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.
The first motion of the night was to ratify the Union Council minutes from October to January. This was proposed in the last UGM, but did not reach quoracy.
Next was a constitutional amendment proposal, proposed by the Union Council and seconded by acting Council Chair Tom Langrish.
The proposal is to approve the new constitution, which has been amended by Langrish. In his speech Langrish said: “Governance has to be flexible, it has to change to suit the changing needs of the student body.”
If the motion is passed, it will complete a number of changes made by the union, including rebranding the Athletic Union’s as York Sport, reviving the York University Media (YUM) Committee and splitting the Academic and Welfare Officer position into two roles. Langrish added: “Please vote for it, otherwise I’ve wasted quite a bit of time.”
The proposed changes to the constitution can be found at this link.
Next up was the first of Jason Rose’s many motions, which was seconded by YUSU Officers Jamie Tyler, Alex Lacy and Charlie Leyland and Labour Club Chair David Levene. If passed, YUSU will be mandated to oppose any attempt by the government to increase the tuition fee cap.
Rose said: “At present, I will be leaving university with £35,000 of debt, including £12,000 of tuition fees. If the cap is lifted to £7,000, this would increase to over £50,000 of debt.” He added that the current system is “very dodgy and unfeasible for over half of all students”.
The fourth motion of the evening was submitted by Jonathan Krasner-Macleod, and seconded by Amit Sinha, Charlie Leyland and Therese Hermann.
Krasner-Macleod put forward a proposal whereby provision marks would be returned within four 'term' weeks, and adequate feedback returned within six 'term' weeks. If this motion is passed, YUSU will be mandated to campaign for this.
Krasner-Macleod said: “If they [exams] are meant to help us learn at all, to engage our understanding of a topic, to see where we need to refocus our attentions then we need feedback when we can still remember sitting them.” He added that he’s “not asking for the impossible, the ridiculous or even the overly optimistic” but didn’t think his proposal was “unreasonable”.
Next was Jason Rose’s second motion of the night, seconded by Chris Northwood. If passed, YUSU will be mandated to lobby Sinclair Properties and other landlords in York to bring all of their properties up to the standard described in the Code of Best Practice.
Rose said: “There have been allegations of theft, allegations of breaking contracts, allegations of poor management, poor assistance, problems on a variety of levels.”
Though he did not give a speech last night, YUSU Societies and Communications Officer Rory Shanks has expressed his support for the motion. He said: “This is a great chance for students to let us know what they think about some of the local companies with which we deal.”
Rose then took the stage again to submit a third motion, seconded by David Levene and YUSU Student Activities candidate Ella-Grace Kirton. The proposal requires YUSU to label vegetarian and vegan items on the menus when they need to be replaced, and to make more vegetarian and vegan meals available.
The union would also have to consider other dietary requirements and, where possible, provide full ingredient lists for their menu items. Rose defended the union in his speech, saying: “This was obviously an oversight, because so much was going on at the start of term.”
The seventh motion of the night was proposed by Ralph Buckle, and seconded by Anna Appleton, Matilda Sheppard, Craig Martin and Sam Westrop. The motion proposed mandating YUSU to campaign against the introduction of National ID cards.
Buckle said: “Even if you do support ID cards, still support this motion. This motion is against the forcing of ID cards onto students.” He then explained that the current proposals would mean students needed ID cards to apply for their student loans, and all international students would require cards.
The penultimate motion was proposed by Daniel Renwick, and seconded by John Nicholls, Freddy Vanson, Jason Rose, Sanja Bilic and Farzana Khan. The motion called for YUSU to speak out against events in Gaza, and lobby the university to issue a similar statement.
If passed, the union would also be mandated to lobby the university to offer assistance to the Islamic University of Gaza and to lobby the government to investigate Israel’s conduct and recognise the Hamas government.
Renwick said: “I do not believe that YUSU will bring an end to the humanitarian crisis... but I do believe that the small victories and changes matter.”
The UGM ended on a humorous but controversial note, with a motion proposed by ex-Derwent Chair Oliver Lester and seconded by Jason Rose.
Lester was unable to attend the UGM, but he told The Yorker: “I feel very passionately about renaming the Student Centre to the ‘The Matt Burton Dance Hall’. Burton has tirelessly devoted himself to YUSU; he has given students their own bar and he has brought world class acts to York Balls such as Alphabeat, The Saturdays and Booty Luv.
“But more importantly, on a personal level, Burton has been a father figure to me. This UGM motion was York's way of saying ‘Cheers Burton, we'll miss you and don't forget us... we'll never forget you!’ I'm sure every York student will strongly agree.”
If the motion is passed, not only would the Student Centre’s official name be 'The Matt Burton Dance Hall' for the next three years, but Burton would be mandated to lobby the government for a new national holiday called 'Matt Burton Day'.
Rose spoke on Lester’s behalf at the UGM. In his speech, he noted that this would not cost the union money – the sign will not be changed, but 'The Matt Burton Dance Hall' would be the Student Centre’s official name.
This was the only motion which saw more than one speech given, with Tom Scott and Alex Lacy expressing their support and Matthew Pallas and John Nicholls speaking against it.
Scott said: “Many years ago, the Athletic Union submitted a motion very much like this to change it to ‘The Vaseline Centre’. As a result they won £6,000 for their creative marketing campaign from Vaseline. I’m in favour of this because it may spark off a string of name changes and York Sport may get even more money from its sponsors.”
Lacy added: “Matthew Burton is the quintessential YUSU Officer... He has spilled his blood, sweat, tears and many other bodily fluids in the YUSU building, and you can’t go through the Student Centre without feeling the musk of Burton in the air.”
Pallas had another name for the Student Centre in mind, saying: “This motion is plainly ridiculous. The Student Centre should not be called ‘The Matt Burton Dance Hall’. It should be called ‘The Trevor the Duck Memorial Dance Hall'.”
Nicholls was also in favour of renaming the Student Centre, but not after Matt Burton. He said: “I’m not going to say that it’s silly and ridiculous, I think it’s quite amusing...We should have another consultation as to another, perhaps a wider leader, or a society.”
Rose then opposed his own motion, saying: “Come to think of it, this is a silly motion, don’t vote for it.”
Voting for this motion takes place from Monday at 12pm to Thursday at 12pm. For more information about the motions submitted, click here.
#98, that is so entirely unhelpful to the discussion. Yes, UGM's could be about kicking out sabbatical officers, if that is something that arises as an issue. The UGM should be used for STUDENT MATTERS. Which the GFH incident was, and Gaza isn't. So they are entirely different things.
And #84 (I realise this is a way up the page but some of us don't spend all day everyday on the Yorker :p), yes, maybe there are Palestinian students here, and yes maybe they would benefit from assistance. If the motion had been about helping the students here who had been directly affected by the Gaza conflict, then an awful lot of the opposition would be withdrawn. The issue comes with YUSU being forced to take a political stance on something unrelated to general student life.
This discussion has become rather ridiculous. The motion should never have been submitted, and I agree with Chris that there should be some form of constitutional amendment to stop something like this happpening again? Maybe, Jason, it could be one of your first campaigns (assuming of course RON doesn't win out) to make up for the mess that is this motion.
I don't think it's fair to say that just because YUSU should be concerned with student life that this motion should never have been submitted. Some of the things that concern students do take place outside of the campus bubble and can't easily be completely dissociated from political matters. Unions, and not only student unions, worldwide do take political stances on various issues and if their members vote for and support this, they are perfectly entitled to do so. A union or organisation of people taking a stance or making a statement can often have more influence than an individual or doing the same. The earlier comment someone made denying this was mistaken.
I do not of course mean that a statement from a student union might solve all crises in the middle east or anything similar, of course it could not. Rather this is a more general point that unions do have a right, and a responsibility, to look beyond the immediate and the obvious when deciding policy. This is part of what representation is. By all means people should express their own views and help to influence policy as they see to be right but it is far too inward-looking to complain merely because a union has a wider policy.
Jason, the UGMs are in place to decide policy - but not policy on global politics! For what seems the 100th time, and a point to which no-one has yet replied, why don't you write a letter to your MP?! It is HIS job to listen to your views and represent them, not the Union's.
Dan, I cannot believe you are being honest when you also say that UGMs are not the place for such discussions - as someone else pointed out, if the motion was condemning Hamas, you would be the first to support it.
"Look at the opposition group". Any member of the opposition group who is not to the extreme right is in it only to discuss, something which apparently is not possible any longer, as you decided to ban the wall. The opposition group is ridiculous and dishonest, and aims to polarise and offend rather than promote dialogue. Even though I believe the motion should never have been submitted (and I will demonstrate the fact that I consider it out of place by not voting at all, rather than voting against it), its supporters are open to criticism and debate, they never deleted any comments from the wall of their group.
A.
It's a fairly made point David, but I think it's wrong that an SU should take a stance on something that clearly is not representative of a majority of students. As this comment thread has demonstrated, a very small minority are moved by this particular issue, but for those who are, feelings run high and I think it's fundamentally wrong that certain individuals of a similar political ilk use our apathetic student population and YUSU to get through 'policy' (in the loosest sense) that mirrors their view on the situation.
Aris, no one has been removed from the group and I have not deleted any comments from anyone. The wall has been disabled to enable discussion to take place on the 'discussion board'. As far as I can say (I can only speak for myself), nothing has been deleted from this and I would encourage, as I have done in messages, people to contribute to the debate in the discussion board.
Every discussion board started up by those proposing the motion has been deleted. Most of those had to do with the lies that your group's description contains. So cut the bullshit please.
comment deleted by the author Dan, are you implying that for some inexplicable reason, it is impossible to have a discussion both on the wall and the discussion board?
A.
I've just seen a girl binning leaflets for your opposition into the recycling bin in Langwith. And you stand here to have the cheek saying the opposition are the ones 'stopping democracy'. Bunkham.
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