What's on?

[Semprini]

Somebody call the Waaaambulance.

[endless psych]

If the event was not included in the SRC's bumph about whats covered by the pass then its not their fault.

If the event was not included in any QM bumph without it stating entry fees and the like and it was made clear that on nights in Freshers week (was it fresher only or non-freshers as well last year?) its entry fee or free entry with a freshers pass then fair enough not the QM's fault.

I vote with the default position that freshers are thick as mince.

[triggerhappy]

As far as I recall, Freshers' Fest last year was free to Freshers' Week pass holders despite being paid for in full by the QM and having nothing to do with, monetarily or in any other way, the Freshers' Pass Program.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

[mysteron]

nope the freshers' still had pay to get in- it was less if they produced their pass, but they still had to pay.

[djtoast]

Whether you believe it to be purely a non-FW event, whether you believe it to have been made clear on publicity, whether you believe the SRC is at fault matters not a jot, toast, as you are not a fresher and they have said repeatedly that this was confusing to them. They didnt make the distinction and clinging to the mantra that it wasnt intended in this way doesnt change that perception.

I'll believe you if you say that some freshers didn't understand that it wasn't part of freshers' week, and thus that their pass didn't cover entrance

I conceded that earlier.

Now given that the SRC's PR was clear about what was covered by the pass system, perhaps we can accept that as soon as anything is branded by any student body with the term "Fresher" (or any other selection of words) that there is a clear connection with the official pass programme. This is inescapable- there is even evidence for this (see freshers survey). Now this differs from the garage et al, as they are not part of the programme and thus there is no belief of having paid for its events already. Once again you can blame this on what ever you want but it doesnt change that in practice Freshers dont like it- not the event but how you gain access to it.

"Fresher" simply means "first year" ; you seem to be claiming the SRC has some sort of commercial monopoly on the term's use on campus?

Also if this really isnt part of Freshers Week, why use the freshers brand at all? Why not use something else? Clearly then there is a marketing advantage from using the term (just as when G1 uses the Freshers' Friendly brand) so lets not pretend that there is no relationship between Freshers Week and Freshers Fest. Otherwise Gary Brown wouldnt have mentioned it in his "Freshers Address" as on of the weeks events. Or maybe I missed where he said "we have the automatic on monday etc and then on sautrday Freshers Fest...but that isnt actually part of Freshers Week its just an event we hold which just happens to be be branded 'Freshers'".

You can tell you're being absurd now, right? I'm pretty sure all the institutions' presidents have mentioned activities on offer throughout the year they think will be of interest to the freshers they're addressing, at every one of the many Freshers' Addresses I've been at. I'm pretty sure for example that when Father John Keenan mentions the services in the University Chapel, that he doesn't expect freshers to understand that they run for the next few days and then cease.

I dont think that any of these criticisms are bitter in fact they are motivated by a desire to improve the whole of FW, not just for a particular institution. If Freshers say that this event damages the brand of Glasgow's FW then everyone has an interest in this as everyone invests cash and time into creating as strong a brand as possible. How many Freshers were put off using the Unions or the SRC because they felt they had been swizzed and instead use only clubs in town? I dont know, but even one is too many. Incidentally, given the lack of warmth freshers' felt for this branding exercise and payment system last year, surely it would be (if toast is correct about the other bodies thinking they need the qm to fail) in their interest for the QM to hold this event- given how it damages the union's image? Clearly if this was about wanting the QM to fail we wouldnt be arguing against this policy....that would be utterly illogical.

This isnt bickering, this is saying that the people we are marketing to have told us that they didnt like the way sales/marketing was conducted. To ignore that is pig headed and damages us all, they think we're trying to exploit them and that surely is the antithesis of what the student bodies are about?

Well I've typed more than is really my business already, doubtless the current QM folks'll take what you say on board. My view boils down to feeling that the full extent of the problem is corrected with a slight increase in how clear it is that it happens immediately after FW

[liveross]

? Do the SRC consider Saturday to be a part of freshers' week? Is any of the money collected from freshers for FW allocated to the unions for entertainment on Saturday?

The term "fresher" as I understand it applies to anyone who is in first year, for the duration of their first year... (cf freshman...) So "false advertising" doesn't seem like an applicable term. The SRC certainly don't have a monopoly on words in the English language.

I can't see any reason for the SRC to have any interest in what the unions put on with the interntion of entertaining freshers outside of freshers' week...

Or, to look at it another way, I'm pretty sure that The Garage and Campus will have "Freshers blah blah blah" all over their flyers. Using that word isn't subject to permission of the SRC.

Wow. Someone has it in the ass for the SRC.

If you took some time to actually investigate what happened, you would have realised that the freshers themselves complained to staff at the SRC regarding this, as it was thought their passes would gain them entry... A lot of shit hit the fan with it, and because the SRC represent students, they had to step in.

I don't think the SRC do a bad job, allbeit student politics either Union Based, SRC based or media based always have their fair share of trivial practices. However, if you have a problem with them, why don't you stand for election or at least get a foot in the door to help provide a better service to students... or wait... are you even a matriculated student Alec?

[djtoast]

Er, no, I haven't been a matriuculated student for years. I'm a QM member, hence my interest and why I'm posting on the QM forum

And I don't especially have it in for the SRC. Lots of good stuff happens in the John Mac building; especially in terms of gust and gum and sub city and even in certain respects the guardian (despite its at times embarrassingly amateur editorial policy), and yes, vital student support services, etc etc etc. Enough back-slapping?

But I think last year's FW suffered because of mistakes made by the SRC: eg drastically underselling passes in advance (how many were sold, and how does that number compare to previous years? Someone remind me...) And my understanding is that that was largely because very little information was included in the packs that were sent out to prospective freshers about what the passes would actually entitle people to - ie as it was explained to me, the SRC essentially sent freshers a letter saying "come to freshers' week; it only costs £x, and that'll get you entry to a seminar on effective studying on wednesday at 1pm" with little if any mention of the unions' night-time programs. Seminars on effective studying are doubtless more important in a sense to prospective students that indie bands etcetera, but less commercially saleable, shall we say.

So that may help explain why freshers didn't quite get that the QM's saturday event, which happened after freshers' week finished, wasn't included...

So... having sold a fraction of the passes that were sold in previous years, what was the SRC's attitude to the position that put the QM in? With prospective bar takings far lower than previously projected, and with the QM under the financial strain of having had its block grant halved (due to the University's assessment that it was financially successful) to hand the money instead to the SRC (who, would it be fair to say, had not been conspicuously overflowing with acumen re the pennies), what was the opinion of the SRC and the cross-campus committee in general about limiting the financial implication for, well, all the institutions? At that point, sticking bloody-mindedly to an agreement (to admit only freshers to the unions) made in the expectation of higher sales of passes seems daft.

Re the specific point about freshers complaining about not understanding that their passes didn't admit them to the Saturday event in the QM, I've conceded (twice) that there was a problem there. I don't think the QM deserves the blame for the reasons I've given (it was after freshers' week!) but more important than bandying blame about is learning from problems and fixing them. My understanding is that there is an event on on the Saturday this year in the QM, but that it has a different name; if the sole objection is that inclusion of the word "fresher" (which means "first year", not "thing pertaining to freshers' week, which people with passes can nab for free") then I think there'll be no problem this year.

Gee, this thread is longer than it needs to be. However, I'll end by saying that I've been a very outspoken critic of the QM at times too, far more so than of the SRC or GUU, simply because I'm involved in it more. I've been far from shy of saying when I think things are wrong, or questionable, or just plain stupid at 22 University Gardens. The president's filing cabinet has a whole folder of items in support of that

But I do seek to be forward looking, so who cares if a QM FW band played the GUU previously; we've got GLC, let's get freshers along and entertain them. We've got a saturday event; if there was a problem with the last one, fix it, and get this year's freshers along to this year's event. Squabbling just kinda gets in the way of that

[mysteron]

Eh...Naw...

Sorry most of that was just wrong Toastie.

Pass sales last year were around 2,900 up from 2,700 the previous year. So an increase in a year when for the first time "Orientation Week" (e.g. those seminars freshers have to attend) was combined with FW is actually phenomenal. There were huge concerns that this would turn into a 2003 again but that was avoided. So where you get the idea that pass sales were a "franction" of what they had been is beyond me.

So here is the situation, there were enough passes to sold to mean that both Unions could be at capacity every night if (hypothetically) every fresher went out. Now the QMU clearly experienced problems, but the GUU had its best week ever, so how then can you claim the problem was centralised at the SRC if both Unions got the same SRC organised PR but one did better?

Also and here is the really funny part, the Publicity materials you're lambasting were signed off on and previewed by all of the student bodies...e.g. the QMU said it was okay- if it was as bad as you claim then why didnt gordon or gary demand that it was changed? That never happened. Why does only the SRC bear responsibility for these materials, if your contention that they were flawed is correct (which I cant accept).

then we get the really great bit. The other student bodies were to blame for holding the QM to an agreement that was penalising it, except that once again the GUU was bound by the same agreement but had none of the same problems. And lets go a bit further on this, the major problem was a clause which the QM president DEMANDED was written into the agreement, a clause that the rest of the bodies were ambivalent about. Then the problem wasnt just that the QMU had to break this contract, it was the unilateral way in which it happened- with no consultation of the QMU's partners. And lets just get this right here the FW agreement is a commercial contract which governs the distribution of funding, you cant just break it, its legally binding thats why its signed by at least 2 members of each bodies council.

In short the issue was not that pass sales were as a whole lower, that is an indisputable fact. So Toastie clearly its not the SRC or Cross Comm's fault.

I'm glad to hear that the BoM has listened to the feedback from last year and altered its branding for saturday, i really hope it works better this year and that people dont feel put off by it. But that doesnt mean you can just rip on the SRC and particularly when you are not in full posession of the facts.

[Jon Ashley]

Just to make it clear, Freshers' Fest WILL be running this year, but it will have a different name.

[Semprini]

i really hope it works better this year and that people dont feel put off by it.

If I was a fresher, the possibility of running into a pompous twat like you would certainly put me off attending.

[djtoast]

2003

...

not in full posession of the facts.

I may well be talking almost entirely unmitigted bilge. Was much of what I said the case in 2003 perhaps? Certainly my comments may very well be confused almost beyond recognition but they are based on some historical precedence at some stage

I freely admit that the last dozen FWs merge a little.

Apologies where they're due to anyone I'm inadvertently tarring unduly...

My point though is kinda that the negotiations between the bodies on campus, have almost every year been reported to me as being pretty acrimonious. And this whole matter is coming across like an extension of that.

This topic started with a question about which bands the QM will be putting on, and turned into "the QM put some bands on last year and it was a DISASTER because of some minor administrative hiccup despite the fact that a thousand people willfully went to the event, (which I'd generally class a success).

[Octavion]

Your right about 2003, Toast. I was a helper that year and it was a washout like last year.

We concluded that the problem was that freshers had important Uni stuff to do at stupid times in the morning and so weren't inclined to go out drinking the night before. I think we saw the same last year.

Out of interest; mysteron, what is your association with the SRC?

On promotion of Freshers' Fest; it was made clear that it freshers' would have to pay to get in. I was a team leader last year and my team, and to the best of my knowledge all the other teams, told freshers this while out PRing. The flyers and posters also stated this. If people are too stupid to listen to what they're told or read the information put in front of them I don't think the QM can be held in any way accountable.

[mysteron]

I've been involved at a council level with the SRC, just passing on what I've been told and what I've seen in documents. I wasnt trying to say that anything was the Qm's fault, just that equally it wasnt the SRC's.

[Ethel Small]

My god I can't even remember what you guys are argueing about anymore!
I really think you should stop though as freshers will be reading this and getting the crummiest idea of student politics, freshers week and student bodies in general!!!

[Jon Ashley]

Apologies for the delay but I've been on holiday.

Up to date line-up is available at:

http://www.qmu.org.uk/freshers-week/

There are still things to be announced, so the timetables are subject to change.