2015-11-01

A JCR meeting was held on the 1st of November in the Bridgetower Room.
Attendance:
Those present were:

• James Troup – President, JT hereafter
• Dale Walmsley – Vice-President, DW hereafter
• Charlie O’Neill – Treasurer, CON hereafter
• Veer Goiporia – Secretary, VG hereafter
• Jacob Sen – Male Welfare, JS hereafter
• Mary Schafer – Access, MS hereafter
• Lea Benk – Green and Ethics, LB hereafter
• Bruce Collie – Webmaster, BC hereafter
• Audrey Sebatindira – B&E Minorities Officer, AS hereafter
• Lily Rosengard – Women’ s Officer, LR hereafter
• Sebastian Mellab – International Rep, SM hereafter
• Kate Jones – Ents, KJ hereafter
• Martin Coulter – Ents, MC hereafter
• Dominic O’Neill – Frep, DON hereafter
• Charlotte Attwood – MCR Rep, CA hereafter
• Apologies from:
  • Catriona Ashley Miller (Frep)
  • Lucy Mackie (Female Welfare)
  • Alice Sowton (Special Considerations)
  • Sam P-s (LGBT+ Officer)
  • Jennie Towler (Frep)

• Contents
1 Committee Updates
2 New Aims for the Committee 3 AOB
4 Street Lights Initiative

1. Committee Updates: • JT started us off:

– Had a meeting with Dr Claire Jackson, which went very positively. She was particularly impressed with the fact that every single fresher turned up to the Matriculation Photo. This feat had not been achieved by most of the presidents in the years before. This was mostly due to the

fact that there was always a very popular club night the night before. It prompted the thought that maybe slight changes should be made the timetable for Fresher’s Week. This would allow for more flexibility.

• –  JT also had a meeting with the Finance Committee along with CON. They were under the impression that it went rather well.
• –  There was also a conversation with the Graduation Committee with regards to the fact that most graduating students want to stay an extra night after graduating due to celebrations and the like. College seems to charge the full cost of renting a room for this one-day. The JCR committee thought this was a bit unfair and they seem to have it discussed with college. A decision is pending.

• DW went next:
  • –  On the topic of Frep Elections that were rapidly

    approaching. DW wanted to make sure that we had more than three candidates this year and hence asked our current Freps (DON being the only one present at the time) to make sure that there was interest. Interest and enthusiasm were vital to getting more people interested in joining the JCR – so that should be the plan for the current Freps.

  • –  DW was also planning an open meeting for the 15th of November. He planned to publicize it often to make sure that enough people joined the meeting.
  • –  DW also noted that he and JT had attended a CUSU council meeting, which was not as productive as it could have been. There had been some talk on useful subjects such as the ‘turning off of the lights’ on various streets in Cambridge. But overall the meeting moved slower than it could have.
• MS was third in line:

– MS noted that the shadowing scheme signups had just

closed. She had said that there had been a very poor turnout for the signups this year and she was very disappointed by this. Luckily they had somewhat picked up in the last week.

• –  For the mentoring scheme she urged more people, especially on Central Site, to donate their rooms for a night or two.
• –  She wanted to update the ‘Day in the Life’ page on the website and was hoping to collect as much information as possible in the coming weeks.

• BC was up next:
  • –  He first noted that the random case of emojis replacing the

    icons on the college website was not of his doing. He could not replicate the effect and hence was unable to do anything about it. Hopefully these sexist emojis wouldn’t be something that happens again.

  • –  Following a lot of feedback, he said that a lot of people had been asking for a Wi-Fi access point in the JCR near the TV as it is currently a dead zone. BC did say that this might take a while and is still waiting on approval, as it would involve quite a bit of rewiring.
• CON continued on:
  • –  University Challenge tryouts would be held soon in the

    Stephen Hawking room.

  • –  Funding for societies for the year had been agreed on.
• SM was up next:
  • –  Various events had been organized and had taken place in

    the last month. This included a Newnham swap, a King’s

    swap and the International Tea.

  • –  There were also plans to buy weighing scales for the

    international students to make sure that their bags did not

    go over the weight limit.

• DON had a small point to add:

– There was a poor turnout for the pumpkin carving competition on Halloween. Indeed there was only one submission. Some freshers thought it would be funny to submit uncarved pumpkins. No one laughed.

• LR continued on:
– FemFo was going strong with a lot of people turning up to

the weekly discussion event. There was an especially strong turnout of freshers. There were also over 100

signups for Women’s Dinner, and it looked to be an

extremely successful event.
– LR also noted that there were no bins around college. This

was quite a nuisance and often led to people littering. JT discussed this with the college later on and determined that it was due to an infestation problem. A solution was being worked on.

• CA quickly added in:
– This would be the last JCR meeting that CA would sit on

as the MCR elections were occurring next week. However she was running for the position of president. Due to the lateness of these minutes I can confirm that she did win the position.

• JS went next:
  • –  He had attended a meeting of the Gardens Committee.
  • –  He was waiting on approval from Dr. Jackson to go ahead

    with preparations for the Mental Health Forum.

  • –  He and Lucy were in conversation with Ian, the head

    porter to get access to a pigeonhole at central site to create

    the Welfare Pigeonhole.

  • –  Previously, due to some vandalism, the Welfare Room had

    been closed at nighttime. This was deemed unacceptable as the Welfare Committee did sometimes use the room to have a private chat with students. This was resolved however; it was decided that should the welfare committee need access to the room after dark, the key would be provided to them.

  • –  There was also talk about the Welfare Tea not being as popular as it was last year. Ideas to resolve this are in the pipeline.
  • –  There have been instances of bad communication with CUSU where some essential training sessions had been missed. JS has given them some feedback about the lack of communication. Make up sessions will be given.
• KJ & MC continued:

– KJ confirmed that there would indeed be a Christmas

themed Viva towards the end of term.

• –  They also spoke of difficulties with online booking system that stopped some people from being able to book onto Superhalls. People were also sometimes under the impression that they could just turn up to Superhalls without prior booking, which is not really a possibility.
• –  They will be making the events more visible by e-mail as well as Facebook.

• AS went on to say:
  • –  FilmSoc was going well. The weekly showing of movies

    had quite good turnouts

  • –  She enquired as to when the vending machines would be

    coming back. JT stated that it was likely that they wouldn’t come back because college was losing money on them.

• LB finished off by adding:
  • –  The recycling trial on F staircase was still ongoing. She

    was going to have a meeting with the head of

    Housekeeping later that day.

  • –  To ensure the success of the trial, she asked JS and KJ to

    contact F-Staircase to make sure that the freshers on the

    staircase used the recycling bags properly.

  • –  She wanted to create a team of green officers. However

    she understood that this might take some time especially

    since they would need to get some sort of training.

  • –  She talked about a film night for environment based

    movies, however she found that the lecture theatre was always full. She asked if there was anywhere that they could go for movies. JT told her that he would check and get back to her.

    2. New Aims for Committee: • A note on the bins:

– JT and DW have e-mailed the college about the disappearance of bins. Hopefully they should be coming. LB thought that it might be a good idea if college is buying new bins to buy bins that have two sides. One side for recyclables and one side for other waste.

• Bike Policy:

– Bikes on Central Site have started getting tagged if they are not locked up correctly. However it has been noted that too many are getting tagged. Especially during lunchtime, where there is simply not enough space for people to park bikes. It was hoped that the JCR could negotiate with college for a possible exemption during lunchtime.

3. AOB:
• A request by DW for committee members to send him points for the open meeting

• Porters at Vivas:
  • –  It has recently become an issue where having porters at

    Vivas are no longer possible. The issue comes when two porters, each of whom charge GBP 75 for the night are used. But due to a recent decline in Viva attendance, it seems that the Ents committee are making a steady loss on Vivas. Sometimes there are such a small number of people that one or maybe even no porter would be preferable.

  • –  This is not viable or sustainable. The idea was put forward that we could possibly put trained students in charge of this. There doesn’t seem to be any other way to keep Vivas going on without hurting the ENTS budget. KJ has e- mailed to no response so far.
• Washing Machines:
  • –  This applies to the New Build on Wychfield.
  • –  JCR Committee in the past had agreed with college to

    phase out current system of two washing machines and

    two driers per staircase on New Build.

  • –  They are now outsourcing it to a company called Circuit,

    which will be taking care of the entire system. However there will only be two washers and two driers available on the whole of New Build.

  • –  It was generally agreed by the committee that this was not great for the students. But it was also accepted that reneging on a deal with college would not go down well. This would be more detrimental to us in the long term.

• MCR was granted access to the JCR casino night props.
• Budget of GBP 9000 was allocated to societies over the

  summer.

  • –  Usually clubs over ask and claim less. So therefore we

    have allocated more than the GBP 9000 that we actually

    have.

  • –  Having no issue, we have said yes to most people’s

    funding.

  • –  Some societies have asked for too much funding. This

    does not typically get accepted. Sometimes negotiations

    have to be made. 4. Streetlights:

• Cambridge City Council is unhappy with the decision of the county to turn of lights on many roads along Cambridge after 12 am.
• The committee and students in general are not very happy about this. So JT decided that it is something that we should be investing some time and energy into. He believes that we can make a change if we follow the correct paths.
• Having gone to a CUSU meeting, JT and DW said that there was a petition made by Trinity College that people could sign. But they said the meeting was a bit slow and not as helpful as it could have been. Colleges seemed to disagree quite a bit with one another.
• Apart from criminal activity, there is also a chance of the number of accidents increasing. This has a greater than average net effect on the students of Trinity Hall as a lot of them do tend to use the bike roads in the night after dark. A lot of the affected roads are roads that our students use.
• There are various ideas to help get the ball rolling. We should first contact other colleges to see if there are things that we can do in tandem with them. The more voices that are heard, the more strength it will give the cause. JT has spoken to Dr. Jackson and she has agreed to have a word to see what can be done to resolve the situation too. JT said that he was collating some more ideas. Another idea being to write to our local MP.
• All students are encouraged to assist however possible.

_________

The Second meeting of the JCR Committee for Michaelmas Term 2015 ended at 12pm on the 1st November 2015 _________
Veer Goiporia (vg296)

JCR Secretary Trinity Hall