2016 Committee Lunch
Date: Wednesday 1st week, Hilary 2016 (2016-01-20)Attendance
Present: Anne Williamson (President), Cealach McKeating (Vice-President (Administrative)), Steven Rose (Secretary), Darryl Braier-Lorimer (Treasurer), Hugo Monnery (Lindsay), Meg Peyton-Jones (Dr. WHO), James Letten (Dr. WHO), Frederick Potts (Foody), Xavier Greenwood (Sports Rep), Emily Webb (Access and Admissions Officer), Daisy Cutts (Access and Admissions Officer), Rivka Shaw (Charities and RAG Officer), Sophie Conquest (Charities and RAG Officer), Molly Rogers (Student Disabilities Officer), Xavier Cohen (Entz Officer), Chilla Knight (Environment & Ethics Officer), Aidan Balfe (Environment & Ethics Officer), Simon Kelly (John de Balliol), Hubert Au (Ethnic Minorities Officer), Thitapa Haritaworn (Ethnic Minorities Officer), Laura Bossino (International Students Officer), Nicholas Halterman (International Students Officer), Ele Saltmarsh (LGBTQ Officer), Rory Meryon (LGBTQ Officer), Andrew Truong (Website & Computing Officer), Daisy Cockrean (Women's Officer), Rachael Ince-Kitson (Women's Officer)
Absent with apologies: Zachary Leather (Foody), Helen Davies (Sports Rep), Ruby Breward (Design & Maintenance Officer), Indigo Wilde (Entz Officer), Lewis Scott (John de Balliol)
Absent without explanation: Peter Sayer (Design & Maintenance Officer)
Agenda
- Matters Arising
- Rainbow laces for the rugby team [Duncan]
- Ball update [Abi]
- Dean's committee lunch [Annie]
- Blog posts [Daisy Cutts]
- Survey questions [Ste]
- Facebook use [Molly]
- Paper towel stickers [Molly]
- New table tennis bats [Darryl]
- JCR Chargers [Andrew]
- JCR Aromatherapy stuff [Ruby & Rachael]
- Pantry Structure [Freddy]
- Welfare Naming [Meg]
- Balliol/ New College joint welfare event [James & Meg]
- AOB
Minutes
-
Matters Arising
-
Rainbow laces for the rugby team [Duncan]
Duncan mentioned that the rugby budget has not been sufficient this term; they would like to buy rainbow laces. They intend to buy them from somewhere 'vaguely ethical' rather than Stonewall (which he explains has been controversial around trans-issues), he estimates a cost of £44 for around 20 laces, and hence would like to pass £50 as this would almost definitely be sufficient.
Cealach asked if this is a one off thing. Duncan replied that he anticipates the rainbow-laces expenditure being incorporated into the rugby budget after this term.
He summed up his motion as "Rainbow laces. I need money to buy them," to people as they arrived. His brevity was duly appreciated by this humble secretary.
The Committee passed £50. -
Ball Update [Abi]
Abi said that everything is on track, and mentioned the success of the ticket release, having sold 300 tickets so far, and we are soon to open tickets to the rest of the Oxford student body.
She explained that the current plan was that the event will include 'some' free alcohol and heavily reduced prices for alcohol, as well as one free food option. She reported that the ball committee has announced the booking of DFO, and that the ball committee intends to book a few more Oxford-local acts. There will also be giant garden games.
Daisy Cutts mentioned the Constitutionally we need to make changes to adjust the "ball committee" to something more relevant.
James asked how much alcohol is free alcohol. Abi replied that that it should be about two drinks per person. The welcome champagne is more likely to be welcome cava. I'm personally yet to taste the difference between the two.
Nicky asked how many non-Balliol tickets do we expect. Abi replied approximately 300, and explained that there will be approximately 100 people staffing the garden party, so that the total attendance will be approximately 700.
Annie asked if Abi has been communicating with college. Abi replied that she's been meeting with Jo, and she intends to go to an exec meeting next week.
Annie asked if it would valuable to appoint someone to the ball committee who may intend to take up a position on the ball committee next year. Abi replied that there are currently four fresher reps; one under Hugo for drinks, and others under food, etc. She explained that her and Daisy Cutts (previously on ball committee) have agreed that it would be valuable to create a ball handover pack as there previous experience has been very valuable.
Annie asked if there is a plan for how balls will run over a longer time frame (e.g. alternating garden parties and balls, a triannual event, or whatever). Abi replied that her discussions with college have led her to believe a yearly ball is not an option, however an alternating ball/small event schedule is feasible, stressing, however, that beyond whether the ball could possibly be an annual event, it's more a decision for the JCR. She believes that an alternating schedule provides greater continuity in that previous ball commities will be around to assist with new balls, however she reiterated that it would be a decision for the JCR.
Daisy called it a 'constitutional nightmare' expressing any such arrangement within the constitution, which is true. She suggested that having balls every three years would make organising balls difficult as it would be unlikely to have much committee continuity, as degrees are 3/4 years long.
Meg asked if a long term schedule was necessary. Annie replied that college prefer it, and Abi replied that things get booked up very far in advance, so a long term vision makes organisation easier (citing the example of struggling to find appropriate dates, etc.).
Daisy offered the point of information that before the 750th anniversary ball, the schedule had been very regular.
Molly asked how often Commem balls occur. Abi replied that it's not really a Balliol thing, we just flipped out for our 750th anniversary.
Xav G mentioned that 25 years is actually nothing in the history of the college so a commem ball is not entirely relevant for our college. -
Dean's Committee lunch [Annie]
Annie informed us Rachel has offered a lunch for the Committee, with the suggested time being Wed/Tue of 3rd week. The options given were Wednesday 12:45pm-13:45 including committee business; or a separate lunch without Committee business at Tuesday 1pm.
Annie explained that it would be in the Massie room, and in her previous experience, it was a quite social event. She suggested we provide solid numbers to reduce waste of resources.
Daisy offered the suggestion that we ask for a buffet rather than a sit-down meal as this offers more opportunity for socialising. Cealach offered the point of information that this was the format previously, and that it was rather successful in its aims.
Molly suggested it would be valuable to separate the lunch from Committee business so that the Committee business can be conducted more effectively.
Hugo suggested that it would be convenient to have committee business after the lunch for the purpose of scheduling simplicity.
Annie agreed, as did the Committee.
Meg expressed her agreement with the value of building good relations with members of college staff, and suggested asking to extend the lunch to include other important staff members.
Annie suggest asking Rachel to invite Jo, Kealey, Maureen, and Denise; the Committee agreed, and agreed to accept the date for Tuesday 3rd week running from 12:45pm to 14:00pm -
Blog posts [Daisy]
Daisy explained that they are running a Balliol blog and asked for others to write posts, and explained that given the student visit sizes, the audience does exist. -
Survey questions [Ste]
Ste explained that he intends to create a survey to assess why people who don't go to GMs don't go to GMs, and that he intended to leave it in paper form around the JCR, with the intention of eliciting responces from people idly hanging out in the JCR.
Molly asked if it would be possible to do this online, as some don't go to the JCR. Ste explained that he anticipated an online survey would receive a low response as this requires respondents to go out of their way to respond, as opposed to hard copies existing in the JCR, and the ideal respondee is someone too apathetic towards GMs to actively seek out responding to such a survey.
Hubert asked if it would be possible to have both. Ste agreed that would be a good idea.
Darryl suggested passing money (around £40) for a voucher as a raffle-esque prize for responding to the survey to incentivise responses.
Molly suggested rewarding with free pantry for a week, as she believes that there's something underhand about the Committee using monetary incentives for such an endeavour. Freddy replied that there isn't much (this secretary believes he was inferring that there isn't any) distinction between offering free Amazon products and offering free pantry food.
Ste suggested that anonymity would preclude incentivising the survey, and as the survey would be welcoming negative feedback, the aim of the survey would be compromised.
Aidan asked what exactly a survey would be attempting to find out; he anticipated that most people would simply respond that they don't go to GMs as they find them boring.
Hugo suggested that offering free pantry is different to a voucher as it would be less of a loss to the JCR as profit mark-ups exist on pantry products, so we would be losing less money than we were offering. He also suggested that offering free pantry was a positive as it encouraged people to go to the JCR and generally contribute to Balliol.
Xav C expressed skeptisism, explaining that he thought that someone not interested in going to GMs would also not be likely to respond to a survey.
We voted against incentivising unanimously, despite spending like, five minutes discussion what form an incentive would take.
Xav C mentioned that Balliol GMs are some of the best attended in the university, and that agendas featuring interesting motions tend to see the JCR packed.
Cealach responded that the GMs have been struggling to meet quorum in the last three GMs.
Xav G suggested that the previous success of GM attendance has created a sort of complacency regarding attendance, whereby people who believe motions in which they are interested will pass easily don't themselves bother to attend the GM.
Annie encouraged committee to attend GM and for freshers to encourage friends to bring friends to GMs so that there is a new influence, and explained that last year her perception was that it was when freshers joined the Committee in Hilary that more freshers began attending GMs as the new officers encouraged attendance among their friends.
Ste explained - incidentally - that a GM should never be struggling for quorum, as the Committee should go to GMs, and quorum is in fact two more than the size of the Committee.
Cealach re-emphasised bringing friends to reduce the perception of exclusivity among the GM culture.
Annie summed up the discussions as outlining a pro-online-and-JCR surveys, and pro-going-to-GMs. -
Facebook use [Molly]
Molly reminded people that not everyone has Facebook, so emails should be sent to the JCR regarding events taking place.
Xav G asked if we could have clarification regarding misc/JCR list purposes.
Andrew explained that the misc list was originally created for job adverts, and for events outside of college; whereas the JCR list was for JCR-exclusive events and committee stuff, but we do have freedom to explore uses for each list.
Xav G explained that he understands the point recently brought up on the Facebook page regarding using the mailing lists for their intended purposes to avoid inundating JCR members with mail in which they might not be interested, however there are lots of instances (citing the recent example of the creation of a running club) where an email that strictly should be sent to the misc list under this arrangement wouldn't reach an appreciative audience, as a lot of people block misc list.
James expressed the opinion that in lieu of an established precedent, we can create our own precedent, suggesting that Balliol-internal events should be sent to the JCR mailing list, and externally run events should be sent to the misc list. He clarified that since Balliol MCR is college internal, mixed JCR/MCR events should be sent to the JCR mailing list.
Annie suggested perhaps using fewer emails (oops, but fair), but otherwise that she doesn't perceive a problem among the current email arrangement.
Meg asked for clarification on which list Nightline emails belong.
Molly replied that an officer emailing the JCR relating to there office belongs on the JCR list, and as such, Nightline email should be sent to the JCR mailing list.
Xav G suggested that the committee has the right to determine JCR interest in receiving emails. -
Paper towels stickers [Molly]
Molly explained that she passed money for the 'these come from trees' stickers to buy more stickers for Jowett which she has done, however the money was passed last term but the purchase was this term, so the previous passing of money isn't valid, so we need to re-pass the money. The Committee passed up to £20. -
New table tennis bats [Darryl]
"We should get some new table tennis bats." Yeah.
Darryl reminded everyone that our table tennis bats have taken quite a beating, and given the popularity of the table, we should buy some new bats.
He suggested passing up to £50 to be used at the sports officers discretion.
Hugo suggested the Committee buy a small number of good bats rather than a high quantity of poor-quality table tennis bats. When Xav G replied that he doesn't really know what constitutes a 'good bat',' Hugo explained that a good bat has two covered sides.
Xav G asked how much a good table tennis bat costs. Aidan suggested around £5.
Xav C explained that he passed £50 for bats when we first got the table. He suggested Decathalon bats are quality bats. He agreed in the importance of getting quality bats so that we don't have to pass this money again too soon, and suggested that price correlates with quality.
Xav G suggested buying a bat holder to reduce damage to bats.
Annie suggested passing up to £50, Xav said he would go to Decathalon and explain our situation.
Molly is bad at table tennis. She asked if there is a storage box. Xav described said box as rudimentary. Molly asked if it was used. Xav said no. Ste asked if there was anything to suggest that bat holders would be used. Xav suggested they would as they are more convenient.
The Committee passed up to £50 for equipment, and agreed to passing money in the future for a holder, pending investigation into our options. -
JCR Chargers [Andrew]
Andrew explained that he wanted to buy chargers for communal use within the JCR.
Daisy Cockrean asked if they'd be stolen, though in this context, 'asked if' means 'suggested that.'
Xav G suggested an implementation similar to headphones in the computer room could be employed here. This would involve fixing the chargers to the power outlets.
Molly asked if it would be possible to establish a system in which bod cards are exchanged for chargers. Daisy Cutts asks how useful this would be as most people live in college, and typically those who don't live in college simply borrow a charger from someone else within the college.
Molly replied that she thinks purchasing chargers is a good idea, while people post on the FB group asking for chargers, this occurs quite frequently, and it would be simpler to have JCR chargers, so long as we can ensure against their theft.
Aidan suggested giving to a permanent member of staff two chargers to be lent out as appropriate.
Xav G suggested keeping chargers behind pantry as a partial-solution.
Andrew was asked to investigate the possibility of engaging with permanent staff on this matter. -
JCR Aromatherapy Stuff [Rachael & Ruby]
The Committee delayed this to next week due to time constraints. -
Pantry structure [Freddy]
The Committee delayed this to next week due to time constraints. -
Welfare naming [Meg]
The Committee delayed this to next week due to time constraints. -
Balliol/ New College joint welfare event [James & Meg]
The Committee delayed this to next week due to time constraints. -
AOB
Rachael suggested moving tampon mountain so that it's at an accessible toilet on staircase 16.
Molly pointed out that the condom machine can't be moved.
People seemed to agree on the condition that the move is well advertised.
Molly suggested putting a sign at current tampon mountain explaining the move when the move is made, Daisy Cockrean and Rachael agreed that this is a good idea.