2020 General Meeting

Date: 18th October 2020 (2020-10-18)

Agenda

Matters Arising

Amendments to Governing Documents

Motions Relating to Financial Matters

Any Other Motions

1. Open letter for JCR gazebo (MR & CC)
2. Creating Balliol Mycelium Society (HM)

Appendices 

--------------- 

Matters Arising 

Amendments to Governing Documents 

Motions Relating to Financial Matters 

Any Other Motions 

1. Open letter for JCR Gazebo (MR & CC)

This JCR notes: 

• The current COVID-19 pandemic makes it more difficult for students to socialise, especially whilst social distancing in a COVID secure environment. 
• The JCR capacity is less than 50, which represents only a small proportion of the JCR. 
• Other colleges, including Hertford, have erected gazebos in order to increase the amount of space that can be used for socialising. 
• The JCR can currently afford a large gazebo, having saved last Trinity and reduced its cost base significantly.

This JCR believes: 

• As the weather gets worse, a gazebo becomes the only realistic means of holding JCR events.
• Socialising is very important for student wellbeing and the mental health of JCR members. 
• Erecting a gazebo on the back quad will improve student well-being and increase capacity. 
• Opening the bar outside is likely to reduce the risk of covid transmission. At present, students have little choice other than to go to crowded bars in Oxford’s city centre, where they are more likely to catch coronavirus and bring it back to Balliol
• If we are to get concessions from college, we are likely to get them on this matter because a.) It is widespread at other colleges b.) there is a strong case that it will reduce the likelihood of an outbreak. 

This JCR resolves:

• To write and allow students to sign an open letter petitioning college to allow the JCR to buy and erect a gazebo on the back quad. 
• To send the letter to the appropriate college members, including the Dean and the Master. 

1. Creating MycSoc (HM)

This JCR notes

1) Mycelium is the tissue that holds together much of the world

2) Fungi are the premier recyclers on the planet, essential to the repurposing of organic wastes and the efficient return of nutrients back into the soil 

3) Through the genius of evolution, the earth has selected fungal networks as a governing force managing ecosystems – the planet’s natural Internet

4) With more than a mile of cells in a cubic inch of soil, the fungi are moving steadily, although silently, all around us

This JCR believes

1) And laments, that the inherent biological power embodied within the mycelial network of mushrooms largely remains a vast, untapped resource

2) Working with mushroom mycelium en masse will empower every country, farm, recycling centre, and individual with direct economic, ecological and medical benefits

3) This pandemic means we must find outdoors, socially distanced activities to engage our fervour 

4) A mycelial society (MycSoc), dedicated to the growth of fungi, would add a lot to the cultural climate of Balliol (not to mention its soils)

This JCR resolves

1) To fund MycSoc

2) To encourage students to take part in MycSoc

3) To create new models for the future use of higher fungi in the environment

Minutes

Open letter for JCR gazebo 

The gazebo motion is postponed due to low turnout. 

MycSoc 

There’s an argument about the pronunciation of mycsoc (mike-sock, I think) 

Hal introduces the motion; he wants to set up a mushroom growing society as a fun, socially distanced, outdoorsy activity for the jcr. He’s been reading about mushrooms over the summer - they’re good for the environment and help recycle waste. He thinks the society could teach people a scientific discipline, be good for the environment, and be fun. He’s going to talk to the dean or the gardeners about where the mushrooms could grow; he thinks the back of jowett could work. 

Short factual questions 

Rory asks what sort of conditions mushrooms need to grow. 

Hal says they need dank, musty conditions; a small, shadowy bit of land should do. He says, and I quote, they don’t need mush-room. 

Michael asks if we’ll be able to eat the mushrooms the society grows. 

Hal says it could grow pink oyster mushrooms, which are edible, but at the same time we don’t want anyone getting poisoned. 

Rory suggests the society could collab with the psychedelic society. 

Hal is very much not interested in this, MycSoc is intended to celebrate the natural beauty of mushrooms only. 

Someone asks how much money Hal wants to set up the society. 

Hal says he wants about £200. 

Conor and Cerian say he’ll need to re-do the motion with a specific amount in mind, a plan of what the money is going to be spent on, and will need to show interest if he wants that much money e.g. through a facebook poll. 

Hal says he’ll re-do the motion and bring it back. 

Coronavirus 

Maddy asks what the food situation would be like if there was a college lockdown. 

Cerian says that hall wouldn’t run; catering would be provided by compass. 

Keturah says that some people don’t like hall, and it can be harder for vegans and those with dietary restrictions to eat properly there.

Cerian adds that it can create problems for people with disordered eating. We could think about having a mass tesco delivery. Balliol faces a particular issue because our kitchen facilities aren’t as good as those at other colleges. 

Keturah asks if it would be possible to have toasters and microwaves in rooms, or if that would be too much of a fire risk. 

Millie says college has tentatively raised the idea of making vacant rooms into makeshift kitchens, so this could be possible. 

Keturah says that compass doesn’t provide a vegan option every day. 

Molly asks if the kitchens could move to a rota system if the whole college was locked down. 

Cerian says she’s not sure; if the college was locked down, it would go under health authority control, as part of the NHS’s deal with the uni. She’s heard that kitchens have been split into workspaces in other colleges, with each household having a workspace. 

Bee says Somerville have been sending out email updates on infections, and asks if something similar could happen here. 

Maddy says she’s heard some colleges have been emailing updates right after infections. 

Cerian says this can lead to too many emails being sent, like at New. 

Maddy says that can also be very stressful, as emails didn’t identify cases for data protection reasons so it’s just an amorphous threat. 

Bee says she thinks there’s a middle ground, and a way to make the emails helpful. 

Cerian says we should be careful to preserve the privacy of second year houses in any measures like this. 

Michael says we could be told the number of cases, people isolating, and people being tested in each part of college; this would be general info only, but give a sense of where people are. This wouldn’t need to include second year houses. 

Millie asks what Balliol’s infection figures are at the moment. 

Adam says five freshers have covid at the moment. 

Cerian says most cases and self-isolations are among freshers in college accommodation; most households locking down are in staircases 20 and 22. 

Millie asks if tutes will still happen on staircases which are locked down. 

Cerian says yes, she’s not sure why this is allowed. 

Ollie asks if there’s any plans for formal dinners; it might be nice to negotiate to get some. 

Cerian says if someone brought the issue to her, she’d discuss it with college, but there are more immediate food issues at the moment. She says as a jcr, we tend to have a few big formal dinners, but as a general rule, we don’t as a jcr do many formals. 

Rory says formals tend to be more based around societies and sports. 

Cerian says we could definitely discuss more later in term. 

Rory says college has been on board with formals like the fem soc formal; we could present formals as a place to facilitate societies safely. 

Cerian agrees that we should handle the issue through societies. 

Ollie agrees with this, and says we can tackle it later in term. 

Cerian says she’ll raise the issues of microwaves in rooms, and the stages of lockdown, especially what would happen in a full lockdown and what would happen to the household system in such a lockdown. 

Millie asks if we can do anything about the current hall situation, as it isn’t really feasible to order so much in advance. 

Cerian says college have wanted a booking system for a while to stop food waste. 

Michael says that if there was a cultural shift, a booking system could work, as it works at a lot of other colleges. It would solve a lot of food waste issues. 

Cerian says we can look at the comparative food waste figures. 

Conor says it could reduce food waste, but we just don’t have the culture for it at the moment; he was told by hall staff that 100 meals were thrown away one day. He wasn’t allowed a meal even though there were some left over :(

Cerian says we need to find out how much no shows to hall are affecting this. 

Ollie says there’s currently a system of people showing up to hall last minute wanting a meal without booking, or also people not showing up to hall. There’s a compromise between these two things. 

Cerian says that if we weren’t in a pandemic, we’d have been consulted on implementing a booking system. We might have chosen a different model; we could talk about cutting down to a 48 hour deadline for bookings. 

Millie says that typically the good food in hall runs out in ten minutes anyway, there’s a system of people only showing up at the start, and we could use that in a booking system. 

Molly says we could have a booking system, and then people can just turn up after to have any meals from no-shows. Staff could just write down names as people go in. 

Michael says they should really let people have leftover meals, especially Conor. Conor agrees.