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).
- 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.
- 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.