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.