2017 Committee Lunch

Date: Wednesday 5th week, Hilary 2017 (2017-02-15)

Attendance

Present: Hubert Au (President), Frederick Potts (Vice-President (Administrative)), Thomas Gater (Secretary), Zachary Leather (Treasurer), John Watson (Lindsay), Ele Saltmarsh (Dr. WHO), Alexander Toal (Foody), Alastair Nicklin (Sports Rep), Luke Chester (Academic Affairs and Careers Officer), Finn Conway (Academic Affairs and Careers Officer), Calum Holt (Access and Admissions Officer), Isobel Howden (Access and Admissions Officer), Leon Kidd (Charities and RAG Officer), Rishem Khattar (Charities and RAG Officer), Richard Ware (Design & Maintenance Officer), Juliet Flamank (Student Disabilities Officer), Marianne Cain (Student Disabilities Officer), Steven Rose (Entz Officer), Ellen Cropley (Entz Officer), Felix Heilmann (Environment & Ethics Officer), Joshua Jones (Environment & Ethics Officer), Stephen Hawes (John de Balliol), John Maier (John de Balliol), Suwanja Srikantha (Ethnic Minorities Officer), Alexander Gruen (International Students Officer), Amrita Khandpur (International Students Officer), Julia Davis (Housing Officer), Cole Horton (LGBTQ Officer), Antonia Siu (Website & Computing Officer), Laura McMillen (Women's Officer), Monique Keane (Women's Officer)

Absent with apologies: Pallavi Ojha (LGBTQ Officer)

Absent without explanation: Alexander Fuller (Dr. WHO), Leah Mitchell (Foody), Kathryn Husband (Sports Rep), Simran Uppal (Ethnic Minorities Officer)

Agenda

1. Maureen's birthday
2. Women's events
3. Welfare slime
4. Paintings of women in the bar
5. Entz speakers
6. New welfare rep

Minutes

No one objects to Freddy charging in lieu of a Hubert.

 

Zack talked about Maureen’s birthday present, likely to be a boots voucher on recommendation. There was no objection and £25.00 passed.

 

Monique wants to talk about coding, no number as of yet, need to talk to the dean. These events have sponsors who bring in food, but no one can eat in LR23, but we could use the JCR and provide food ourselves. Could we do it outside buttery in nice weather. Will people eat the food from the jcr? They wouldn’t fight them off. The buttery is not ideal because the toilets are not gender neutral. Will this interfere with pantry. TBD.

 

Marianne on slime. Holly Harrison wants to make slime as a welfare craft type activity. It’s stress relieving and ‘also slime you know’. Freddy; what do you do with it? Squidge it. Will it make a massive mess? No? How long will it keep for after it's made, the ingredients will keep for quite a while. Could we use playdough instead? Cheaper but you don’t get to make it. How much slime do you get for £35? Quite a lot. Is this welfare week? Separate and run by Marianne and Holly. There was a vote in favour of slime.

 

Cameron: The pictures on the walls of the bar are nearly all men. He has a list from RQ of what would be suitable. This would be supplementing what’s already there rather than replacing. To clarify these are the murals directly on the wall. How will they be chosen? Organise a group, talk to the women's’ officers. We could restrict the vote to just women either by using the facebook group or the list of people who vote for the women’s officer. Do we want to restrict it to only women? Ste says he’d feel weird voting. Juliet recommends email over facebook because you get more real opinions and less showing off. Cameron; the idea is to make it ‘everyone's bar’. Asking people who are genuinely interested could be a good way to do it. The general consensus of the room is that we would like more women.

 

Ste: Too many people want to speakers at once. Antonia has taken the booking page off the website. Priority should be given to entz and the bar rather than given to people who might not look after them. Juliet says a similar issue has happened in the pilch when someone spilled drink on the sound deck and it’s been out of order. Ste clarifies he still wants the speakers to be loaned he just wants to organise it differently. Richard asks why entz can’t just advertise the formal booking page better and book out the speakers when they need them well ahead of time. Ste thinks an informal system will work better because they can monitor it more closely. Juliet asks “Do you want to give the impression that these are entz speakers that people can borrow at entz’s discretion?” Sort of but Ste isn’t envisaging saying no to people unless there’s a reason to. There are 6 speakers, although there was some confusion.2  gig, 2 small, and the ones that stay on the tables. Booking specific speakers is an issue because they often break. They do need to be fixed properly - Richard notes that they are the wrong sort for them being leant out because they are easy to break if you don’t know what you’re doing. He suggests a possible solution could be fixing the speakers - keeping two speakers in reserve and buy some new speakers that are harder to break. Then sell the easy to break speakers. Freddy summarises that Entz will send out an email in the short term to organise an informal booking system. Richard and Ste will work on a GM motion for a more long term solution. Antonia will update the page with this information.

 

Izzy: “I’m not expressing an opinion here, I want to publicize this motion” - Izzy wants to try to bring this discussion to committee and get as much of the JCR involved as want to be. The discussion is about the new welfare rep, name to be determined - (class, socio economic liberation?). Izzy saw that there was a poll and this suggested things were happening quite fast. There will be a meeting tomorrow to discuss it more generally. Izzy feels this is very important and that this needs to be ironed out before the GM on Sunday. She encourages everyone to come to the meeting tomorrow whether they have something to say or just want to listen.

 

Isis emphasises she doesn’t speak for everyone and hasn’t done any formal research and she can only speak from her own experience. That said she emphasises the culture shock is very much an issue for her, she’s felt patronised, and has imposter syndrome (this affects everyone but can be shaped by these problems). She says it can feel like you don’t belong anywhere - like you’ve betrayed people back home. Your reputation and the way your peers see you can change rapidly. She feels that the approach to welfare hasn’t been suitable for her in some ways. She feels like there is a general problem with people facing problems like those she described. She would like a rep to address welfare issues regarding social mobility. Ideally they would be someone who gets your problems, someone who you can trust will understand. They can host events, for example in freshers week - similar to LGBTQ events and minorities events. They can try to appease class relations - she supports the idea of a ‘discussion group’ that encourages an open dialogue about class - acknowledging that these class problems exist. They could also make financial information more available - a ‘stigma about asking for money among working class people’ exists and having someone who understands this to ask might make this easier. There’s a broader university wide movement to have a class liberation officer and Isis feels we should be involved in that more directly. She wants to create a class aware culture so that graduates will be better equipped to move society towards being more egalitarian. Particularly as Oxford graduates often have wide influence when they graduate. “We want support, welfare, and our opinions represented on committee.”

 

Juliet: Can we only achieve these goals by having a permanent committee position? How will we sort out the details of husts? She notes that this is similar to LGBTQ and disabilities officers positions - she wants to avoid husts turning into someone having to prove that they are working class. She didn’t face any problems at her husts but she was worried she would and that this could derail the position. Isis feels that the position is very needed because otherwise it could be swept under the rug in future. She wants to make a permanent impact that will last for future students. She feels we should trust in basic human decency and in the atmosphere at Balliol to keep husts from going off the rails. People’s policies will determine whether they are appropriate for the role. How about relabelling the role social mobilities officer so people don’t have to label themselves working class? Isis says we really want to specify that the position be occupied by someone who is working class. The name is important - it’s the difference between a gender rep and a women's’ rep or a sexualities rep or a LGBTQ rep. “It will be tough to strike the balance” between emphasising this and by encouraging an environment of “am I working class enough”.

 

Zack thinks this is a good idea, he thinks there are specific welfare needs and that these can only be addressed by a permanent position. He thinks the liberation movement is an important point that needs to be raised. He thinks the name change is a bad idea,and that  it’s trying to make the role less controversial - he believes it should be controversial. He says if husts did ‘spiral’ then we have a bigger class problem than we thought and the role is even more necessary. Isis points out that the people she’s spoken to all have different reps on committee but they feel like this is the most significant form of oppression they face.

 

Cameron asks what we want committee to do now? Izzy says she wants the conversation opened to a wider range of voices in the JCR. Isis emphasises that this was never designed to be exclusive in any way and it was publicised.

 

Alex is worried this could be very controversial and that the committee shouldn’t try to reach any kind of consensus now before the gm because this might influence people into not speaking when it matters on Sunday.

 

Felix asks do the benefits outway the backlash? Isis says that this is a complicated question and that she would need to speak to more people but notes that this is a bigger problem than Oxford. She points out that no one is forced to use the rep and that people don’t necessarily use the reps they have now and that this wouldn’t force anyone to ‘out themselves’.

 

The meeting proposed by Izzy is very short notice (it’s tomorrow) - Richard points out that you need 24 hours notice to book a room. The time pressure was discussed, does this need to be put through this week's GM? It will have to go through 2 GMs regardless. It has yet to be determined if this will be a stand alone immediate vote or if the vote will wait until the new committee elections in December. Izzy and Sam and any other interested parties will organise a meeting that has more notice given.

 

AOB

Juliet: New garden party committee elections. She wants to bring a motion to hold elections before the ball. Are we definitely having a garden party? She will consult the governing documents and write a suitable motion for tomorrow (either proposing an election or a referendum on whether we will have a garden party).