2019 Committee Lunch

Date: Wednesday 5th week, Trinity 2019 (2019-05-29)

Present: Michael O'Connor (President), Thomas Laver (Vice-President (Administrative)), Ethan Stewart (Secretary), Daniel Gonsalezpavesio (Treasurer), Frederick Lynam (Lindsay), Calvin Runnels (Dr. WHO), Joe Stephen (Foody), Anna Brainin (Foody), Jack Briggs (Sports Rep), Francesca Back (Sports Rep), Benjamin Elliott (Academic Affairs and Careers Officer), Leyla Manthorperizatepe (Academic Affairs and Careers Officer), Jamie Barnes (Access and Admissions Officer), Jai Thakrar-Curtis (Access and Admissions Officer), Donghyun Kang (Affiliations Officer), Arun Gharial (Charities and RAG Officer), Conor Callaghan (Charities and RAG Officer), Jake Dealtry (Student Disabilities Officer), Rory Dangelo (Entz Officer), Bruno Atkinson (Entz Officer), Michael Beattie (Environment & Ethics Officer), Beatrice Boileau (Environment & Ethics Officer), Naa Ntodi (Ethnic Minorities Officer), Tanya Wijesekera (Ethnic Minorities Officer), Xinyu Luo (International Students Officer), Jane Ngarmnil (International Students Officer), Thomas Laver (Housing Officer), Josh Willetts (LGBTQ Officer), Leoni Loughlin (LGBTQ Officer), Daniel Rastelli (Website & Computing Officer), Natasha Fisher-Pearson (Women's Officer), Imogen Rivers (Women's Officer)

Agenda

Balliol’s colonial history

Sky subscription

Divestment

Staircase 21 kitchen

Hall Prices

Buying a JCR punt

Changing charity fundings

Minutes

Balliol’s colonial history

Michael reminds committee that academics at Balliol will try to come to a reckoning on our connections with the empire and colonialism. Cerian volunteers to be a student representative for this.

Sky subscription

Daniel Gonzales (Gonzo) notes that the JCR’s Sky subscription is expensive and he plans to change it to just Sky Sports since no one watches anything but sports on Sky. We’ll also get BT sport with the extra money.

Divestment

The relevant committee met on Monday and will meet the college master on 10th June. The college fund managers are coming on 18th June to speak to students. People are invited to come along if they are interested.

Staircase 21 Kitchen

Leyla raises that the kitchen in staircase 21 (one of the few proper kitchens in college) is always a mess. She details the kind of bad etiquette that’s going on. She also wants to have communal kitchen supplies.  

Michael says that the idea with this kitchen was that it was a trial because kitchen stuff got stolen at Exeter college when they did a similar thing. The JCR has been asking college to install kitchens a lot. A list of rules on kitchen etiquette might help say Layla and Connor. The idea is raised that we could have someone responsible for the kitchen. People say they didn’t know it was a trial kitchen so maybe if we made people aware of that it would be different. It is pointed out that smaller kitchens in other staircases are usually alright, but that perhaps because in 21 people think ‘it’s college stuff’ they are more likely to steal it. The committee resolves to buy cutlery for the staircase, and to assign someone to the kitchen to shame people publicly (not necessarily by name) that violate kitchen etiquette.

Hall Prices

Balliol formal hall has gone from £14 to £19.50.  Arun mentions this is a lot more than other colleges. Michael mentions that there is a trade-off between subsidising hall and funding other stuff instead like the hardship fund, or at least that is how college justifies it.

Buying a JCR punt

Michael is considering getting a punt for the JCR. He says we could set up a booking system for the one we already hire. If we buy a punt the MCR has offered to pay for maintenance, we might even save money in the long run as we won’t pay for the hired one anymore.

Changing Charity funding

Conor and Arun are thinking about bringing  a motion to a GM to change how the charities that we fund are decided on. Apparently 2% of the money went to windsurfing for disadvantaged teenagers last year. They are considering deciding charities at the start of the tenure of charity officers as Charity officers don’t currently know what the money they are raising is going to, which might reduce the overall total they get. Michael suggests doing the charity ballot in Michaelmas and Hilary instead. Further, they might change it to giving all the money to the two or so charities with the most votes rather than giving the money proportionally to the number of votes. Lastly, they suggest screening what can be nominated before it is put to the ballot.