JCSU OGM minutes - 18/02/16

[pdf-embedder url="http://jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/OGM-minutes-180216-1-4.pdf"]


JCSU Minutes - 12-02-16

[pdf-embedder url="http://jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Minutes-120216-.pdf"]


JCSU Minutes – 28-01-16

[pdf-embedder url="http://jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Minutes-280116-3.pdf"]


JCSU Minutes – 17-01-16

[pdf-embedder url="http://jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Minutes-1-170116-1-1.pdf"]


Minutes - 16-10-15

JCSU COMMITTEE

Minutes of a meeting of the JCSU Committee held on Friday 16th October 2015 at 5.30pm in the Library Court Seminar Room.

Present: the President (Amatey Doku), the Vice-President (Ruby Stewart-Liberty), the Treasurer (Christina Lane), the Secretary (Freddie Valletta), the Services Officer (Aiden Goulden), the Communications Officer (Caroline Sharp), the Access Officer (Tom Hogg), the Green Officer (Tansy Branscombe), the Ents Officers (Xanthe Fuller & Amelia Oakley), the Women’s Officer (Abigail Smith), the Male Welfare Officer (Ben Simpson), the Female Welfare Officer (Daisy Eyre), the Mental Health and Disabilities Officer (Harrison Packer), the International Officer (Minji Kim), the LGBT+ Officer (Izaak Jephson) and the Racial Equalities Officer (Nadine Batchelor-Hunt).

  1. Matters arising

(a)     Freshers’ Week
AD and other members of the committee reported that they had received thanks from freshers, their parents, porters and other members of college staff including the Master and the Dean about the way that Freshers’ Week was planned and carried out. AD suggested that towards the end of term we can think of what we can do differently and feed them forward to the next committee.
(b)     Proposed changes to the College regulations
AD reported that the Senior Tutor proposed the change in response to Caesarian Sunday as well as the JCSU’s response to college’s response to it. The general impression (JCSU and student body – 66 responses on Google Form) of the proposed changes is that the wording is very vague and subjective, college need to clarify it more, there is a huge scope of liability as it can cover so much (not just Caesarian Sunday), there are no punishment regulations – up to Dean’s discretion, and that college should trust students as responsible stakeholders of the college and its reputation.
AD went on to inform the committee that the student representatives on the College Council will try to block the proposition going through due to the reasons stated. He didn’t think it would go through due to the fact that there are members of the council that don’t agree with the proposition. But if it is passed the committee should prepare for late night vestry meetings to discuss the next step.
(c)      Malcom St. gardens
AD reported that a student, in their own capacity, has decided to draft a complaint letter about the gravelling over of the Malcom Street gardens without informing anyone. However next year the Tutorial Department has said they’ll put together document outlining future changes to each property to make students aware. It was suggested that college should write a letter of apology to the affected students and that the JCSU should actively support the student writing the complaint letter. BS raised the fact that this issue is part of an overall issue of the lack of dialogue between college and the student body.
(d)     West Court update
AD reported that the contractors’ handover of the JCR/MCR to college has been postponed until Friday 23rd October. Furniture will be delivered between the 9th and 11th November and Friday 13th November is when we will have first access. He presumed there will be a way of getting there through the building site but was still unsure. AG confirmed that the home cinema system would be in place straightaway for welfare/film nights.
FV to find out availability for Thursday 29th October when the JCSU will be toured round.
CL reported that college would not be buying a new pool table for the JCR but said we would use JCSU capital to have a one off payment for it.

(e)      Budget timeline
CL requested that committee budgets should be in by Thursday 22nd October at the very latest.
AD reported that we would need to look over budgets as a committee after the deadline and get it confirmed by Rob Shepherd. AD revealed that people can’t put forward motions to change the budget at the OGM but only suggest for the JCSU to confirm. This would stop large groups from one club/society coming in and forcing budget amendments through. The budget would be confirmed at the AGM, if not then then at weekly EGMs.
(f)       Provisional dates
OGM: Tuesday 3rd November.

AGM: Tuesday 17th November.

Nominations open: Wednesday 18th November.

Hustings: Friday 27th November.

Voting, result and handover social: Monday 30th November.
FV requested that the committee had to attend both hustings and the voting/result night.
(g)     Freezer provision
AG reported that the issue of freezer provision in houses (which was raised at the last OGM) was being rejected by college as is a massive effort as the freezers frost over due to lack of regular defrosting by students and housekeeping can’t clean them once they’re frosted over. Therefore when fridges need replacing, they replace them with ones without a freezer compartment. This was met with general disdain. NBH expressed that college
need to tell us that this happening without just doing it as some students like to cook from frozen as it’s cheaper. CS said we never got an opportunity to take care of it and that we weren’t made aware of the problem. RSL reported that lot of houses have space for freezers and that college have their priorities in the wrong places, some beds are like prison beds whereas the new mirrors have motion sensor activated lights.
AD suggested that we could go to Student Affairs committee and bring up the issue of lack of dialogue between college and the JCSU.


(h)     JNet minimum card top up.
XF began by correctly stating that £50 is half of £100. This was confirmed by TH.
AG reported that the Finance Office have put forward two options which they aren’t going to move on mind. Either a high caff card top up or a smaller top up with small handling charge (~20p – only for credit cards, not debit cards). But there is also the £20 cash top up in the bar which he assured it wouldn’t go any higher.
It was decided that the £20 cash top up in the bar would be advertised more through signage outside caff and the bar as well as stating it on the JNet top up page.
AD raised the issue that college think they’re getting a good deal on transaction fees. HP suggested that we find out what other colleges do so we can compare. CL said she knew that only 3 other colleges don’t have handling charges.

 

(i)       Positive investment
AD reported that a Jesus PhD student would like the committee to pass a positive investment motion stating, ‘We endorse all efforts of the University of Cambridge to investigate ways of more closely aligning its investment practices and policies with its own stated values, as outlined in its Mission Statement.’ amongst other things. The committee agreed with the motion.
(j)       Gym equipment purchase
CL reported that new gym equipment would have to come out of JCSU budget but college would cover maintenance costs. Equipment became dangerous due to lack of regular maintenance.
(k)      Ethiopia Foundation potential charity donation
CL reported that the Ethiopia Foundation has had money from JCSU for 2 years for people that go and volunteer but can’t do that this year because of safety issues in the area. They asked the JCSU to donate money to the centre instead. She had spoken to people in college who control that money and they’re happy to donate the money. AD stated that this issue would have to go through the OGM as it would be a different use of the money that would usually be given to them.
(l)       Disabled Students’ Campaign (DSC) room use
HP reported that DSC are struggling to find rooms to meet in without paying lots of money. They want to know if the JCSU can occasionally book a college room for DSC meetings so as to avoid any charge. He was worried because it would be support for an autonomous campaign which has a political stand point and was worried about this setting a precedent for the room use of other university societies and autonomous campaigns. He said that he’d get back to the students from the campaign and say that the JCSU’s view is that they should talk to CUSU and talk to the staff from the relevant courses.

BS suggested that we could approach college about this saying they could make rooms free for university societies because it’s good for the general university student body. TB supported this but added that a member of college should be a member of the society.

DE queried if an exception would be made for the DSC but HP said we shouldn’t set a precedent which the rest of the committee agreed with.

  1. Any other business

(a)     Street lights
NBH reported that she went to a meeting about the proposed turn off of street lights at night. The University is going to pay to keep them on at night.
(b)     CUSU welfare ranking
DE reported that CUSU feel they’re mandated to do carry out a ranking of college welfare provisions as having the information is helpful for prospective applicants. They’re not going to have a ranking system as originally suggested but a star system instead. This was met with approval by some – AD thought it would be better to have a transparent system like this. Whereas BS expressed that he felt it is difficult to quantify the quality of any welfare system. Ranking is not a good idea and the difference in colleges could be really misconstrued. He suggested that there could be a system which provides information on welfare provisions on a private, inter-college basis rather than publicly distributing information that could be misconstrued.
DE also reported that there had been general discussion in CUSU about disclosing number of intermissions at each college and whether this should be done along with talk of needing a detailed explanation of good welfare. NBH said that intermission might not necessarily mean a college is bad, on the contrary it could mean that the college is supportive of students’ decisions.
RSL advised the committee to go with her to the CUSU council meeting in 2 weeks to get their voices heard.
(c)      Halloween bop
AO and XF reported that they were going to hold a Halloween bop. This was met with approval by the JCSU.

 

AD thanked the members of the Committee for a very helpful and successful meeting.

The meeting closed at 7:20 pm.


JCSU Minutes - 14-03-15

JCSU COMMITTEE

Minutes of a meeting of the JCSU Committee held on Saturday 14th March at 1.00pm in the Library Court Seminar Room.

Present: the President (Amatey Doku), the Treasurer (Christina Lane), the Secretary (Freddie Valletta), the Communications Officer (Caroline Sharp), the Access Officer (Tom Hogg), the Green Officer (Tansy Branscombe), the Male Welfare Officer (Ben Simpson), the International Officer (Marina Mayer) and the LGBT+ Officer (Anthony Wheeler).

Absent: the Vice-President (Ruby Stewart-Liberty), the Services Officer (Aiden Goulden), the Ents Officers (Xanthe Fuller and Amelia Oakley), the Female Welfare Officer (Daisy Eyre), the Mental Health and Disabilities Officer (Harrison Packer), the Women’s Officer (Eleanor Kashouris) and the Racial Equalities Officer (Nadine Batchelor-Hunt).

  1. Committee reports of actions since last meeting
    AD – attended a design meeting for West Court, rewriting the Constitution, sent out the Annual Survey.
    CL – attended a design meeting for West Court, still signing cheques, met with the Finance Officer – see 4(c).
    FV – attended a design meeting for West Court, organised JCSU meeting.
    CS – met with the college’s new Communications Officer, general social media stuff, sat on the Communications Committee, put the Master on the JCSU mailing list.
    TH – attended CUSU Access Forum – see 4(b), met with the college’s new Communications Officer (Helen Harris, not Helen Higgins as stated on the agenda, she was my blind date) about the JCSU videos – need to chat to AO.
    TB – organised Fairtrade Fortnight – welfare bake, film night and Fairtrade promotion.
    BS – usual welfare stuff – drop in, sexual health supplies, welfare cake.
    MM – organised a return formal swap at Downing, promoted iCUSU elections.
    AW – subsidised tickets for a group to see Rent, promoted CUSU LGBT+ elections, rewriting the Constitution.
  2. Minutes from last meeting
    No comments.
  3. Suggestion form report by AG
    AG reports that since the last meeting no progress has been made with the suggestion form as he and the Domestic Bursar have not had time to meet.
  4. Matters arising

(a)     Communication strategy and website review
CS – met with Communications Officer and she talked about crisis communications. She needs to know about actions that could cause potential slip up so she is able to put a strategy in place.

CS – attended Communications Committee, they’re updating Jesus College website first then JNet. They also found in their prospectus survey that people found accommodation and facilities most interesting when looking for a college and history and alumni the least interesting.
They had some questions. Do we want to keep access and prospective students on main website? Or could we move it to the JCSU website
TH – keep it on Jesus website as it has more traffic - easily Google-able. We’d have the new alternative prospectus on the JCSU website plus some college info. But we’d need a link to the JCSU website on the main Jesus site.

CS – what would we emphasise on the website to set us apart from other colleges?
Points that were raised: space, on site facilities, range of accommodation, mix of history and modernism, not too big a college – you know pretty much everyone.
TB – we have such a pretty college with an amazing space so it needs to be heavily picture based.
FV – just need to make sure they’re not staged.
TH – we should get a big range from the photo competition. Also they’re organising a photography day with a professional photographer. They would be able to train other amateur photographers. This wide range of photos could also be used in the new alternative prospectus.

CL – Churchill have a new website which they’re tempted to copy but it may seem a bit unfriendly.
CL – I felt as though it was too focussed on design rather than content.
TH – too corporate
BS – and it looked as though it was selling themselves a bit too much. Also they focus on stats like the position in the Tompkins Table, don’t know if it should be front page headline.
TH – we’re 4th, this is not too high that it looks like we’re not having fun.
AW – also Churchill have less aesthetic to sell but we have other things.
(b)     CUSU Alternative prospectus
TH – attended CUSU access forum. It was interesting to hear from other colleges about access tours – some had never done them. We’re one of the best colleges at doing them. Gave some college’s Access Officers tips. We discussed the new CUSU alternative prospectus. The CUSU Access Officer (Helena Blair) expressed an interest to come to a JCSU meeting to discuss this as well. They’ve been given thousands of pounds from the university to update it. It would be online based which each college has their own page which can be updated regularly. We’d aim to keep it active, fresh and looking good and maybe allocate some Jesus Ambassadors to keep it updated. Just wanted to know what would be good for our page in the prospectus. My view is that we have a couple of large pictures with some text and links to the videos we do. Maybe mentioning prices (rent/food/pints). Could have a twitter feed on it as well.
CS – as well as an Instagram feed too.
TH – Helena Blair wanted to come to our meeting to discuss this. One of her aims to meet all the college’s JCR committees. However is it worth her coming? We’re doing a lot of this stuff already so could tell her that we’re updating website stuff so won’t be difficult to get this page done.
FV – a lot of the stuff we discuss at our meetings won’t be relevant to her.
AW – she could just meet with the Jesus Ambassadors as it is more relevant to them.
TH – she would be able to promote the CUSU Target Scheme too.
(c)      Enterprise Account
CL - met with the Finance Officer about the Enterprise Account. He was initially worried about how easy it is to misuse. Operationally it’s working fine but the security needs to change. The options are either to keep the HSBC account but CL would need to show bank statements every month or take money out of Enterprise Account, put it into the JCSU account but not to use it so the college can keep tabs on it.
AD – would probably be better just move it all to Lloyds rather than splitting it up.
CL – all of this would need to tie in with the Constitution. Can’t make a payment without checking with the Finance Committee spendings over £500 would need to be mentioned at an OGM and spending reports at AGMs.

  1. Any other business

(a)     JCSU videos
TH – I need to talk to AO about these videos. The best idea is for small videos with different committee members presenting different videos. We’ll get this rolling at the beginning of next term. Will message the JCSU during Easter and we can get filming in the first week of next term.
(b)     Handovers
AD – just thinking we need to set a precedence for our handovers to the next committee members. Need to make the information given consistent  from year to year.
MM – need to make sure that the new officer know what the role entails, what you have done this year as well as what you are still doing.
CL – also need to make them aware of stuff outlined in the Constitution and Standing Orders.
CS – could stick the documents in the JCSU Google Drive, will advertise it on the committee Facebook group again.
(c)      Suggestion form and Annual Survey
AD – will email again about the survey to get more responses as only 80 or so people have done it.
CS – the suggestion form needs to be made more accessible too, will pin it on the Freshers’ Facebook page.
(d)     Gender neutral toilets
AW – is there scope for there to be gender neutral toilets in the new bar in West Court. This could be law in ten or so years’ time would be good to stay ahead of the times. There is still a lot of scope to change the plans to incorporate this. I have spoken to AD and he said he was happy to float the idea to college. It is easy enough to take the urinals out of the men’s toilets and then just put WC on toilet doors rather than the gendered figures. Also I’ve spoken to the LGBT+ Officer at Pembroke as he’s trying to get gender neutral toilets there. Along with their Senior Tutor he will talk to other Senior Tutors and LGBT+ Officers about this idea and get back to me about how to implement it.

AD thanked the members of the Committee for a very helpful and successful meeting.

The meeting closed at 2:00pm


4-3-15 JCSU Minutes

Click below for the latest JCSU meeting minutes:

4-3-15 JCSU Minutes


20-2-15 Minutes

Click here for this week's minutes:

20-2-15-Minutes


Minutes 10/02/2015

JCSU Committee Meeting - 10/02/2015

Minutes of a meeting of the JCSU Committee held on Tuesday 10th February 2015 at 7.30pm in the Library Court Seminar Room.

Present: the President (Amatey Doku), the Vice-President (Ruby Stewart-Liberty), the Treasurer (Christina Lane), the Secretary (Freddie Valletta), the Services Officer (Aiden Goulden), the Communications Officer (Caroline Sharp), the Access Officer (Tom Hogg), an Ents Officer (Xanthe Fuller), the Male Welfare Officer (Ben Simpson), the Female Welfare Officer (Daisy Eyre), the Mental Health and Disabilities Officer (Harrison Packer), the LGBT+ Officer (Anthony Wheeler), the Women’s Officer (Eleanor Kashouris) and the Racial Equalities Officer (Nadine BatchelorHunt).

Absent: the Green Officer (Tansy Branscombe), an Ents Officer (Amelia Oakley) and the International Officer (Marina Mayer).

1. Committee reports of actions since handover

AD – attended meetings (Student Affairs Committee, pre-ballot meeting, Buildings Committee – to discuss West Court, one with Tori McKee – to discuss Survey Monkey account, council), spoke to the MCR President about constitutional changes.

RSL – attended meetings (Student Affairs Committee, one with Tori McKee – to discuss Survey Monkey account), received and distributed JCSU stash, sorting Halfway Hall.

CL – signing off cheques, paid for stash (which needs to be mentioned at an OGM), planning on organising a meeting with the Boat Club about their budget.

FV – organised the JCSU meeting, wrote minutes and agenda.

AG – attended meetings (pre-ballot meeting, Student Affairs Committee), trialling a suggestion box on JCSU website, organising balloting groups for the room ballot, reduced the caff card bar top-up back down to £20.

CS – sent racial equalities themed bulletin, preparing next week’s welfare themed bulletin, updated JCSU email list.

TH – attended Student Affairs Committee, finished CUSU shadowing scheme and attending a meeting with CUSU on how to improve it.

AO & XF – organised Valentine’s karaoke event in the bar (Friday 13th February), organising a welfare event.

BS & DE – attended Student Affairs Committee, hosted welfare cake, organising a welfare bop/fiesta for Week 5/6.

DE – hosted a welfare drop in, ordered Week 5 snacks for pidges, looked into Pet a Puppy Day (see later).

HP (reported by TH) – sent email regarding Time to Talk Day, selected as the college rep for Student Minds Cambridge charity.

MM (reported by TH) – organised an formal at Murray Edwards for Churchill, Jesus and Murray Edwards international students, organising an international formal swap with Downing, attending iCusu.

AW – organised an LGBT+ formal swap at Downing, promoting LGBT History month with emails, posters and leaflets, sending an email and producing leaflets on LGBT+ rights.

EK – sorted out boxes of free tampons for the Marshall Room and the bar toilets and eventually the Upper Hall toilets, will update women’s email list.

NBH – sent email about ethnic food suggestions in caff, reported that the barman can’t include a charity cost in the price of a drink but he will put a charity box in place for Pink Week, sent a pink food formal menu suggestion to the Domestic Bursar.

2. Matters arising

(a) JCSU Constitutional changes

AD presented the changes made to the Constitution to the committee. The committee then went through the Standing Orders and made amends where needed. AD reported that he had sent an email to the president of the Murray Edwards JCR in order for her to be the independent reviewer once the amendments were made. Before the changes are approved at an OGM, four documents would need to be sent out to college (an annotated version of the old Constitution, the new version, a running commentary and the proposal).

(b) JCSU Annual survey

AD provided the committee with an electronic copy of last year’s Annual Survey and requested that the committee look over it and send him updates and additional questions to him by the meeting next week when it would be approved. TH reported that in last year’s survey certain responses suggested that the college extended their outreach to Scotland and Northern Island, as well as focussing on particularly disadvantaged schools and to improve outreach to minority students. He stressed that the college’s access work is restricted to certain areas allocated by CUSU (Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, North & South Tyneside and Westminster, Brent & Ealing boroughs) and that due to the nature of the areas the college targets, disadvantaged schools and minority students are targeted (as Brent, Ealing & Westminster are predominantly minority and disadvantaged areas and the North-East is predominantly white but it’s one of the most disadvantaged areas of the country).

(c) Queerphobia in college

AW reported that Get Real (the new LGBT+ magazine in Cambridge) ran a survey amongst queer students in Cambridge. It was found that 75% of the Jesus students that responded had experienced queerphobic speech during their time here, which isn’t something that anyone should be subjected to. Seeing as this college is renowned for having a very large accepting and community feel this is something that he felt needed to be addressed. He said he intended to do his own survey (using the JCSU Survey Monkey account) as soon as possible (which would be separate from and before the Annual Survey) to the LGBT+ mailing list in order to get the real picture about the issue. He promised to relaunch the ‘That’s so gay’ posters as well as sending an email. He said he would consider the effect of this campaign on people that may be sensitive to this issue.

(d) LGBT+ terminology

It had come to attention of AW that many people don’t understand LGBT+ terminology as they may have had no reason to ever learn. He plans to educate people on this terminology (eg camp, queer, gay, trans/cisgender, asexual) through the use of leaflets/posters/email. It was suggested that he could organise a panel for people to ask questions relating to this subject which worked at Peterhouse.

(e) Pet a Puppy Day

DE reported that she was in the process of organising a Pet a Puppy Day within college during exam term as a ‘de-stressing event’. She said that she had the details of the charity that provide these services (to help guide dogs become accustomed to human contact from an early age) and that the Senior Tutor and Domestic Bursar were both very keen. However they said that dogs were not allowed in college. It was suggested that she could try and get around this rule by reinforcing to college that the dogs are guide dogs (which the committee believed were allowed in college). CS suggested that if this was not a possibility, the church opposite The Chimney could be an option as it was close to college and college houses. RSL said she would send DE the contact details of the church.

(f) Gym report

AD reported that the college have changed the regulation on gym opening hours and now the porters will now let students have 24 hour access to the gym. However between the hours of 12 midnight and 6 am students must sign a key card out from the porters’ lodge in order to gain access.

(g) Student behaviour at formal

AD reported that student behaviour at formal was discussed at the Student Affairs Committee, especially the acts of 1 and 5 ‘pennying’. He reported that college has strict policies against ‘forced drinking’ and the college has warned the JCSU that if it continues, they will start increasing the punishment i.e. throwing people out more often. AD said he would draft an email to the undergrads making them aware of the new punishments.

(h) Spotify Soundclash competition

AD reported that Richard Cartwright would like to enter this competition and requires JCSU committee permission in order to use their name. The competition requires a society to create a playlist on Spotify and if it gains a certain amount of followers, the society is rewarded with some funding. AD promised to follow this up with RC in order to find out what he was planning on using the money for if he was to win.

3. Any other business

(a) Taxi scheme

EK reported that other colleges have a scheme with Panther Taxis that if a student books a taxi, the cost is added to their college bill automatically. She said this would make it easier for students to feel safe when travelling back to college post nights out for example. EK & DE said they would investigate this scheme further and discuss it with the porters.

(b) ‘No Bystanders’ campaign

AW reminded the committee that the ‘No Bystanders’ campaign starts on Monday 16th February when he’ll send an email to college and put up posters. He said that he’d invite the college to the pledge event which would tie in with welfare cake on Thursday 19th February at 6.15 pm in the Marshall Room. Members of the committee were then photographed taking the pledge to never be a bystander to bullying and teasing language.

AD thanked the members of the Committee for a very helpful and successful meeting. The meeting closed at 9.30pm.