2015-11-15 (Open)

A JCR Open Meeting was held on the 15th of November in the Terrace 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
 – Mary Schafer – Access, MS hereafter
 – Lea Benk – Green and Ethics, LB hereafter
 – Bruce Collie – Webmaster, BC hereafter
 – Sam P-s – LGBT+ Officer, SPS hereafter
 – Martin Coulter – Ents, MC hereafter
 – Jennie Towler – Frep, JeT hereafter
 – Catriona Ashley Miller – Frep, CAM hereafter
 – Dominic O’Neill – Frep, DON hereafter
 – Charlotte Attwood – MCR Rep, CA hereafter

Apologies from Audrey Sebatindira (Black & Ethnic Minorities Officer), Jacob Sen (Male Welfare), Lucy Mackie (Female Welfare), Alice Sowton (Special Considerations), Lily Rosengard (Women’s Officer), Sebastian Mellab

(International Rep) and Kate Jones (Ents). • Contents

1. Minutes and Matters Arising
a) Objections to the Minutes of the Last Meeting

2. Committee Reports

a) Accounts and Budget
b) Street Lighting in Cambridge
c) Building Updates especially those concerning Wyng Gardens d) Ballot changes for 2nd years to allow MMLers to ballot
e) Subletting Scheme

3. Questions to the committee a) Kitchen Fixed Charge

4. JCR motions
5. Emergency motions (if any) 6. CUSU motions (if any)
7. A.O.B.

8. Frep Hustings

1. Minutes and Matters Arising:
a) Objections to the Minutes of the Last Meeting

 There were no objections to minutes from the last meeting.\

2. Committee Reports
a) Accounts and Budget

 A budget is created and agreed upon every year by the college and the committee. The budget is then allocated to the various different societies according to size and necessity. It is completely at the discretion of the

treasurer as to how the money is allocated. Due to the size of our budget as opposed to the number of societies, we usually have a policy of giving people what they ask for. The allocation is as follows:

Society

Allocation

Tennis

£600.00

Trinity Hall Amnesty Society

£75.00

Trinity Hall History Society

£250.00

Engineering Society

£100.00

Trinity Hall Badminton

£900.00

Femfo

£600.00

Trinity Hall Netball Club	£500.00
Rugby	£600.00
Trinity Hall Combined Basketball Team	£500.00
Trinity Hall Music Society	£800.00
Trinity Hall Law Society	£600.00
Trinity Hall MMA	£110.00
Trinity Hall Natural Sciences Society	£374.00
Yoga	£500.00
Trinity Hall Cricket Club	£479.00
Trinity Hall Volleyball Club	£220.00
Trinity Hall Football Club	£525.00
Trinity Hall Boat Club	£800.00
Trinity Hall Hockey Society	£720.00
Mixed Netball	£65.00
Total	£9,318.00

 Whilst the total amount of funding for societies to be allocated is £9000, the above figure of £9,318 represents the maximum amount that societies can claim. In most situations they do claim less than this amount.
 The general idea is that smaller societies with fewer members get less funding, however some societies that have few members do get a high level of funding due to the fact that court fees and other expenses are quite high for them.
 The open meeting then asked people to raise objections if they had any; there were none raised.

 A vote was carried out to approve the budget for the year the Ayes had it 100:0.

b) Street Lighting in Cambridge

 JT had sent an email out about this recently. It is to do with the fact that various street lights would be turned off after midnight in Cambridge. This would especially affect Trinity Hall as this would be on various paths that go from Central Site to Wychfield, Storey’s Way included.
 This seems to be the idea of the county council; the city council seems to be opposed to the idea. The plan would turn of two-thirds of the street

lights on various streets across Cambridge. This would make some poorly lit areas even worse off than they ordinarily would be. This is planned to take effect in April 2016.

 This is most concerning to people living up the hill. Whilst making people feel unsafe, it also has the added issues of causing potential bike accidents.
 The actual cut in lights does not seem to save much, only about £57,000 a year.

 JT outlined how we can help deal with this:

– There was a petition that was created by the Women’s officer at Trinity. It has become the defacto petition for the student movement against this change. However, the issue is that it seems to be more concerned with streets that affect Trinity students as opposed to the University in general. For some reason, there has been no move to change this to be more inclusive. What we want is a wider petition that will unify all of the colleges. JT suggested that we sign the petition now, but that we look into additional ways to create a more inclusive petition. – We should fill out consultation forms. We should email the local city council and county council to express our concerns. The JCR has already expressed their concerns to Dr. Claire Jackson who seems very much on board with it to discuss it with the college and possibly take it higher up as a priority.

c) Building Updates especially those concerning Wyng Gardens

 Wyng Gardens is being constructed next to BBC on Thompson’s Lane. College says that is on schedule and should be ready for Michaelmas 2016. In terms of rent, its cost will be comparable to that of New Build.
 Due to the possibility that Wyng Gardens will not be ready for Michaelmas 2016, it might be that two simultaneous ballots will be run in Easter. One with people being able to ballot for Wyng Gardens, and one otherwise.
 In terms of the fact that there is sometimes a lot of noise pollution for residents of BBC, college is looking into possible solutions. That includes possible compensations. Updates will be coming.
 College has said that no new bikes stands can be put into the North Court, however they will try to get some additional space in Avery Court. There are currently plans to remove the J1 and J2 block in Avery Court as well.

d) Ballot Changes for 2nd years to allow MMLers to ballot

 Since MMLers have a year abroad, they ballot in their 2nd year for 4th year accommodation. This means that they are effectively at the top of the ballot. There was a bit of disagreement about this because it isn’t really all that fair. What was decided was that they would maintain their ballot positions so that they could ballot with the current 2nd years. It would mean that some second years would go down a few places in the ballot, but it

wouldn’t have too much of an impact – especially since Wyng Gardens will provide far more accommodation than actual people to use said accommodation. They will be allowed to ballot for Wyng Gardens, should the site be ready in time.

e) Subletting Scheme

 The point of the scheme is to allow students to stay at college over breaks even if they had not chosen the correct contract. This happens by people who have rented their rooms out over the holidays but no longer wish stay, putting their rooms up for rent.
 The uptake for the scheme is usually much higher in the Easter Term.
 This scheme operates strictly within the JCR; college does not haveanything to do with the organization.
 If you contact the tutorial office, it is sometimes possible to keep your roomover the holidays – although you usually need a pretty good reason.

3. Committee Reports

a) Kitchen Fixed Charge

 It has always been very vague. It is partly to do with the cost of food and partly to do with kitchen facilities. It basically allows college to subsidies the food that it makes available at hall.
 People on Band B can move to Band A by buying £40 worth of food.

 We are in talks with college to be able to choose your KFC however this doesn’t seem possible due the large amount of administration that would be required to make this possible.
 More information will be coming soon.

4. JCR Motions

 There were no JCR Motions. 5. Emergency Motions

 There were no Emergency Motions. 6. CUSU Motions

 CUSU had recently been in discussion on removing the Tompkin’s Table from the University. JT stated that we as a college would be abstaining on the motion. There were no objections to this.

7. A.O.B.

 Recycling Scheme

– LB stated that the trial on F-Staircase was not going well. Students living on the staircase were not recycling enough. The housekeeping staff had sent her pictures as evidence of this. She stated that there was a real risk that the entire procedure would fail. She said that she would be emailing everyone on the staircase to encourage them.

 Bike policy in college has been ruffling quite a few feathers. Many people are being penalized for not leaving their bikes in a stand due to the number

of stands. This is especially prominent at lunch times. JT said that he would discuss about college being ‘more chill’ about the situation, but that we need to just make the best of a bad situation.

 Too many formals are happening and therefore the kitchen staff are laying out tables before meals are finished. This often means that there are not enough spaces for students to sit at. This should not be happening and JT said that he would speak to college about this.

 The BBC common room has been trashed a few times this term and has subsequently been closed. College is willing to re-open it but warns that bills will be sent out in future if people do not own up. It was said that it was irresponsible of students causing damage and having everyone else pay for their misdeeds.
 Washing machines at New Build are breaking down, but college does not want to spend a great deal of money fixing them. This is because, next year an external company will be taking up the task. There will be one washing machine room in New Build for everyone to use. There is no plan for more than two washers and two driers, but JT was asked to discuss that with college. It will be on A staircase.
 People working in the mezzanine of the library are encouraged to keep their shoes on. It creates awful smells and is not conducive to a working

environment.

8. Frep Hustings

 The candidates for the positions of Freps did their Hustings speeches. They were then asked questions by the three current Freps.

2015-11-15 (Open)

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