the students, he is therefore accountable to that body, and does not have full freedom to allocate funds arbitrarily, as the motion appeared to suggest.
Montanaro also raised the point that those students who sat on the Societies Committee were only accountable to their own members and had a “vested interest” in reducing the funding of larger and more expensive societies, in order to increase their own grant, as opposed to the “objective, autonomous and independent agent” who currently decides society budgets.
YUM Chair Chris Young also spoke against the motion, arguing that it posed a “serious threat to the high quality of the media at York”, especially as other society representatives may not understand the high costs involved in producing a newspaper, which could lead to unfeasible cuts to the media societies budgets.
Nonetheless, Sam Asfahani, York Sport President, also spoke in favour of the motion, arguing that the new system suggested in the motion had already been adopted by the York Sport Committee in deciding club budgets, and this proposal merely formalised the process.
Voting on the UGM motions opened today. All students who wish to cast their vote should go to www.yusu.org/democracy/voting. Voting closes at midday on Wednesday 10th November.
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Whilst the title may be slightly misleading, I’d just like to say how pleased I am that this article has a balance to it and that it shows the arguments from both sides.
The text of speeches from both Chris and myself are available at http://www.yusu.org/democracy/voting and I’m personally happy to answer any questions with regards to the motion by email (n.scarlett@yusu.org).
I’m sure Chris Montanaro and Chris Young are equally happy to answer queries, however its not my place to put their contact details up here.
Just to clarify a point or two – not all YUM Societies currently take a larger than 5% portion of the budget and, whilst results are announced on Friday, voting is due to close on Wednesday at noon (so get voting by Tuesday, as I’m hoping a lot of you will be at the Demo on Wednesday).
A small factual inaccuracy – YUM is currently composed of five societies rather than four, and ‘should the motion pass’, it would affect four of the five.
I heard that the constitution specifies that only one Soc can be funded per specific function… Yet we have more than one printed ‘fact’ based newspaper?
Interesting…
Anyone know why is YUSU allowing such a constitutional breach to continue?
Firstly, YUM is not currently composed of five societies – constitutionally it contains Nouse, Vision, URY and YSTV. The Lemon Press are on a trial period, but, yes, will probably be in YUM by the end of the year. But not yet.
In response to Nick, and particularly Nick’s speech to be found by following his link here, you and I both know very well that using words such as ‘transparency’ and ‘democracy’ sound flashy and as if your intention is to enhance equality – but the truth is that it IS democratic to allow one person who the student body has elected, in mind of a Student Activities Officer’s responsibilities, to have be able to grant allocations, and it ISN’T democratic to enforce a Societies Committee on a huge body of societies with varied and self-serving interests, who perhaps in your fantasy land will talk peacefully and fairly, and then skip off into the fields of true YUSU ‘democracy’ where no society is more equal than another…
Of course, this will in some way work towards narrowing the budgets of societies that need larger budgets. Why would a society come to you with a substantiated list of things they need in order to effectively function with being able to justify expenditure? We all know that some societies by mere fault of existence need more allocated funds to maintain their equipment and produce the aims of their society. What on earth would be the purpose of a society which meets maybe a few times a term, perhaps just to go on a trip, to discuss mutual interests and perhaps produce some flyers, of approaching you with a realistic budget which totals a 1/4 of what is needed for a larger society, that – say – broadcasts on a daily basis, reports on a daily basis, and needs a plethora of high-tech equipment – and getting twice as much as they actually wanted/ needed? And the other society having to downsize and make do with half as much resources than they normally need to function. And be award-winning. And make student societies some of the best in he country.
Chris Montanaro is spot on. Nepotism will only exist as part of your societies committee. If this is some collective effort to push the student media away from being an autonomous body, that can criticise a Drama Barn play if it is crap, and report on a Student Activities Officer who pretended to be so pro-media to get the vote, and then crush us without knowing anything about us, then bravo.
Self interest vs democracy? Indeed: the self-interest of YUSU vs student democracy.
Anyone going to bother posting in their own name?
Also – is there not some rule about quoting someone from their facebook?
Am I the only one to whom this makes precisely no sense?
“Of course, this will in some way work towards narrowing the budgets of societies that need larger budgets. Why would a society come to you with a substantiated list of things they need in order to effectively function with being able to justify expenditure? We all know that some societies by mere fault of existence need more allocated funds to maintain their equipment and produce the aims of their society. What on earth would be the purpose of a society which meets maybe a few times a term, perhaps just to go on a trip, to discuss mutual interests and perhaps produce some flyers, of approaching you with a realistic budget which totals a 1/4 of what is needed for a larger society, that – say – broadcasts on a daily basis, reports on a daily basis, and needs a plethora of high-tech equipment – and getting twice as much as they actually wanted/ needed? And the other society having to downsize and make do with half as much resources than they normally need to function. And be award-winning. And make student societies some of the best in he country.”
… any chance of my previous comment being posted ?
@Tim, your comment must not have submitted properly as there is no record of it in our system. Please try submitting it again.
Although no longer a student, and attempting (until now pretty successfully) to let go of York, I have followed with interest Nick’s proposal and the subsequent arguments.
As a graduate and former YUM Chair, I feel one issue has not been raised in this debate. The strength of York’s media is well known around the country and within all aspects of the media industry. You may not realise it if you just read one of the papers, or occasionally listen to URY but the experience York offers to wannabe journalists is unrivalled.
I’m currently at City University doing a MA in Journalism, along with many other York graduates. In fact, I’d say of all universities, York probably feeds the most number of students in to the prestigious City journalism courses. Likewise, many former student media graduates have gone on to work in the industry, and one of most glowing parts of their CV is the opportunities they had at York. One of my friends has got a fantastic job working for a radio station. Was it because of his industry work experience? His degree? His masters? No, it’s because of what he did at URY. That’s what impressed them.
York student media makes students much more employable. In a period of economic uncertainty with very few jobs available in the media industry, surely YUSU should be encouraging these CV enhancing experiences, rather than cutting them. The media budgets may seem large but it is definitely money well spent. I agree with transparency and democracy but sometimes one doesn’t realise quite how important student experience is until one arrives in the real world.
“not all YUM Societies currently take a larger than 5% portion of the budget”
I’m curious – which one doesn’t then? It suggests that this particular YUM soc can manage its budget well and the others are getting too much, or it is getting too little.
YSTV doesn’t receive more than £4,000 (although not far off). The reason it manages is because unlike URY, Nouse and Vision it doesn’t have to pay to broadcast or print (it broadcasts online). URY has subscription costs (for example to broadcast on AM, to pay for news provision etc) and both the papers have to pay to print. Bear in mind that the amount of money the two papers receive currently only just covers two term’s worth of printing. They have to fund the final term themselves.
we do have video to work with too. Which is far more expensive to deal with than audio.
Papers:
In one (I shall leave it anon, but it is either nouse or vision) case still needing to be bailed out!
Anonymous Massive! is Massively perturbed by the outrageous impersonation of Anonymous Massive at 10.58am! No one but the true Anonymous Massive! can deliver high quality Anonymous Massiveness
As an aside, Anonymous Massive! happens to be Massively amused at the campus media’s pretence to be on the side of the smaller societies despite the fact it’s their budget they’re hogging and their integrity they’re slandering! Massive irony!
Poor Nouse and Vision having to find money for a third term of printing. Maybe YUSU should give them even more of the budget to completely screw the other 100 odd societies that the rest of the University take part in, who aren’t part of YUM. >_>
And @Anna Bucks, yes York media may be great on your CV and may help you with your career but why should media get precedence over other societies and groups that could open up opportunities for people not wanting to go into journalism and broadcasting?
Like Anna, I have now graduated and have been trying to let go of York. But this is just ridiculous. If this proposal goes through, it will ruin both Nouse and Vision.
The YUSU sabbatical team – this year and last – have been working to limit the powers of the papers and strengthen their own. They claim it is about democracy but it isn’t and they know it. At least one of the current sabb team has advocated merging Nouse and Vision and they have also, over the last year, been trying to limit what the papers’ can and cannot say. A few examples:
- Last spring term Tim and Ben made a major breach of the Media Charter and forced Vision into making a big editorial decision to suit YUSU. This was never properly followed up, but there is no denying that they acted improperly.
- Current sabb team recently tried to completely take over sections of the papers to advertise and promote themselves.
- Last year’s sabb team (and probably this year’s as well) have been trying to stretch Vision and Nouse’s timetable to breaking point. I.e demanding that the paper is finished earlier than is possible so they have more time to censor it. Even though Vision and Nouse have agreed to stretch the timetable, last year YUSU consistently failed to finish their censoring job on time, leading to mistakes and rushed changes at the last minute.
- YUSU have been becoming tougher and tougher on censorship and have stretched their interpretation of “welfare concern” to suit them. This has resulted in countless stories being altered or pulled completely.
- YUSU have shown a complete lack of respect for YUM since this time last year. YUM are treated like dirt by YUSU. They constantly complain that YUM never show them in a positive light, but that is simply not true. It is also particularly ironic because Vision (and probably Nouse as well) are currently sitting on the most shocking and scandalous story about YUSU for a long time which, if published, would probably force at least one sabb to resign. Regrettably, however, it can’t be printed because of a lack of written evidence.
I personally wrote a letter of complaint to YUSU last year about many of the above things but didn’t ever receive a reply.
I urge everyone who can to vote against this motion. It will ruin campus media as we know it. It will damage the career prospects of student journalists and writers. It will damage transparency and democracy. It will damage the university’s reputation. And it will severely damage the quality of both Nouse and Vision.
YUSU must be stopped.
I realise that there is a grammatical error in there…
I understand that the 4 YUM societies require more money to function but 20% of the budget is a large amount to be spend on a disproportionate number of students.
If anyone from YUM is arrogant enough to believe they are personally more worthy of investment by the union than other students, I’m sure they would have no trouble trying to justify the release of more than 5% of the budget to a societies comity.
@ Ex vision editor:
It can, however be written down as “alleged” , And also, even though we are obliged to not approve of them, theyorker may actually come in handy for once- what with their not being in the YUM group….
@ Oliver gettings:
Some socs never ask for much in the first place. – e.g. Barbersoc, Agnostic & Atheist Society., Law society …… If people want it, they can get it!
and unfortunately its weakness in both principle and practice undermines the strength of this motion entirely.
The necessary debate that needs to be had about society funding requires a better forum, and the fact that the motion has been put forward so soon after the YUM chair/union council business – again, a necessary debate (and indeed a more democratically made decision than anything that will transpire as a result of this UGM and as a result of any decision the Societies Committee, in its current form, is given) – is an extremely poor move from what is this year an extremely strong YUSU team.
Reviews like the one proposed are important. Why has it been shrouded in viciousness, finger-pointing and dishonest rhetoric? Supporters and proposers of the motion have made themselves come across as having a distinct agenda behind what should be a neutral procedure.
UGMs are a joke too (though they’re improving), but that’s another matter.
Er…what are you all using to have this debate? The website of Nouse. A newspaper. And don’t tell me you’re not loving having it.
Enough reason to keep supporting top quality media?
@Ex Vision editor Was it YUSU or Nouse/Vision that hushed the punch up at the Student Media Awards last term?
@n
Yes, this is true, although stories that have the words “allegedly” and “anonymous sources” written all the way through tend to get criticised for being vague, even if the author knows it all to be entirely true. Hard facts are certainly more satisfying. However, it’s not for me to say what should be done about that story and I probably shouldn’t even have mentioned it…
I’m really not having a go at the Yorker when I say this, because they are often unfairly criticised, but actually one of the great things about YUM is the fact that it (supposedly) has legal support from YUSU and, ultimately, from the University. I think this means that YUM are more inclined to take risks, whereas the Yorker I would imagine are more likely to err on the side of caution.
Actually, there was a case last year when Vision ran into some (very minor) legal trouble and YUSU yet again broke the Media Charter by saying that if anything similar ever happened to either Vision or Nouse, then YUSU would not provide any legal help. Tut tut YUSU.
Hannah, did you state to the Council Chair and the speakers that you would be reporting the UGM, rather than just being in attendance?
If not then why have people been quoted from their speeches?
@Oliver Gettings… I’d heard that a cringe worthy anchorman esque punch up happened there. It never did reach the papers though?
@Media Charter
Surely most of the speeches and content of this article could have been gained from the internet and reported on without even being at the meeting, and it should all be in the public domain anyway.
Not only are the transcripts of the main speeches online but as are videos of them. Was it stated by Tim Ngwena that the videos were being put on his personal YouTube account?
@Streets of Rage
I heard someone got killed with a trident as well. But as Vision and Nouse chose not to report on the incident we wont get all the facts. :p
I understand the need for societies to receive a fair amount of money, and indeed the need for accountability with regards to budgets, but this motion seems fatally flawed.
The first issue I think needs discussing is that of democracy. Much of the argument in favour of this motion is the suggestion that it will make budget allocation more democratic and thus accountable. However, it should be pointed out that the process last year was both democratic and accountable. It was democratic in that decisions were made by elected officers; and accountable in that student representatives from societies had the opportunity to meet with the Student Activities Officer to negotiate their budgets. In terms of both democracy and accountability I therefore think this motion is unnecessary.
Further to this, I think the issue of populism needs to be tackled head on. My point is contentious, but this motion seems to have populist tendencies. It showers the observer with buzz words like ‘democracy and accountability’ when in reality, it’s merely YUSU and its officers trying to ‘appear’ more credible to students. People are easily irritated by the thought that they are being screwed over by large societies who are absorbing vast sums of money; it’s a populist thought that situations like this should be stopped. But really, people are not being screwed over as I will explain in my point about the quality of student journalism later.
Secondly, the issue of fairness is something worth considering. Those in favour of the motion argue that it will make the society budget application process fairer because it will open the process up to external scrutiny by the societies’ committee and other students. However, I do not think that doing this will necessarily result in fairness. Every individual has a different conception of fairness; and equally, every individual has different preferences regarding which societies they favour. To me, this motion threatens to turn the whole process into a situation in which students are able to influence the budgets of the largest societies based on arbitrary likes or dislikes for certain societies. In short, if individuals dislike a certain society, they might be able to express this dislike simply by opposing a society’s budget for the sake of it. Furthermore, certain societies on campus have a stigma attached to them, or in other words, are generally unpopular with students outside them for a number of reasons. I do not think it is fair that we expose the society budget allocation process to arbitrary preferences. Instead, it seems fairer to me that budgets are allocated by the Societies Officer who has to, by definition, be as fair as possible with each society.
The third issue here may well be another of my most contentious points, but I believe it to be right. It seems apparent to me that no individual can possibly understand what it is like to run a large media society, for example, unless they have been heavily involved in that particular society. Of course, one can appreciate the hard work that people put in in running media societies like URY, YSTV, Nouse and Vision, but it is impossible to fully understand them unless you have been directly involved. People may be aware that large societies consume large sums of money, but they will not fully understand why this money is needed unless they have spent the time learning for themselves.
Of course, some might try and counter this argument by saying that media societies are perfectly capable of explaining this to the societies’ committee. However, I believe that they already do this perfectly well; they produce some of the best student media in the country as reflected by the awards they receive. Money well spent in my view; (and it should be pointed out that YUSU are happy to jump on the bandwagon of glory when these awards are won).
Chris – everyone involved with YUSU and the Media has played this one fairly. They’ve debated constructively, gone by the rules of UGMs and generally used this as a chance to debate fairly and constructively. Kudos to YUSU and to YUM.
You on the other hand, have used a charity facebook group, set up to raise knowledge of one of the most serious events of recent times, to just to push your own agenda. Even for you this is a low
“YSTV doesn’t receive more than £4,000 (although not far off)”
Actually it does. And the threshold is more like £3500 anyway.
But this selection of comments highlights PRECISELY the problem with this motion. The disagreement isn’t over whether accountability needs to be increased but whether YUM societies should have budget cuts. And, as the only four societies that increase accountability of YUSU are the only four societies affected, accountability in general will not increase – and more importantly, despite Nick’s and Tim’s consistent hammering that “it won’t affect YUM more than anyone else” and “where does it say YUM” etc, the comments automatically turn to “why should media get more than anyone else?”
And the reason is simple. URY, for example, costs £3,000 in licences alone. So if it got a budget of under £3500 it would pay licences and then only have £500 per year to maintain two functional studios with three mics, three headphones and a tons of cabling, studio selector systems (which, last year, got blown by a fuse in Grimston House, due to uni problems, and cost £60 to replace), a couple of full server cupboards, a production office, events equipment, music, around six computers that are needed to make jingles, posters, etc etc etc…
Yes, people could argue that the media need more advertising – but seriously, have you seen how much they get? URY got over £3,500 of sponsorship during my time as treasurer, and over £1,500 from the university separate to YUSU – and still needs a lot of renovation, improvements etc. So, unlike Physics Society (which I chaired, and which had a grant of £200 two ago, and this year got none), it has substantial costs.
Also, the media socs are the only ones, that I’m aware of at least, that can have upwards of 400 paid members. And affect over 3,000 students. Every person that reads the student newspaper is benefited by that grant money, unlike PhysSoc which will only benefit the physics department and a few others.
So that’s my issue; not that it will cut media budgets or only attacks media per se but rather that the motion has nothing to do with improving accountability of any societies but the four applicable media ones. And even then, accountability means nothing if a society isn’t represented at societies committee. If the two reps are Vision and Nouse people, and the YUM Chair is also from one of the two, then there is nobody who can answer questions about URY properly. Indeed, even if one of them were from URY, only the Treasurer, ASMs and SM will probably know enough about the finances to answer direct questions – and the fact that the reps don’t have to have any signatory experience highlights that the committee literally might know nothing about any of the budget areas.
I disagree with the argument that it is only as democratic (or less so) than one elected officer. Of course having 10+ elected individuals is more democratic! But the problem is that democracy only works when applied universally – the West Lothian Question is the equivalent to this, whereby some areas are more detrimentally affected “democratically-speaking” than others. Why is it just four societies and not over a hundred? What happens if the Student Activities Officer screws up all the other budgets or ignored Socs Committee? There is still no ACTUAL accountability procedure and this can still be pushed through in week 9 without any comeuppance for the Officer. And THAT is the real problem!
And I’d point out that we had people from Debating, Drama and other societies commenting – and that many media people who spoke are only as involved in media as other societies, even chairing some, and are still outraged by this appalling display of unfair, unequal and undemocratic ‘accountability’!
I appreciate the value of student media but surely if the value is so well accepted there is no problem it being explained to the rest of us through a fair and democratic process. The other societies deserve to have an explanation and I am sure we can see why some societies such as the YUM ones would require more funding if indeed this case is so compelling as they are all yelling right now.
Some of the comments however raised at the UGM by certain members of Nouse were trully shocking and almost implied that the student body ‘cannot be trusted’ with the decision making process and made a complete mockery of their prospective opinions. All I can say is this is a tottaly outrageous and contemptible attitude by Nouse and if they wish to continue getting futher funding under this new system they would be prudent to sharpen up their rhetorical skills. Calling everyone else stupid ‘because we can’ ‘because we are Nouse’ is hardly going to win friends and influence people.
I heard a comment on here that Nick Scarlet was accused of being flippant by being pro YUM on his election material but pushing through this UGM which is being portrayed (not at all biasedley) as a god ow-full cardinal sin. Firstly Nick Scarlet is not proposing anything that would threaten the media, he is merely placing the decision making process on that one to another body. Secondly I admire the Sabbs for once instead of pandering to the minority of vested interests that is the media (for fear of what they might say) they are standing up to them in the name of wider student interests and giving them a big fat NO, you guys CAN’T always have it your way just because you are the media.
Nick Scarlett got Cojones and I say Bravo to him
@Chris
I’ve got to agree with ‘Sickened’, I’ve seen your activity on Facebook and it’s very off-hand.
Firstly: the Haiti group was used because that campaign was strongly promoted by the campus media at the time. They were of great help to us in furthering the cause and will always be essential with any similar campaign. I do apologise if people were offended by this; I should have perhaps made this link apparent in the message.
In terms of a more general point; I like to create debate and am happy to take a few personal attacks if my actions achieve this.
Along with Bucks and Co, i’m also trying to let go of York. Let me tell you, the real world isn’t as pretty.
Not many of you will actually realise, but YUSU has undergone some dramatic changes over the last 18 months. Obviously, there is the new studio and the refurbishment of the Student Centre (admittedly, this was needed). Less apparent, is the number of non-elected YUSU Officers which have been employed, to work alongside Sabbatical Officers, which has cost the York student vast amounts of money – on my last count there have been 5 new roles created in the last 18 months. What puzzles me is that the Union survived on the Sabbs, a manager and a handful of administrative staff before and produced some good events…. well, better events than the latest ‘Big Bang’.
Without deviating from my point, Im suggesting that this latest motion is clearly part of the YUSU revolution. Perhaps a cost cutting measure to fund its latest ‘more professional’ look – at the cost of shredding its traditional democratic look.
I don’t think people are stating some of the points strongly enough here.
The media societies COULD NOT FUNCTION with less than 5% of the grant. They have costs that no other society could reasonably ever have: take URY’s licence cost as an example.
What’s fairer: a student activities officer with (supposedly) no bias, or society representatives who’ll ultimately care little about anything other than their own societies?
It is CLEARLY meant at at least starting a debate about decreasing media budgets to unsustainable levels. It reads less as a democratic spiel and more as a polemic against the media. Read the motion.
If ‘The newly created Societies Committee exists to ensure the Student
Activities Officer is well informed as to the needs of all Societies’, that’s great. But that should be the extent of their role: informing the student activities officer not pushing their own agendas to get increased grants.
The funny thing is, this motion would have passed with few questions asked if it didn’t mention things like ‘disproportionately high grant’ every other line. It CLEARLY has an agenda over and above increased democracy. And Scarlett, not wanting the wrath of several very large societies, is passing the buck onto societies committee. In fairness, his policies when elected barely mentioned societies at all. It was all about coloured banners and vague promises about volunteering, as I remember.
The system works fine as it is… if societies feel they aren’t getting enough grant money, they can appeal for more from the SA Officer. Why risk some of York’s most vital student activities becoming absolutely unsustainable by implementing some dubious policy with the supposed aim of increasing democracy?
The thing that people are missing is that the papers NEED this money just in order to carry on existing. It goes on printing. It is not for extras, it is just enough money to keep them running.
It would, of course, be nice for other societies to have more money, but if the papers lose this money they are literally screwed. Other societies, whilst they may lack funding, will not have to close if they don’t get this extra money. That is why this motion is a terrible idea. Because this money is essential to the papers. They will die completely without it.
A few responses to those who have criticised my view on this motion:
Some people have suggested that media societies will not lose out because media representatives will sit on the Societies’ Committee and will thus have the chance to explain why these societies need their money. However, this is a flawed point because this does not guarantee that others will listen to these representatives. As I’ve stated above, people have different preferences and it seems that this motion will simply open up media societies to unreserved criticism.
Furthermore, this motion also seems to suggest that it is only large societies who deserve to have their budgets heavily scrutinised. If the objective here is to make sure that no society is screwing students over in their budget claims, then why does the motion only penalise some? Implicitly the motion implies that it is only societies with large budgets who are guilty of misleading students; a charge which I think is very unfair. I would never support the universal scrutiny of societies budget by the Societies’ Committee, but this is a notable inconsistency in the motion.
@ Mahatma (And Co.)
The whole “the thing that people are missing is that the papers NEED this money just in order to carry on ” would be a whole lot more convincing were it not for the fact that it was only this year that they had to be forced to stop spending society funds on wine and champagne.
Less than two years ago, Nouse managed to spend more than £1000 of society funds on wine and socials in a single year. Chris, seeing as this is in reality all about your run for election in 2011 – will you be supporting them spending money on champers again if you are elected?
(p.s. the ‘S’ stands for ‘small’, and, probably, ‘Sad’)
As chair of Fragsoc, I’m sat on the fence on this one (although we don’t actually get anywhere near the £4k quota as this article implies).
This motion seems a good idea on the surface, and is just an extension to the current system of justifying your proposed grant request. If you need it, go ahead and put your case forward. I’d hope URY’s license would get approved, since it’s core to the society. I’d hope our portering fees still get approved, since we’re fast running out of room in old Goodricke and Physics (which costs us £666 in portering a time) is fast becoming our only option due to the lack of large spaces elsewhere on campus.
The problem with this, as a few people have pointed out above, is in the way that the committee are elected. A co-opted committee just opens the door to corruption (as Chris says in his counter speech, he was offered a place simply for turning up to a meeting). What if a number of representatives from a society (or group of similar societies) manage to get on the committee?
This *could* work, if you can ensure the committee stays neutral. A couple of people having their own opinions about societies is fine, as long as it’s balanced across the committee. If you just take anyone that turns up to a meeting though, this is likely to fall apart very quickly.
Jason Rose:
I’m afraid you’re wrong. I checked yesterday. We get less than £4K in total.
And it’s incredibly hard.
I heard URY paid around £400 for some pics and a very rushed website, which turned out to be less usable than the last orange one?
@Ex- SNOC
With regards to this motion; this actually has nothing to do with campaigning for YUSU. I genuinely find this motion to be unnecessarily bureaucratic and ineffective; hence the long and strongly analytical points I am making. It’s also important to note that it is making me as many enemies as friends and so it is hardly the best way to increase my chances of winning any future election.
Furthermore, any campaign I run for a YUSU position this year is unlikely to be serious in its nature. If I run again it will be for the enjoyment of the two weeks of campaigning, since campaigning is what I like the most.
@Ex- SNOC. I don’t know where you’re getting your facts from. I was involved in the papers until fairly recently and honestly never heard anything like this. That kind of thing would normally get picked up by the other paper as a way of criticising their rival. Haus Magazine though…. you might be right there…
@Chris
I can’t believe you tried to defend using the charity group to campaign against a UGM motion. It’s actually shocking. I thought you would have learnt something after your underhand Facebook campaign for D&S.
As for the 13:22 comment;
“Some people have suggested that media societies will not lose out because media representatives will sit on the Societies’ Committee and will thus have the chance to explain why these societies need their money. However, this is a flawed point because this does not guarantee that others will listen to these representatives.”
- it sounds a little bit like a democracy to me.
Are you saying that societies shouldn’t have to explain their costs, that they should just be given the union’s money without having to justify that it’s in the best interest of students?
If large societies, not just the media, can’t convince a comity then I’d wager that they wouldn’t be able to convince a university full of students whose money it rightfully is.
Just to answer some of the constructive points raised here:
1 – I concede that the Societies Committee is currently filled with people who have been co-opted. This is because it was formed after the last round of YUSU elections took place. By the Summer term (when this motion – if successful – would have impact) the Societies Committee will be elected.
2 – This did not have to go to UGM. I could’ve made this decision through Council or just made it as there’s nothing in place to stop this sort of change. At the moment it is the decision of the Student Activities Officer how to allocate grants and who takes part in the decision making process. The reason it has gone to UGM is to get a proper debate engaged with the student body – the fact there are 44 comments on this article and the length of the debate at UGM seem to indicate this was the right thing to do.
3 – The final accountability for this kind of decision will always lie with the Student Activities Officer. It’s the job of the SAO to represent all Societies, if the Societies Committee convinces the SAO to make a decision then it’s still a decision made by the SAO, just with a greater range of debate and consultation forming such a decision.
4 – As I said before, I’m almost positive that voting closes on Wednesday at noon (as this article has correct), so it might be an idea that the admins of the group against this motion change that to make sure interested parties (either for or against the motion) get their vote in on time.
5 – At least this motion is likely to reach quorum…
@ Oliver Gettings:
Firstly, you are entitled to think what you want about the emails and I am entitled to disagree with you. We won’t achieve anything by pursuing that point any further.
Secondly, my D and S campaign wasn’t underhand. The early Facebook group was set up based on a loophole in the election rules that any candidate could have exploited, and only after YUSU had been consulted. Furthermore, on the two occasions that mass emails were sent out, I wasn’t even aware of them until it was too late to do anything. The first one was sent while I was asleep and the second one was sent by someone who supported my campaign but I was aware of but hadn’t spoken to before. As I said at the time, the election rules on the subject of mass emails need looking at.
Thirdly, the motion does not guarantee ‘democracy’. The motion will victimise a few societies while others’ actions will go completely unchecked. If this motion was intended to increase the transparency of the whole process or democratise it properly then the logical thing to do would be to either apply the rule to all societies, not just some. It is the exclusivity of this motion which is most problematic.
Lastly, to answer your point about accountability, I shall quote what I said before:
“The first issue I think needs discussing is that of democracy. Much of the argument in favour of this motion is the suggestion that it will make budget allocation more democratic and thus accountable. However, it should be pointed out that the process last year was both democratic and accountable. It was democratic in that decisions were made by elected officers; and accountable in that student representatives from societies had the opportunity to meet with the Student Activities Officer to negotiate their budgets. In terms of both democracy and accountability I therefore think this motion is unnecessary”.
There is a typo in the previous comment: “The first one was sent while I was asleep and the second one was sent by someone who supported my campaign but I was aware of but hadn’t spoken to before” should read as:
“The first one was sent while I was asleep and the second one was sent by someone who supported my campaign and I was aware of but hadn’t spoken to before”.
I am against this motion. I think it’s a really bad idea and I support the papers.
But… what is Mr. Etheridge doing? Seems like he’s doing the ‘vote no’ campaign more harm than good. Has he ever even been involved in the media? I suggest he pipes down a little…
Nick – are you ok or do you want me to get Tom Flynn to fight your battle for you?
Note to Chris Etheridge…
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……….
I’m sure most of York Media don’t want you as their spokesman.
They can do that by themselves
@ Gandhi “The thing that people are missing is that the papers NEED this money just in order to carry on existing. It goes on printing. It is not for extras, it is just enough money to keep them running.”
thats not what I heard, I heard a bar named Vudu lounge received enough money last year from Nouse to keep their bar going with free drinks on the house all night long.
Perhaps a little less wreck less arrogance and excess from Nouse would make their case a little more convincing….
@ Chris ” If this motion was intended to increase the transparency of the whole process or democratise it properly then the logical thing to do would be to either apply the rule to all societies, not just some.”
This motion does apply to all societies! It will effect any society who wishes to make bids of an excess of 5% funding.
@Anon “It is CLEARLY meant at at least starting a debate about decreasing media budgets to unsustainable levels. It reads less as a democratic spiel and more as a polemic against the media. Read the motion.”
It does not read like that, you are reading that into the motion, stop miss-representing Nick’s views. The motion does not once mention the media. You are wrong on that.
I heard the last vision editors were happy to accept person VIP cards to nightclubs instead of payment into society funds for advertising…? Thoughts ‘Ex Vision editor’?
I can’t speak for any other of the media societies, but I know for a fact that Vision’s budget purely goes on printing and other necessities such as computers (of which there are six, three being quite clapped out).
I genuinely believe that Vision is very good value for money. Other student newspapers have fully paid staff and budgets that run upwards of £50,000 a year – e.g. Cambridge’s newspaper Varsity. We spend our money on necessities (like any society should) and we still get a disproportionate amount of national recognition.
I also think that if people want to have a proper debate about these things and are happy to band about accusations at YUSU, Nouse or anyone else they should at least have the decency to put their actual names to what they are saying.
Finally a UGM sparking debate and developing interest in YUSU policy. We should all be thankful for that at least.
I stand down as my position of Station Manager of URY this week following a year as Chair of the society. Over the past year I have been witness to debate about the relationship between YUSU and YUM but also been a part of ongoing development with YUSU and other societies to benefit not only my own members but members of the Union.
Running one of the most successful and active Student Radio Stations in the country is not an easy or cheap job. Yes, I will be the first to admit that URY is privileged to receive that 5% of YUSU’s grant allocation each year and yes, we spend it. Our grant account funds our running cost over the entire year, without it we could no longer function and no longer provide training, enjoyment and development for our members – nor could we, as has been our aim under this years committee, reach out students from across the Union.
To continue URY’s ongoing success and the development of our members and the service we provide to the whole union I would gladly justify our grant request to anyone who asked for it.
Speculation over our expenditure;
‘n says: I heard URY paid around £400 for some pics and a very rushed website, which turned out to be less usable than the last orange one?’
should be kept away from a forum for democratic debate unless people can get their facts right and I do not appreciate any society being dragged into the dirt based on misinformation.
URY makes no money from this Union. We have made it policy to be a station for our students and for our union. No money has ever and will ever be taken from another society in exchange for air time, adverts or features broadcast on campus.
We request the grant that we need to sustain our station, fundraise the rest and take upfront risk from our Own Funds account to produce events such as Stornoway in Derwent last year and the upcoming Courtyard event in December, all from our own money, not our grant, for all students, not just our members.
I have always tried to run a fair policy regarding our financial affairs and will stress to the next Station Manager that they do the same.
Motion 2 of the UGM lacks clarity. I cannot say for sure that it is not a step toward reassessing Society budgets as a whole. But I will say that, personally, I am for open and transparent decision making. To secure the future of my society I would gladly offer my justification for my grant request and the track record of my society to anyone, whether that be the Student Activities officer or a Societies Committee.
I hope that you all consider the motion carefully for what it is, make your decisions once you are correctly informed and encourage others to vote for or against this motion.
@7 out of 200 Societies express anger….
While I do not support changing the current system, what I meant by my point was that, if transparency of society finances is the aim of this motion, it should seek to review all societies’ budgets rather than just those who claim over 5% in the interests of fairness. By having the 5% rule the current motion penalises certain societies while others’ actions go unchecked. It’s the exclusivity of the motion which is the issue.
Furthermore, from the point of view of morals, the motion implies that it’s not the action of misleading students which is the issue regarding society budgets. The 5% level suggests that it is only when societies start claiming a large amount that they should be checked.
@ Jack
I agree. Although actually, 5 of the 6 computers were bought from advertising revenue and the 6th one was bought recently with a grant from the Alumni Office. When I was at Vision 100% of YUSU’s money went on printing and we had to pay for the third term of printing, computers and software through advertising revenue. As far as I know, this is still the case.
@ Chris
The reason for the 5% trigger is clearly for the effectiveness of the transparency measures this motion intends to create. If for example a small political society claimed a few hunderd pounds out of a budget of thousands there is clearly no need or point to scrutinise that claim and it would be ridiculous for the committee to review hundreds of the small and insignificant claims. Nick can handle those decisions on his own.
If however that very same society did indeed ask for a larger than 5% budget it is right that the committee scrutinise the claim and total transparency exists over its spending decisions. Not least because this money is a mixture of public money and students money and a claim of over 5% of the overall budget gives the student body and the other student activities it effects a right to review the spending habits of that society and indeed the legitimacy of its claim.
On a general note what we have here is a bunch of societies crying outrage at us creating a system that dares to question what exactly they are using a whole load of public money for. I and every other student whose gonna feel the pain of the cuts should tottaly and quite rightly know what is outrageous…. THE OPPOSITION TO THIS MOTION. VOTE YES to No 2.
@ Bored of Hypocrisy
Like Oliver Julian said, I really resent people coming on here and making false claims that they don’t know anything about just to try to drag other societies into the dirt. Anyone with editorial experience in YUM knows just how hard it is to get enough money just to survive as a society. The people who stay up all night just for the love of their newspaper only want the very best for the papers. If you are in favour of this motion then fine. Vote for it. But stop the misinformed claims which are de-generating this otherwise useful discussion.
Everything but a denial then ‘Ex-Vision Editor’….
“But stop the misinformed claims which are de-generating this otherwise useful discussion.”
I agree… think things started to go downhill about 5.59 yesterday…
@Jason Rose & @Mike
It used to be that YUM got a pot of money and this was then fought over by each of the YUM societies. Nouse & Vision have essential printing costs that they can’t do without and URY has a license fee it has to pay. Since YSTV doesn’t require anything more than a TV license, it was always their budget that got cut. Anyone involved with YSTV for even a short period of time will see the inginuity required by their techies to actually get the station to broadcast.
Since YUM societies have been funded separately, YSTV hasn’t really increased the amount of funding that they are asking for, which shows that they are only asking for what they know they need. Recently they went to the alumni fund and successfully got three new HD cameras to replace their old third-hand ones which were well past their sell-by date. If they had asked for this cost in their budget request, it would have doubled it. I think that shows that they are sensible about what they ask for and are in no way greedy.
For those of you who think “well, I don’t watch YSTV, so I don’t care”, look out for the big events like Battle of the Bands, Elections, Woodstock and Roses. A lot of the coverage of those events which you enjoy needs funding behind it, so don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of YSTV’s funding to the entire student body.
Definitely a worthwhile investment.
I think three things of all this hubub:
1. Nick Scarlett is very daring, which I think is nice. He’d probably be fighting that guy whose always the villain in Back to the Future.
2. The societies who get all the money get it for a reason, I know from personal experience that URY is brilliant and have seen things done by the other societies.
3. With big budgets comes big responsibility (OK so I couldn’t get in the Spiderman/Bible quote). The closer scrutiny the better with any society that has a budget of over £3,000 – that’s almost a years tuition fees (for the next couple of years).
There are currently about 300 editions of Nouse that have been lying in Vanburgh for a week waiting to be binned. Waste of money?
@ Rubbish
No. With newspaper printing you pay for the initial print. The number of copies you order makes *almost* no difference to the cost of printing.
@YSTV old fart:
============
I AM THE TECHY.
============
You are correct about everything in that post, we still are very enginuitive. We still fix everything so that we don’t have to put in for a massive budget. And we’re still building fresh matrixes (which are currently designed for expandability – multiple boxes should gang together to make bigger ones… and a few other useful bits, and easter eggs too…)
To everyone else: If we were to buy something off-shelf with the amount of functionality we put in, things would cost in the £1000 ish range, rather than the ~£50 we’re do it for:
Observe we are incredibly economical. I think a saving of 95% is pretty damn good. Do you?
The sooner this lot of useless sabs are replaced the better!
@ Power mad idiots
The sooner Nouse and Vision learn to not be power mad idiots the better.
@ Constitution Monster
“I heard that the constitution specifies that only one Soc can be funded per specific function… Yet we have more than one printed ‘fact’ based newspaper?
Interesting…
Anyone know why is YUSU allowing such a constitutional breach to continue?”
Because they give the media massive preferential treatment which other societies do not get. Whilst the media have the power to make or break the Sabbs future careers they can expect to continue to get this kind of treatment.. although… not if this motion passes….
However if a member of the union, any member of the union were to submit a UGM motion merely pointing out this fact then Nouse and Vision would legally cease to exist or they’d be forced to merge. You wouldn’t even need to win any kind of vote on it, it would just be refereed to the unions legal representative who would recommend the instant de ratification of one or both.
n agrees.
@Constitution monster…
If this is true it raises a very big question over the legitimacy of our two ‘quality’ newspapers.
Time and time again reading the latest issue of either Nouse or Vision I find myself finishing it within 10 minutes because the lack of decent articles in them. Often there are factual inaccuracies and sometimes patent untruths written in them as well.
I dare say that they could either considerably raise the standard of articles or accept a trimming of their issues.
And well done to Nick standing up to the YUM mafia. They hold the sabbs and those wanting to be involved in our campus politics to ransom to further their own interests if you are not ‘in’ with them.
I don’t understand why they should get such a significant amount of funding that dwarfs the funding of other societies to essentially allow a few to get on their soapbox and think they are suddenly movers and shakers.
Perhaps this “constitutional breach” has not been brought up because, by merging or getting rid of one of the papers, YUSU would be shooting themselves in the foot. Student media at York is highly regarded nationally, and both papers have had their fair share of success. This is almost certainly a direct result of the competition between them. Furthermore, a merger could quite possibly lead to a sabbatical position for the editor, who, on a student union wage, would cost more than Nouse and Vision’s funding combined.
Whilst there is good reason to work to the constitution, there is also good reason for using discretion at times.
I will be voting no to this motion. I’m surprised Nick Scarlett does not feel responsible enough to deal with society funding himself, perhaps he shouldn’t have gone for the job in the first place. The sabbatical officers tasked with this job in the past have dealt with it fine, and have obviously understood why the higher funding was necessary.
I’ll make sure the next sabb I vote for in this position feels capable of doing the job, rather than someone whose main interest is to save kids camp.
Well if we are no longer going to have organisations doing the same job can we get rid of all the collegiate organisations (college sports, college welfare, college lgbt, etc) because they are all patently doing the same thing using that simplistic logic.
If we merged the two papers what would happen would be we would have one big paper that prints six times a term, has one editor (who would probably need a sabbatical wage for the amount of work it would take), has a resource budget twice the size of Nouse and Vision at the minute and the quality would go down because of lack of competition. So more money, less quality! In short it is a rash idea that is in no one’s interest.
And ex-bnoc no.2 I simply refute the idea that the standards of the papers are poor. I think the fact that Vision has the largest number of Guardian Student Newspaper Awards 2010 nominations in the country proves that is wrong.
Also “YUM Mafia”? Seriously? What on earth are you going on about? That is probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
@Bah.
Nick has never said he does not feel he cannot do the budgets himself, you seem to have ignored the point of this motion.
Sabbs have dealt with the budgets is the past and people have complained:
http://www.nouse.co.uk/2008/10/29/society-budgets-slashed-after-closed-door-yusu-meeting/
You can’t have it both ways!
Also: “Furthermore, a merger could quite possibly lead to a sabbatical position for the editor, who, on a student union wage, would cost more than Nouse and Vision’s funding combined.”
I thought the papers were desperate to keep their independence from YUSU?!
They are, that is why we don’t want one big paper. But it would be completely unreasonable to ask anyone to do that level of work and not receive a wage.
But this is a completely divergent discussion because YUSU have enough sense to know that two smaller papers with small budgets is better than one big paper with one massive budget.
Can we stop referring to ‘YUM’ so blindly as societies holding sabbs and students to ransom – that is not what we ‘all’ do, and certainly not what URY does. We run a responsible and fair service for all students and this has been well proven and praised in the last year.
It is a form of libel to generalise us in that way.
We might all sit on the same committee but we all have very different aims and policy, please remember that.
Quite simply the media societies provide a service and the money they recieve is vital the continuation of these services. Other societies that provide a service, such as the performance societies like juggle soc or polercise recieve money in line with what they need to provide the service.
We should not be restricting those students who put the time and the effort in to making York a community.
If other societies feel they require more money to carry out their activities then they should be mandating Nick et al to get them more money rather than asking for other societeies to recieve less. That’s just sour grapes.
That’s why I’m not posting under my own name.
I’m guessing everyone throwing around abuse on here is using a fake name for the same reason?
If the bulk of Nouse and Vision’s budget goes on printing costs, then why don’t they abandon printed papers and just focus on online content ?
I remember being DougSoc chair several years ago (probably back when most students were still doing their A-Levels, or perhaps even GCSEs) and the budget was allocated at a meeting with a YUSU finance committee. This was composed of a few YUSU officers and others, though I can’t remember exactly who, and totaled nearly a dozen people.
Each society had to go into the meeting, discuss their requirements and basically haggle YUSU out of their money. I’m not saying this wasn’t a difficult or arduous process, but it was fair and gave societies the power to argue their case and justify their expenditure.
A few years later it seemed to be changed to the “closed door” system and I happened to be chair of another society that suffered for it. As the grant was reduced to basically nothing and we had no meeting and no committee to which to take our case. This was the year of the Nouse article which Ben Humphries quoted at the UGM – and I’m surprised that no one else has picked up on it.
The motion (which is not an attack on the media, as the straw man arguments by its opponents seem to suggest) says that societies would have to pass their grants by a committee in order to receive them. Are the newspapers perhaps afraid that, if challenged, they wouldn’t be capable of justifying their expenditure? If the motion passes, they have nothing to be scared of unless they’re currently and willingly fleecing YUSU of its grant money.
Spending YUSU money on…
Diamonds and Guns, Diamonds and Guns, Diamonds and Guns. woo hoo, woo hoo.
@Chris A, all –
This isn’t about justifying expenditure, or wanting more money; it’s about changing a perfectly-good system of budget allocation by need into one that could allow budgetary pressures to be applied on certain societies at the behest of an appointed, unaccountable committee.
Currently, societies only get what they need. One Soc treasurer last year needed a few packs of biscuits and a box of tea bags to function, another needed some juggling balls. The papers need to go to the press – and in fact only get funded for 6 of their 9 annual editions. That’s why they get far more money than, say, Tea Cosy Soc.
The proposed motion, if passed, would change that. Larger-budget societies wouldn’t get what they need to function straight off – instead a committee (currently appointed, not elected) could debate whether they should be allotted the bare minimum they need to survive, or whether they should get less.
Thus, such a committee – and let’s not kid ourselves, no campus committee is ever wholly incorruptible – would have the power to arbitrarily decide to squeeze one, or more societies if it so wished. And, as YUSU Officers have stated on the record, squeezing media societies is something the Union leadership “is looking at”.
Do the maths.
I purposely stayed out of this debate until now as I think it’s a fight for the current students, and not those who can’t quite shake their YUM allegiances, but I can’t help but feel that some of those who will vote on this motion, or already have, do not understand the potential consequences of its passing.
@ Chris A. Oooh Oooh! I’m a Dougsoc Chair!
“The papers need to go to the press”
Need to ? Well, I suppose by definition they wouldn’t be ‘papers’ if they weren’t on paper. Does a university ‘need’ 2 papers ? If we ‘need’ 2 because the competition increases standards (oh, and gives people something to put on their cv), then why not scrap the funding for printing costs, and fund another 2 or 3 online media outlets ?
Nouse and Vision’s websites are far more useful than the printed paper, as they allow students to actually discuss things. Web 2.0 and all that…
@Henry Foy
In which case I have to reiterate my point; are the newspapers scared that they wouldn’t be able to justify their expenditure to a committee of their peers? They won’t automatically have their funding reduced and they won’t have it delayed because the motion (and Nick’s words at the UGM) clearly proposes integrating the society committee into the existing process, rather than tacking it on at the end for days upon days of deliberation.
All students benefit from the media. From disseminating information about YUSU activity and UGM motions to reviewing and advertising events. We’re all aware of how useful it is. To say that a committee of students wouldn’t recognise this, or to say that they wouldn’t possibly push for even more funding towards the media based societies is just plain cynical.
I admit that Nick Scarlett has presented little tangible evidence to back up his idea of nepotism – hopefully someone who would fall foul to that sort of behaviour would self-select themselves out of running as a YUSU sabbatical office. But similarly, the opponents of the motion have also presented no evidence, beyond their mere speculation, that a committee could do the same. Especially a committee of over a dozen people, representing a wide range of societies. You could hardly form a massive bullying force within that committee if you actively tried, yet alone if you tried it through self-serving interests. It is purely fallacious to assume that a large group of people are more open to influence, pettiness and nepotism than an indiviudal.
Like Henry, I too tried to stay out of this but I think that there are several issues that need to be cleared up.
I was involved in YUM throughout my time at York and have ha my fair share of arguments with both YUSU and the leaders of the other media societies. But I can always say that I have always respected the way that they manage their finances.
The papers sell adverts and get sponsorship from external companies. In my opinion, it is up to them how they spend that money, as is the same for all other socs, whether that be on new equipment, training or a really good social.
I agree wholeheartedly with Oliver Julian’s comments here and would also like to add that URY barely functions on the money that it receives. It is in a damp building with old and failing equipment. Such a massive part of YUSU and the University’s history should not have been allowed to fall into such a state and definitely should
not remain that way. URY is the UK’s oldest legal independent radio station; it was launched by John Peel; it has helped start the careers of many aspiring broadcast journalists, producers and engineers, and is ALWAYS a good laugh and a great experience for all of its members.
Student media all around the country is celebrated and supported by their respective unions. York’s is not. Student media at other universities receives much more money, more support and better facilities, and yet York students fight to win awards and gain respect.
Don’t make this fight even harder to future generations of students.
Think strongly before voting for this motion. Don’t let YUSU damage the best way for students to question and challenge their union. Don’t allow YUSU to extinguish a 43 year reputation of excellence. Don’t vote ‘yes’ to this motion.
It’s a shame that so few people currently involved with the media have felt they should get involved with this discussion…
Two people who helped run media organisations get involved and that’s an issue? This is the most commented on piece in some time and rightly so.
“I don’t understand why they should get such a significant amount of funding that dwarfs the funding of other societies to essentially allow a few to get on their soapbox and think they are suddenly movers and shakers.”
Why should Sabbs be paid to do it? Why should Society Committee exist to make a normal member of a Faith Society, for example, hold real power within the Union. I literally don’t understand the question. The reason that the media get a lot of money is because they cost a lot of money; the reason that this is justified, instead of reducing the media significantly and making URY only do a weekly podcast or Vision an annual edition or YSTV use laptop webcams is because all of them are tried, tested, and awarded. Even Lemon Press, and I use the word ‘even’ because they’re not in the 5%+ category, has won a national award. How many other societies have? I can count three off the top of my head (and they’re all, comparatively, big-budget societies too).
We’ll see the final result of the vote but if accountability for YUSU is what they’re after, they should have written it into the motion – if accountability for YUM is what they’re after, they DID write it into the motion.
I say we should do to the Student Centre what is currently being done to Conservative HQ if this passes!
I just lost the game.
And also just to point out ‘Anarchy’ YUSU aren’t stupid enough to make a building out of glass. Silly Tories.
@I got bored of reading but…
Have you been to Hes East lately?
No Sign of the results then….
@Interested – Apologies! Quite a long day for the entire Sabb team yesterday and we’ve had a few election things to process this morning.
Results are up now here: http://www.yusu.org/blog/entry/484
Crickey, quite some debate.
As a former URY Assistant Station Manager, a voting member on Finance Committee (which had a similar responsibility for ratifying societies as the proposed Societies Committee), someone who was present at the YUSU Exec (now Council?) meeting at which YUM was created in 2004, and a general YUSU/YUM/Uni hanger-on for some 6 years, I can see this from all sides of the table. Indeed, I seem to have been indirectly quoted in at least one of the submissions above.
For the motion: firstly, this was how business always used to be done. The 15 or so voting members of Finance Committee used to make recommendations as to whether societies were funded, and thus should have their existance ratified, to Exec throughout my time at York (roughly 01-06). For example, we recommended that CoffeeSoc should not be ratified as there was already a TeaSoc – the two were sufficiently similar in objectives to respresent poor value for money to the student body, and thus the two directed to merge (HotDrinkSoc?). The same went for RockSoc – we rejected their ratification and funding on the basis that they were too similar to BandSoc and thus represented poor value for money. Secondly, while another layer of approval is burdensome (the societies and particularly media budget routinely used to have Finance Committee in past midnight in the autumn term), but ensures robust financial management and oversight.
Against the motion: if the number of people on Societies Committee is too large and/or they lack experience, there is a danger that severe damage will be done to societies with heavier funding requirements. The members of the committee need to appreciate that a flat-rate per capita grant approach to society funding will not work (see YUSU’s Supplementary Grant application process from circa 2004).
To respond to one particular theme that comes up a few times above: why do the media societies deserve more funding (both in absolute terms, and per capita) than most other societies?
1. The media societies have many expenses which are not scalable. For example a low-power AM (LPAM) radio licence, which is the cheapest kind, is not purchasable in short durations. You can’t broadcast for half the time for half the cost to save money. Stopping URY broadcasting for a year would effectively kill it due to the loss of vital corporate (particularly technical) knowledge that would occur. Someone else may also poach the frequency (YSJ have expressed interest in the past). This means YUSU can either fund the requirement or not; not simply reduce the amount they are willing to pay. This is not true of societies which hold debates, trips or socials – their costs can be scaled by the number of events they hold per year.
2. Media socs generally have more _active_ members than more informal societies (ones which exist for people to discuss a particular subject, for example – for which activity is scalable). Media society members also tend to be more active per person (I remember spending 30+ hours/wk in URY most of the time, including over university holidays, despite doing Electronics – not many discussion based societies can match that). The cost per student _activity hour_ therefore becomes more reasonable. The direct benefit of being a member in terms of personal and career development (learning the technology, the industry, networking) is also potentially greater than with ad-hoc discussion-based societies.
3. The media societies have lots of members. Not sure about today, but over 1,000 in the early noughties. Sports clubs attract heavier funding, and require heavier subscriptions from their members, because of insurance and legal costs. The media are the same. This puts YUM on par with the AU (now YorkSport?) as an internal affiliate; thus if the AU has a treasurer with a permanent voting seat on finance/societies committee, then so should YUM.
Food for thought. Happy to take any comments/queries.
Tim
@Chris A
In http://www.nouse.co.uk/2010/11/05/societies-express-anger-over-ugm-motion/#comment-84312 you wrote: “This was composed of a few YUSU officers and others, though I can’t remember exactly who, and totaled nearly a dozen people.”
SU Treasurer (a non-sabb) (chair), all the YUSU sabbs, all the JCRC Treasurers, SU Societies Officer (a non-sabb), AU Treasurer, 5 x ordinary members elected directly by the student body.
I got bored and uploaded some minutes of typical meetings.
This one discusses the society and media budgets:
http://www.timbateson.co.uk/Fin_Comm_Mins_31_Oct_2005_Wk_4.pdf
This one discusses a new supplementary grant application procedure for societies (i.e. how to get money above and beyond the standard per-capita grant):
http://www.timbateson.co.uk/Fin_Comm_Mins_24_Oct_05_Wk3.pdf
Have fun!
@ Anarchy
“I say we should do to the Student Centre what is currently being done to Conservative HQ if this passes!”
What a tit!
@Jason Rose
YSTV does NOT get over £4000. We don’t even get £3500. I don’t know where you’re getting your figures from but they’re wrong.
More national recognition of the quality of York’s student media on Thursday night: http://www.studentradioawards.co.uk/
I LOVE NICK SCARLETT