2020 General Meeting

Date: 1st November 2020 (2020-11-01)

Agenda

Matters Arising

Amendments to Governing Documents

Motions Relating to Financial Matters

Any Other Motions

1. Holding a JCR bike auction (FP)

Appendices 

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Matters Arising

Amendments to Governing Documents

Motions Relating to Financial Matters

Any Other Motions

1. Holding a JCR bike auction (FP)

This JCR notes

1. Bikes are often left behind in college or Jowett bike racks after people finish University
2. 11 bikes have been taken today which don’t have the sticker and looked unused (cobwebs, dust etc.) 
3. Bikes are useful for Balliol students and often awkward to transport
4. The JCR needs money

This JCR believes

1. Bikes shouldn’t be wasted if they can be reused after some maintenance work
2. Bikes are left behind are of high enough quality that someone would want to buy them and refurbish them

The JCR resolves to

1. Hold an auction (probably virtually?) for Balliol students (JCR members only?)
2. Have a low starting value to give people chance to buy a bike for cheap.
3. Use the money to fund the JCR (could also be a charity?) and buy more bike tools for the JCR (Maybe Jowett?)

Appendices 

Minutes

Bike auction 

Felix wants to hold a bike auction, and wants to canvas other people’s ideas on how to hold it. He did a bike cull on Thursday, and now there’s eleven old bikes sitting in Jowett. Some are crap, but a lot are good. They could be sold to charity for spare parts, or they could be sold as working bikes. People have asked him if there are any bikes going, because their own bikes aren’t very good. He thinks we could run an auction through facebook. He could take photos of the bikes, and work out exactly what needs doing for them to be in working condition, as most will at least need new tyres. This would give people a chance to get a cheap bike, and if nobody wants them, the bikes can be sold for parts. 

Cerian says this sounds great, people will want cheap bikes. 

Rory asks if the money would go into the jcr. 

Felix says that was his idea. He’s not sure if we own the bikes though; they were left behind, and he posted a lot of warnings that the cull was happening. 

Cerian says we own them enough to throw them away, so surely own them enough to sell them. 

Rory says people won’t be able to argue against us selling them as long as the alternative is throwing them away. 

Cerian asks if we can send any left over bikes to the places that do bikes up for charity. 

Felix says those places definitely exist, but he doesn’t know if they’ll collect or even operate during lockdown. If they don’t the bikes will be sitting around for a while. Somebody will definitely want them though, he knows there’s a place by engineering that advertises for bikes, so he could phone them and ask if they want the bikes. They’ll be gotten rid of somehow, but offered to the jcr first. 

Rory asks what the format of the auctions will be. 

Felix says we don’t want to have anything in person. He’ll create a facebook event, invite all the jcr to it, and post an album for every bike. He’ll find the value of the bikes bought now, and the maintenance needed for the bike to be in working condition; people will know what they’re buying even without seeing the bike. At a pre-determined time, he can open the comment section for about an hour for bids, and the highest at the end will win. 

Rory asks if people would be commenting on a facebook post. 

Felix says they’d comment in the event; there’d be a different post for each bike, we would need to decide on whether to hold them at once or at different times. 

Rory asks if people would pay for the bikes via battels.

Felix says he hasn’t thought about payments. He asks how puffa jackets are paid for. 

Rory says they’re paid for through battels, it’s the easiest way. 

Felix asks how he could organise paying through battels. 

Rory says to talk to Amanda. We’ve organised paying through battels for the charity auction, so he doesn’t see why this shouldn’t work as well. 

Felix says he’ll get the auction done before the end of term. 

Cerian asks where the bikes are. 

Felix says they’re out in the open in jowett. 

Cerian says we should organise the auction as quickly as possible. 

Coronavirus 

Rory says he thought holding jcr teas on back quad could have been a really good idea for welfare week, and asks how likely this is to go ahead in lockdown. 

Cerian says some colleges don’t think day to day life is going to change that much; hall and library will be able to stay open

Felix asks if the jcr can stay open. 

Cerian says it’s a social space, but also a private space to be used between households, and part of the covid secure license college holds. Some colleges have said their marquees can remain open and be booked out by different households. We could maybe have a jcr booking system for households. 

Molly asks how hall will work, and if we can only come with one person from another household. 

Cerian says she’s not sure yet, but was told last week hall would have remained open as a food source in every past lockdown, as long as there were enough people to staff it. It’s counted as a work canteen. 

Molly asks if we can all be considered one big household in lockdown. 

Cerian says she’s asked college; they hadn’t thought about it, but imagined the answer was no because of coming out of lockdown. This will be done in stages; if we’re one big household, and one person develops symptoms, that could mean everyone will have to isolate past the end of the one month lockdown. There’s no exit strategy, so it couldn’t be a real plan. 

Ollie asks if we could be a big household, and then split up two weeks before the end of lockdown, so we all self isolate before we go home. 

Cerian says this could work in a college lockdown, but we’re in a government lockdown; there’s no reason students should be exempt from measures mandating people stay in their households, and authorisation for breaking this would have to come from higher than college staff. 

Molly asks if we could be considered one household anyway because we share the same spaces. 

Cerian says we could possibly do a mass household swap. She’s also heard some colleges have done non-geographical households where people choose groups to be their household. 

Someone says this could be dramatic, but it wouldn’t be any more dramatic than choosing groups for second year houses anyway.