2019 Committee Lunch

By admin, 30 March, 2022
Date of Meeting

    2019 Committee Lunch

    Date: Wednesday 7th week, Trinity 2019 (2019-06-12)

    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), Conor Callaghan (Charities and RAG Officer), Arun Gharial (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), Imogen Rivers (Women's Officer), Natasha Fisher-Pearson (Women's Officer)

    Agenda


    VP co-option

    Splitting the role of VP

    Future of the bar

    Political Campaigning Fund

    Explaining optional levies

    Minutes


    VP co-option

    The committee is co-opting a new VP after the previous VP, Thomas Laver, resigned. Rory is the only person standing. Rory is currently the entz rep and says he is qualified for VP because he has already done admin related things for freshers’ week. He’s already on exec and says that because of this he has good relationships with the people on exec. He says he’s excited to deal with JCR’s problems (Editor’s note-there’s a lot of them).

    Tom asks what Rory’s availability is like in August. He’s going to be in Asia, but will available on Skype. He’s getting to Oxford from the beginning of September since that’s when his lease starts.

    Michael asks what his relationships are like with college staff. Rory says he has worked with RQ regarding bops and other stuff. He’s also worked with Vicky Holt. He mentions that he also knows a lot of people on the JCR committee.

    Rory says he won’t give up on entz. He thinks that because of the great deal of interaction on freshers’ week between entz and VP the extra workload won’t be too much as this communication won’t need to take place. As a 2nd year English student he says he doesn’t have a great deal of work in Michaelmas.

    Tom asks how Rory will address people not turning up to bop clean up and freshers’ week stuff. He says that as of the last bop the problems with people turning up were diminished, but argues that the time you need to be there for has been cut down to get more people to come. Rory would have a casual discussion with people who aren’t helping out with freshers’ week stuff if they don’t have a good reason.

    Michael asks if Rory has considered setting up a committee to help him with freshers’ week. Rory hasn’t planned to do this but will think about it over the summer, though he envisions that this won’t be happening.

    Rory is elected

    Splitting the role of VP

    Michael explains he will bring a motion to a GM creating two vice presidents. One for events and one for exec stuff.

    He also mentions an updated version of the plan from last week’s committee lunch on moving elections. The first batch of elections would be at the end of Michaelmas for positions such as president, vp, treasurer that 2nd years are more likely to run for, and all the other would be moved to Hilary term.

    Tom, the previous VP, thinks this is sensible. The VP’s role is ill defined. Other JCRs have multiple VPs.

    Rory asks what the events VP will do after freshers’ week. Michael says they will run all events that the VP is typically involved in (June Jamboree, some ball-related stuff, maybe summer eights).

    Cerian asks if the two VPs would be elected separately. Michael thinks the roles aren’t connected sufficiently to warrant this, however worries that less people would run because they feel like they need to run with someone. In contrast, Rory says that he would feel more comfortable if he ran with someone he knew. Leyla is concerned that this logic could be extended to the entire committee and we might end up with slates. Rory thinks the JCR works best when you already have good working relationships with other people. He thinks even if we try to completely separate the roles there will be a lot of crossover and communication.

    Josh thinks there wouldn’t have to be a great deal of overlap between the two roles and thus communication between them isn’t so essential. Rory thinks it likely that a problem will come up that will be unclear as to what category it falls into and thus which VP should deal with it.

     Michael says that the VP currently does two different roles, and reiterates that other colleges have multiple VPs for these different roles.

    In response to worries that splitting the VP position into too many roles then communication might be difficult, Tom argues that people should be able to work with anyone.

    Rory suggests potential candidates could have the option to run independently or as a duo.

    Michael will write a motion in view of this discussion, though he thinks it will now be too late to pass things at a GM to change for the upcoming election.

    Future of the Bar

    Daniel Gonzales (Gonzo) explains that the Bar has a large outstanding invoice from Carlsberg that the bar cannot pay. The bar’s takings are half of what they were last year. He refers to a ‘Constant drumbeat of impending financial doom.’

    He explains how they’ve cut labour costs but this doesn’t come close to compensating us for the loss the bar is making. Reserves have been steadily declining. There have also been fewer social events which brought in a lot of money in previous years. In view of this he and Michael feel the bar should be closed for all of Michaelmas.

    Arun thinks there should be a cultural change, particularly focusing on freshers in Michaelmas, rather than closing down the bar. Further to this Ethan argues that since this is the most profitable term it would be especially damaging to close the bar next term, and would entrench the problem of people not being in the habit of going to the bar.

    It’s noted that the bar owes the JCR £6,000 already.

    Political campaigning fund

    Michael Beattie explains that next week there is a training session for direct action run by ‘Common Ground’. One person running it has tied themselves to a plane to stop deportation. The training will be on direct action on climate change and migrant justice. The £45 Michael is asking for is mainly going towards room hire for the group that is running it. A few people from Balliol will be going, no people from other colleges will be going.

    Motion Passes

    Optional levies

    Following discussion of what the different charities actually do on the optional levies form, something has been written about what each of the optional levies are.