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.
Wednesday saw the regular YUSU Union General Meeting (UGM) where a number of issues were brought up in motions, the most notable of which called for YUSU to campaign for 24 hour portering.
After the procedural ratification of the YUSU minutes motion there was a resubmission of the constitutional tidy up, which the union is obliged to do on a yearly basis. It was proposed by Lewis Bretts, but the proposals had been drafted by former President Tom Scott and former Services officer Matt Burton.
The “portering on campus” motion was moved from 7th on the agenda to 3rd. It was proposed by Chris Etheridge, one of the YUSU campaigns officers, who argued that porters played a substantial role in student welfare and that with a rise in the price of accommodation, campus services should not be cut.
Etheridge was followed by YUSU welfare officer, Ben Humprhys, who opposed the motion. He contended that with the university’s finances suffering as a result of a cut in government funding, the cost of the library expansion and a rise in gas prices there had to be cuts somewhere, and better it was in campus services than academic departments. He further argued that Derwent and Vanbrugh students had no further to walk to their nearest porters than James and Halifax students.
Jason Rose took the opportunity to support the motion, re-iterating Etheridge’s argument that a rise in accommodation prices should not accompany cuts in campus services.
There were further motions to lobby: the university to switch to ethical energy providers, campaigns to cut plastic bag usage, to make ethical foods and drinks available on campus, and for YUSU to sign up to the 10:10 campaign to cut carbon emissions, all of which were met with no disagreement.
Rhianna Kinchin put forward a motion to elect the RAG and Student Action YUSU members with the main YUSU committee and Rachel Hesselwood proposed changing the name of ‘Student Action’ to ‘YUSU volunteering: Student Action in the Community’ to reflect the body’s role within YUSU. Neither of these motions were opposed by those present and the meeting was rounded off by YUSU officers giving reports of what they had done so far.
With PX/001 booked for the event, the turnout of around 20 people was far below expected, but the beginning of protests against the portering cuts due to begin at 7.30 clashing and the UGM starting at 7.15, may explain the small attendance.
Voting on motions is now available on the YUSU website [1].
No confidence in the welfare officer!
Porters provide an essential welfare service - it should be his job to champion them, not to take the university's side.
And he has championed them. He's been one of the most active members of the campaign, putting his back into it and writing full documents for us. He's worked for the campaign more than he should have - and he did so, in part, *because* he felt this way. He wants to make sure he represents students whether he believes in them or not.
As I said in my speech in favour of the motion, the fact that he explained his doubts in front of a campus that is likely to shout "no confidence" that quickly actually makes me respect him even more. Brilliant guy, brilliant Welfare Officer. Now back to organising more upcoming protesting... 
I hope the 'library' expansion isn't a move for 24-hour service. I'm all for a bigger library, but our opening hours are pretty good as they are. Porters, not 24-hour library!
Hey, I need to use the library at 4am for my research as I work a night shift for four nights per week and need to do work during the same hours on the other nights. At the moment I can't use the library half the time and so only use the internet but it would be great to have 24/7 library time!
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