A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
This article was written by Esme Mroz-Davies.
The YUSU booking page did not allow ticket purchasers to specify a route.
Tickets were therefore exchanged for T-shirts on a first-come first-served basis.
The t-shirts which gave entry to Gallery were snapped up in a matter of five hours.
This prompted anger from many unlucky students as well as desperate attempts to swap their yellow Toffs shirt for a coveted green Gallery one.
One student wrote on the event wall: "Why weren't these tickets sold separately for each route? This is ridiculous."
Another, infuriated by the quick sell-out, exclaimed: "If people turn up after having been in lectures constantly since 9, they shouldn't be given lip about "should have got here earlier" because for some it's not a possibility!"
Societies and Communications Officer Sam Bayley said: "No Union Officers have given students any "lip", I can assure you, and I'd follow up on any such complaints if they were raised with us."
The first many people knew of a potential problem was at 3:07pm on Monday, when Sam Bayley wrote on the Facebook event page stating that: "I'm afraid Gallery t-shirts are now all gone, and I think Small and Medium Toffs ones are also all out or thereabouts...you've gotta be quick!"
A few desperate students are even offering money in exchange for a Gallery shirt.
Bayley added: "The Viking Raid t-shirt distribution has been handled in this way for the past two years without any issues, on a first-come-first-served basis, and we didn't expect such a rush on one line of t-shirts."
Some 1,700 students are set to hit the city centre on Viking Raid 2, which is in support of Rag week 2008.
750 tickets were sold for the Gallery route, with 950 for the alternative, and seemingly less popular Toffs route.
Controversy had been caused by Viking Raid after it was initially revealed that YUSU policy would have to be removed to secure t-shirts in time for the event. An alternative supplier of ethical merchandise was eventually found meaning the event could go ahead, whilst obeying Union policy.
Just out of interest, how many tickets did Sam Bayley manage to get then? Is he going to Toffs?
Is it illegal that viking will not give any refunds because i wanted to take my shirt back because if im not able to go to gallery i dont want to go at all? Surely this isn't right... i dont remember agreeing to a no refunds policy? did i miss this?
1 - I'm managing the event, so I'll probably be going to Toffs at some point, but I'm the route manager for Gallery.
2 - There are terms and conditions listed at the side of the purchasing screen and one of these terms is "tickets are non-refundable". I'd advise you visit our Swap Shop at 6pm in Goodricke to try and change your Toffs ticket for a Gallery one. I also would've thought when you bought your ticket that it was fairly obvious that each route was subject to availability (ie, the capacity of each club). So no, it's not illegal, because we haven't missold you a ticket. In fact, we're pretty sure both routes will give all participants a great night!
Actually it is illegal. Distance selling regulations, which apply to online purchases, require the seller to give the buyer a chance to "cancel the contract", or in this case, return the T-Shirt for a refund.
"Depending on the nature of the breach, service providers may face a claim for damages, or their online contract may be invalidated. Where the breach affects the collective interest of consumers, a service provider may also be subject to a 'stop now' order by a trading standards office or other regulator (see question 17 below)."
I'm sure sending a nice legal looking letter to YUSU will secure your refund...
And AFAIK, it is not possible to sign away this right with Ts&Cs at the time of purchase, but don't quote me on that, I'm not a lawyer.
Oh, and none of the above applies if you purchased your ticket in person, but the Sale of Good Act might help out - especially if you weren't informed at the time that the ticket was non-refundable.
Sorry for the comment spam.
Actually, distance selling regulations don't apply to event tickets, for obvious reasons (they're time sensitive and are one of the exclusions written into the act).
Any legal letter sent in would be considered but refunds will not be given because of a customer change of mind.
Mitch is on the rampage
RHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Good job I didn't bother buying one this time. Last time was enough for me - the hyped-up drinks offers were practically non-existent and there were plenty of people made it into the clubs without T-shirts. Waste of £7.50 if you ask me (minus the £2.50 it costs to get into Toffs anyway...)
On this occasion nobody without a t-shirt will be allowed entry to the clubs before 11pm, but you are free to chance it if you so wish. We have sold the capacity of the clubs so when people go home you might be able to get in...
The problems probably arise from the fact that freshers' have less knowledge about the york club scene so haven't chossen 'favourite' clubs, this means that this method of distribution isn't so problematic, as people are happier to swap. It might be wise for YUSU to reconsider the way in which tickets for the second Viking Raid are distributed, and a seperate ticket for seperate routes policy may be better; although of course the tickets would be sold online as first-come-first-served.
Well I did the whole Gallery route and got in no problem at Gallery last night (after 11); hell I even got a free bottle of sparkling wine for not wearing a T-shirt.
Also, with all the controversy over the ethics of the T-shirts' source, perhaps the ethics of not offering refunds should also be questioned...
Is The Yorker your homepage Mitch? Just intrigued...
Dear Sam:
From my own personal experience, I have found that YUSU members do nothing but give lip to students. As far as I can tell, YUSU officers think they are better than everyone else and are completely unwilling to take comment or criticism on any subject, especially when it is apparent that YUSU has run things in the worst possible way.
Here here
14 - I very strongly disagree with you without seeing evidence, but I'm willing to investigate this if you bring an actual complaint to me, or an example of a time this has happened, and I will personally ensure it doesn't happen again.
Note - YUSU Officers taking constructive criticism is different to YUSU Officers being harassed or taking abuse, which they don't have to do. Funnily enough, your anonymous posting saying that we do nothing doesn't really fall into the "constructive" category.
You will find that YUSU Officers are strong minded, but I think that's part of the appeal when we're elected, because sometimes the job requires a degree of stubborness in order to represent views at a higher level.
When I post on these forums I generally try not to express opinions, I try to clarify the facts and express the Union's (or sometimes Union Exec's) view on something. Other Officers will generally do the same.
Please follow this up with me - communications@yusu.org.
13 - Yeah, though looking for a Firefox plugin that'll let me have multiple homepages which'd save me loading up The Yorker, Facebook and Google Calendar every time I start. I probably would have forgotten about The Yorker a long time ago had I not set it to my homepage - I go through fads pretty quickly.
Mitch.. if you open all the pages you want to set as your homepage as separate tabs in the same firefox window. You can press “tools” then “options…” then press the button “use current pages” under the home page bit. And you can have as many homepages as you want when you start up a firefox page. Hope this helps!
Ahh awesome! Cheers anon 18 
Well you definitely haven't gone off it at all Mitch! You should have your own column by now, surely...From Anon #13
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