Imperial College Union Annual Reports 79/80 to be presented at the A G M on Tuesday 20th April, 1980 at 1:00pm in the U C H .

I C U P R E S I D E N T ' S A N N U A L

REPORT, 1979/80

"Ah, broken is the golden bowl!

the spirit flown forever!"

Poe

This report, my last, is not written as an abridged version of all my other reports as they are all on file elsewhere. This is intended as an 'overview'. Unlike its predecessors it contains many personal obser­vations and comments. I apologise for its length, but not its contents.

R e l a t i o n s with C o l l e g e and

Overlapping Services

In general, the Union's relations

with College have remained very

good. The new College Secretary,

' Mr John Smith, has proved to be

understanding and effective. Like

any organisation which doesn't

have to make a profit, and which in

the past has had its sectional losses

written off, College does have

sections which suffer from inefficient

organisation. If anything good can

come from this current round of

cuts I hope it is that the College

organisation can tighten up and

'make a profit' in terms of money it

saves without affecting the 'quality

of the product'.

Two obvious examples of this

are the refectory and residence

accounts. 1 cannot understand why

the refectory service is so bad

(prices vs quality). However, I

cannot offer a solution. Last year

the 'solution' of refectory boycotts

was offered. I supported them and

the refectories were indeed boy­

cotted. They proved the strength

of public opinion but the problems

were not solved. The new Chairman

of the Refectory Committee, Dr

Schroter, has approached his task

tactfully and is genuinely trying to

improve matters, but I believe, like

me, he hasn't found the answers. It '

is interesting to note that the

solution in a few colleges has been

to call in external caters (eg, Trust

House Forte), the time is coming

when this must be considered a

viable alternative.

The residence account presents

no fewer problems. It is true, I

think, that College rents have been

maintained at a low level, however,

using the 'how much would you

pay in the private sector?' argument

is not strictly relevant (two wrongs

do not make a right). It is also

not right that the majority of

students who are not in College

residence should suffer as a -result

of money being used to excessively subsidise the Halls. The rent levels for next year are yet ot be set, but these two factors must be balanced against each other. The third factor of services in Hall and House, eg, level of cleaning, standard of furniture, can, and have in the past, been used as a further regulator of rent levels. In the future I believe students would settle for a lower service in return for lower rents.

An accommodation seminar was organised last Easter, also a survey of about eight percent of IC students was obtained. The former succeeded in the sense that it had every section of College working together on an informal level. It did not produce concrete proposals but it was not asked to do so. The latter helped most of all to prove things we often thought were true, for example, that triple rooms are

'very unpopular, was shown as a percentage.

The Residence Committee has accepted the Union proposals calling for the curtailment of Wardens places. Also , (in an attempt to increase the number of studes who have one year in College residence), the Committee accepted proposals to reduce re-apps to approximately seven percent, (but chosen as a set figure rather than a percentage), and to reduce Union places from twenty to fourteen.

Any talk of accommodation must include the Union Welfare Centre and Michael Arthur , who has continued his magnificent work in this field. His role has altered somewhat this year in that he is now employed by the College. To compensate for the times when he is out of the Centre a part-time Welfare Assistant, Sue Telling, has been added to the staff, and has settled down excellently since joining the Centre in January.

The problem of dwindling private sector accommodation is continuing to get worse and if any real headway, in terms of the IC students lot, is to be made, a lot of money will have to be invested, both in advertising and in follow-ups. In College we currently have three agencies dealing with accom­modation: the College Residence Office, U L U Residence Office and the Union Welfare Centre. At a time of dwindling resources it is important that these three do not waste money in duplication and recrimination, the savings made

could then be used to invest in obtaining further accommodation.

It is pleasing to note that, at last, the College has recognised that accomodation is a problem and has begun to look for ways of sur­mounting it, but there is a long, long way to go yet.

The rest of the Welfare servie has remained much as in previous years, once again Michael bearing the majority of any credit due. It must also be noted that under Dr Haines, the Health Centre has taken on a more relaxed environ­ment.

External Affairs This year the External Affairs Committee itself has worked more as a forum than an action committee, (due to a basic political schizm within it). There has, however, been quite a lot of activity organised in various fields, for which I claim no real credit. The session started and ends with the immediate threat of the government's cuts in public s p e n d i n g , in p a r t i c u l a r , the introduction of 'Full Cost Fees' (their words) for overseas students, which will seriously affect the d i s t r i b u t i o n and number of overseas students and therefore the character of places like IC.

At the first U G M a joint Cuts Action Committee was formed which supported a picket of the DES. At the next UGM I proposed a motion calling for an occupation. This motion was passed and ICU went into what can only be described as a 'token' occupation. This action was not intended to disrupt College adminstration but to concentrate peoples minds on the subject, draw attention to the situation and physically show that there were a significant number of IC students prepared to rise above the IC apathy and 'physically put themselves' into a protest. The occupation of the SDR finished with a funeral march and leafletting around the Albert Hall on Com­memoration Day, and I believe it achieved its aims.

Subsequent, though less intense action was organised. Victoria Station was leafletted and a petition containing over 2,000 signatures was delivered to Edward Heath by myself. -

It would have been very naive at the time to believe that any action IC organised would reverse the political tide. That tide would not have ebbed even if the NUS had managed to organise anything like a campaign. I also believe that

future campaigns, whether they be

'broad based' or specific, will

probably meet with the same

degree of success as this year.

However, it is right that we should

speak against this and, to paraphrase

myself, 'if one has to piss, one does

so, even if it happens to be into a

wind'.

In U L U , IC has been well

represented on the Executive by

John Passmore and Chris Webb, (i

failed to get elected Senator for

Science and Engineering). Bernard

Smith managed to get policy on

student grants, which was rejected

at an ICUGM, adopted as U L U

SRC policy, and later incorporated

into an NUS policy document. But

of course it was ignored and grants

are to rise by 14.9% next year,

which is a cut in real terms when

considered with the rise in VAT in

the budget before last, and the

rampant inflation rate.

Kings voted to disaffiliate from

the NUS and we eventually ended

up not discussing the matter. IC

and Kings together form a large

block of ULU SRC which should

be used to ensure a realistic

attitude. Lecturer training, Library

facilities and Academic Reorgan­

isation should concern it greatly in

the year to come.

Jewish Society organised a

petition against Soviet discrimation

against Jewish students in Russia,

which I delivered with them to the

Russian Embassy. Though Embassy

officials refused to accept it the

petitions were left at the Embassy.

I attended a Presidents Informal

at Bradford University, which was

enlightening (it showed me ,how

real political hacks act), and a

number of meetings for Presidents

at ULU.

It is certainly true that there are

links between this College and

South Africa, particularly those in

the mining profession, and there

has been indirect contact with

South African sporting teams.

However, when I turn on my radio

and hear advertisements for South

African products I find it very

difficult to support a sporting

boycott. I believe sport should

never be used as the sole weapon

against a regime.

I still maintain that truly External

Affairs, as opposed to those

directly applicable, should be of

peripheral concern to the Union as

an institution, though of course I

support the idea that people should

show concern through societies

and as individuals.

Reorganisation and Reshuffles

I have always tried to avoid being a constitutional nit-picker, but I did carry out a study of the internal organisation of the Union. As a result of this the Internal Services Committee was formed, this is designed to monitor and develop the services that the Union and College offer. It is important that this Committee is used to develoD Union services. It is particularly important when the student standard of living is dropping that discounts and value for money are made available in every field possible.

The effective use of resources also

encouraged me to propose to RCC

and A C C that the Union minibuses,

vans and landrovers be centralised

under the direction of the Deputy

t President. This Committee has

already begun its difficult task of

setting the transport account on its

feet, a combination of bad manage­

ment, bad luck, and particularly, a

lack of future policy have left the

Union a vehicle down over the year.

It is important that a forward plan is

devised, stuck to and enacted and, if

after, say, two years, the system is

still losing money, the vans should be

sold and the principle of Union

transport scrapped.

A C C has decided to cuts its

losses on Impetus, the Union

yacht, choosing instead to rely on

chartering. This is a sad but

sensible decision and a lesson for

the future.

At around October I began to

investigate the possibility of per

capita financing for the Union as a

way of increasing its income and its

sphere of influence on College

services, it soon became clear,

however, that the government was

determined to stop this mode of

financing. What has been provision­

ally agreed is a complicated compro­

mise which should see the Union

better off than it would have been

next year if things had remained

the same.

It, therefore, looks certain that

the Union will be levying a per

capita Union sub (like nearly every

other student union) next year, but

will return to U G C funding the

year after (1981/2) when the

government's new proposals are

imposed on all student unions. I

cannot foresee student unions

being exempted from the govern­

ment cuts over the next few years

but the above deal should help

stave off the inevitable. I prepared

the annual estimates and I believe

the Union claim for a £39 capitation

fee to be most reasonable and expect

it to be met.

I started off the year by being

invited onto a working party

instigated by the Rector after a

request from the Boathouse Com­

mittee Chairman, and this devised

a whole new set of constitutions.

Just as I finish the year all Athletic

Committees and Sub-committees

are under review so most of the

changes will probably be reversed!

This year has also seen a con­

certed attempt to disband ICWA,

the second reading not being heard

due to a quorum challenge.Cur­

rently ICWA does utilise quite a lot

of Union resources (money and a room) which it will have to be in a position to fully justify if and when the financial situation gets tighter. However, ICWA is not alone in this and some other institutions within IC must beware of falling foul of the same arguments which were so nearly successfully used to close ICWA!

UGMs This year saw the first complete

year of having a U G M Chairman.

Mick Berry did a fine job and I

think that they were generally very

smoothly run. In terms of content,

the sublime seems to have combined

with the ridiculous in a few of the

UGMs this year.

The second one, containing

motions censuring the Exec over

South Africans in Stan's Bar;

banning the Rag Mag; and calling

for an occupation, provided one of

the best attended (over six hundred)

and contentious UGMs since some

of the NUS affiliation ones a few

years ago. Others, namely the

PWP election U G M descended to

a level of pure farce.

One observation is the way in

which some students blame me for

motions that are submitted, expect­

ing me to vet therh in some way. It

is obviously vital in the interests of

democracy that every member has

the right to submit a motion. If you

don't like the motions come along

and vote them down!

Council

I have chaired Council all this year.

It is not a committee I enjoy (are

there any?), but this year's has

been reasonably amicable and has

done business without getting

bogged down in wrangles over

procedure. The true value of

Council is the real mixture of

people it produces and the hotch­

potch of ideas that are thrown

together.

The high point of the year for me

was when the subject of Union

places in Hall was debated.

Facilities wot I have Dealin's

wiv

It is certainly true that indoor

sports facilities are inadequate at

iC but it does look as though a

disused lab in Chemistry (which it

took me three and a half years to

discover), will solve most of the

short-term problems by providing

an adequate, through not ideal,

sports hall that will house volleyball,

basketball, five-a-side soccer, etc,

by the beginning of next session.

For the long term, a purpose built

gymnasium looks like 'holy grail' in

the current financial situation. One

chance, however, is the utilisation

of gravel under the Harlington

sports ground. Any mining of this

must be carried out so that sport is

not disrupted and economists are

currently cogitating over the

viability of the scheme. It is

important to underline that the

money will come from the sports

ground, sports people will be^

inconvenienced by the mining of it

and therefore they should receive

at least some of the benefit from it.

The squash courts suffered a serious flood and though two survived, play has been seriously curtailed by the reduction. The repairs have taken their customary time, inertia once again proving too much. On a bright note; the provision of a 'Multigym' has revolutioninsed weight training at IC.

The Boathouse still doesn't provide adequate facilities for the women rowers, current plans involve a joint venture with the adjacent Thames Rowing Club. This is reasonably cheap and therefore stands a chance of going through!

I have spent almost a whole year trying to find Islamic Society somewhere permanent to hold daily prayers. A room has finally been allocated, though the access has still to be sorted out.

The general standard of the Union Building is now quite high, for which Malcolm must be con­gratulated!

FELIX and the Union Print Unit FELIX's year started badly, and, in my opinion, has not improved much since. The possibility of a legal loophole in the Union Bye-Laws was, to me, secondary to the 'moral' situation. Common sense would have predicted that the ensuing battle in the High Court was doomed to fail, this proved to be the case and Colin Palmer's* appointment as Acting F E L I X Editor was upheld against the application for a High Court injunction by John Shuttleworth (who, though elected, had failed his Maths second year). The legal situation of the Blue Book has still not been totally clarified, as the Judge made his ruling on the basis of how Union Membership is defined rather than by weighing Bye-laws versus Governing Body Minutes. Perhaps in the future, someone who is bitterly dis­appointed may be goaded by persons (who have personal axes to grind) into settling that little legal query!

John's failure therefore led to an election which Colin Palmer won (unopposed). It is my belief, however, that maximum use of the Union Print Unit has not been attained this year and that the standard of FELIX, both journal­istically and artistically, does not measure well against the yardstick of previous years.

Next year both the finance and total administration of the Print Union comes under the Union. The FELIX Editor in conjunction with the Business Manager, Pub Board Chairman and the permanent staff, must organise the Unit in such a way that clubs and societies can rely on it and therefore use it.

W U S a n d the T h i r d W o r l d

Scholarship

IC/ICU/WUS ran a Third World

Scholarship fund this year. The

funds raised on the student side,

£1,200 have far outweighed those

raised from staff. This is both

surprising and disappointing. I hope

that the situation can be changed

before the end of term. We have

also tried to draw attention to the

other work that WUS participates

in, through FELIX and displays.

John Whitehouse, Fiona Sinclair

and Tim Hillyer deserve special

credit in this section.

Rag Another form of collection is Rag, something which I believe to be extremely valuable as a PR exercise, for getting people involved and, of

* course, helping people.

For the second successive year the Rag toted has taken a massive jump. This year the total will be around £16,000, a sum Rae Snee, Ruth Langford, Kirsten Pratt and the C C U VPs can be truly proud of. This year both Rag Week and the Rag Mag have made profits, which has not previously been the case. The latter, however, managed to achieve a level of notoriety which I feel was undeserved, (I am sure that the motion attempting to ban it helped sell it). The Fete, which suffered from an outbreak of urban terrorism successfully nego­tiated a change of venue.

Next January will see the national rag conference at IC.

Odds and Socks

The Union was lucky enough to stage

two performances of BBC Radio 4's

News Quiz which proved to be most

successful in terms of audience

response, and I hope that future

occasions will occur.

Roger organised a most successful

Environmental Week, and in con­

junction with Industrial Society, a

debate of Finniston. ConSoc lured

Ted Heath to speak, which com­

pleted a trio of well attended and

truly educational events.

The Finniston Report is of

fundamental importance to IC and

hence I C U . What, if anything,

emerges remains to be seen. I have

a feeling that petty objections to

the mechanics of implementing

proposals may succeed in obscuring

the more fundamental concepts of

the report.

Silwood Park Committee has

been successful in voicing its

sometimes justified grievances

about ICU. Next year I hope plans

to run buses for the Freshers Fair

will establish a more unified situation

from the outset.

The University of London is

currently undergoing intense self-

analysis, the prospect of funda­

mental internal academic reorgan­

isation seems high. ICU has been

\ asked to present its view on the

subject (this is currently in hand),

but throughout next year we must

retain an awareness of our surround­

ings.

More Odds and Socks

Ents this year have continued their

slow crawl back up to a reasonable

level. The committee have worked

hard, had their successes and,

indeed, made their mistakes. Next

year many of the committee will be

carrying on and will, I hope,

continue, what is proving to be,

their difficult struggle towards a

viable Ents. The major subcommittees have

mostly enjoyed a good collection ot officers and have maintained a high standard of administrative control. In answer to certain cri'icisms (cheers, Frank), I say that I have focused my abilities in the directions which I felt I could contribute most.

I have tried to maintain a keen interest in the CCUs, and kept my biases down to the mudthrowing sessions. I believe they have had a reasonable year. Jo, Bernie and Sean -have all dispensed with the rank of Vice President of ICU with the grace befitting it, thanks. Consequently, ICU Executive has worked ex-rremely well, both as an interface 1

and an actipn committee.

Interviews and Personnel

Changes Over the last year I have taken part in the following non-Union interviews: Holbein House Warden;1'

Southwell House Warden; Hamlet Gardens Warden; Tizard Hall Sub-warden; Falmouth Hall Warden and Health Care Receptionist.

On the Union staff side, the past year saw Miss Pam Johnston leave, and because of changed require­ments she was not replaced. Gil! Mc Conway left and, because the position will be Union controlled next year, we ran the interviews. Maz Fellows was appointed at a time of maximum disruption in the FELIX Office and has settled into what must be a very difficult job.

The post of part-time assistant in the Welfare Centre was created to cover for Michael's commitments in College block, Sue Telling has taken the job in her stride.

Dr Ken Weale is retiring from the job of Senior Tutor this year but will, I hope, continue as Senior Treasurer of JCU for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the measure of how large his job as Senior Tutor became

is that it has now been split in two. Dr Robin Smith of Phsyics taking over the College Tutor part and Dr Don Monro as Senior Warden.

Whilst the vacant positions in the Union staff have been filled with very capable persons, Jen, Annie, Pat, Michael and Ian have continued to maintain a level of commitment and achievement which is quite stunning. Thanks very much for your tolerance and perserverance.

The End All that remains for me to do is to thank some of the many who have made my stay in this office happy, bearable, successful and less frustrating. And to make some of those inevitable personal comments.

Thanks must go to Roger and Malcolm, there have been many disagreements, but I still respect their dedication, congratulate them on their many successes and have enjoyed working with them.

Once again the permanent staff have performed far and beyond the call of duty, thereby enabling the Union to function at all.

Thanks Jen, Annie, Michael, Pat and latterly Sue.

The sun, as they say, is setting, the desk is clearing and John is pounding on the door. After four years at IC, my brief sojourn into academia is all but over, the outside world awaits my 'services'. A final thank you to all those who have helped make my stay here happy, drunken and insane and a final thumb to the nose to all those who didn't.

Good luck John, Liz and Rae!

"We're going through! The Commanders mice was like thin

ice breaking" Thurber

Keep idiosyncratic

Cheers

H O N S E C S A N N U A L R E P O R T , 1979/80

The Hon See's job, as a member of ICU Executive, is without doubt the most structured. One aspect of my role is as an administrator and coordinator. However, it has been possible to extend beyond these confines at most times. The Union must not afterall be for those who enjoy committees, but for those who have practical benefits to students as their main aim.

Administrator With three office sabbaticals the amount covered in committees and working parties has been greater than in past years. I have always tried to support these achievements by efficient servicing. I have been secretary of the following: Union General Meetings, Councils, Union Finance Committee, House Commit­tee, Haldane Library Committee, Internal Services Committee, and Transport Committee.

Without a doubt, the most important of the above is the General Meeting. Yet, it has always been assumed that when a meeting is inquorate it is due to bad publicity — which is my responsi­bility. I would argue that this is not the case. Each U G M was advertised in FELIX and by posters. I should like to thank Lars Wernber-Meiller, who as Publicity Officer for most of the year, helped me out considerably. Secondly, each U G M was preceded by an Executive News. Once, it was out only a day before the meeting, but only due to printing problems which were totally beyond control. Where it is possible to print it by off-set litho, i believe it should, but three times I have had to print it myself, on my gestetner to ensure it came out. No, the reason why UGMs are badly attended (350 out of 4,500 is badly attended) is due to a lack of interest in the business. I believe it is significant that the best attended meetings discussed issues such as the Rag Mag, ICWA, an occupation and John Shuttleworth. These are internal issues, so .the

meeting could make decisions of" substance not just of rhetoric. To sum up; perhaps it is a shame that more individuals do not submit motions, for it is only then that those with political axes to grind will not be heard. Despite the views above I believe that UGMs this year to have been an important part of the Union's year. Certainly, much has been reported to them by the Executive and we have not used our position at the front for personal gain.

Council has met seven times already this year, with Joint Council still to come. Much has been discussed and decided. Perhaps it is worth noting that Council controls the management of the Union, and as its members are elected in many ways, from different groups at College, it is probably truly representational. Personally, I have found Council to be supportive rather than critical and acceptors rather than initiators. Individual Council Reps seem to have contributed less this year than usual.

Much, though, goes on outside Council. I have enjoyed contributing to House Committee, and have found a lot of satisfaction working on the Finance Committee. The initiation was the Internal Services Committee, which possess the ability to bring together all those working to improve the services (ie, refectories, libraries, bookshop, shop, etc), in College. So far we have met but once. Whilst it was an explorative meeting is neverthe­less promised much. I will concen­trate on such matters later in my report.

The Union Office has seen change this year which goes beyond the furniture moving. For instance, up to last year, Pam Johnstone had been the Union's Ground Floor Receptionist and sat in the small office to the right of the Union Building entrance. With her leaving it was necessary to sell the Rag sweat shirts and jumpers in the Office and to accommodate

more typing. Annie, the receptionist, has also begun to get more involved with the Transport Reet. Secondly, there has been a renewed effort to make information more accessible. This includes past minutes, dates of meetings, publications and theatre guides. Whilst, the day to day running of the office is my respons­ibility, the matter always works well without any interference.

This year I have redesigned the headed notepaper, the presentation of Union and Council policy and Executive News. I have initiated the annual reports booklet, and the inclusion of the Council photograph in F E L I X . I have produced a directory, and a job descriptions book. The Blue Book is currently being revamped so that my pre­decessor can have it printed over the summer vacation. I have also updated the Union pages in the Bookshop Diary, the internal telephone directory and the pro­spectus.

We have once again increased the number of reciprocal arrange­ments held with other student unions. There has been breakage, of arrangements, unlike last year when Chelsea College, broke off links due to our disaffiliation from NUS. It is worth noting in this respect that due to this the Execu­tive have decided not to let Chelsea clubs book our rooms.

More important than our relations with other unions is our relationship with College, both the administrative part and the academic part. To my mind, the latter is often neglected.

Any sabbatical must get on well with those he is dealing with. Any President must get to know the Residence Officer, any Deputy President, the Estates Secretary. The Hon Sec deals with many. A most successful sherry party and other such events were held this year to create a good relationship.

At the Annual General Meeting, Social colours will be awarded to those who have contributed to the social life of the Union. I have chaired the two committees which

carefully considered all nominations.

The spring term was well oc-cuppied by the drawing up of new election rules and the imple­mentation of them during the sabbatical and other elections. Most importantly the elections were publically conducted this year in a fair manner by the candidates which led to no complaints after the voting. A rare event in my three years at College.

The Section Committee, con­sisting of myself, John Anderson, Andy Cheyne, Tansy Hepton and Gary Nichols, did have some major decisions to take, and I thank them for their wise judgements (there was not one vote taken at a meeting). Free speech is an absolute requirement, but the Elections are fought here by the candidates' representatives putting views forward, not by ill-informed groups saturating College with leaflets which satisfy onlv their demand to interfere and obstruct the real issues. Long may ICU Elections remain free from politics and careerists. Mounting the elections was an exhaustive business, but well rewarded by the high turn-out.

I believe a major contribution of mine has been to the Union insur­ance polices, which has occuppied much more of my time than I expected.

At last the Union has been able to organise a centralised Union property insurance policy. This is no mean feat when one considers we have equipment by the lorry load, which ranges from Hang Gliders, to radio transmitters, to canoes to 'Go' sets. The policy is with Commercial Union who are offering us a 15% discount and a 1% premium. There are natural benefits. Firstly, there will be a cost saving. Secondly, much more of our property is now insured or fully insured. Lastly, updating the policy should be easier.

Secondly, I have had many dealings with Endsleigh and the College finance people over our Halls of Residence policy and

Personal Accident policy. In both cases the company seem to be paying little regard to what is in the written policy. The Halls of Resi­dence policy has caused much consternation to Wardens, Sub-wardens and students. As far as it is possible to ascertain, goods should be left in a secure room over vacations and not in ones room which might always be booked out to a visitor. Yet it must be said the policy makes little reference to a locker room. The Accident Policy is fine on paper, but twice Endsleigh have said medical expenses are exempt (over a Solomon Islands claim and a sub aqua claim) when it clearly appears in the policy and seconldy "anywhere in the world" appears to exclude the UK! These problems are likely

S to need future consideration.

For the first time the Union took an active interest in the academic appeals procedure. This allows someone who has failed exams for non-academic reasons (eg, personal or family problems) to seek mercy from the hatchet of College dis­missal. To help, we mailed out, to all those who had been asked to withdraw, a handout detailing the existence of the procedure, and how the Union might help. For some this was indeed helpful.

Commemoration Day was on 25th October. The Union once again staged the Commemoration Day Ball, in the Sherfield Building, which passed off very successfully. Nearly four hundred people at­tended, including Lord and Lady Flowers and John Smith and wife and they were entertained by the University of London Big Band and disco.

Another aspect of my job has been as a member of the Executive.

Executive Duties

It has been a pleasure to sit on the

Union Executive with Chris Fox,

Malcolm Brain, Sean O'Boyle,

Bernie Pryor and Jo Armitage. I

believe part of its strength has

been its diverse membership, for

we did not act without much

argument and debate. Weekly

meetings were held. The most

important decisions concerned Hall

rents, Ents gigs, the occupation

and the John Shuttleworth affair,

staff matters and discipline. . . My

involvement varied naturally enough

from subject to subject.

The Executive members were

forced together early on with the

now infamous JS Affair. Whilst my

moral attitude was clear, so was

my understanding of the law,

reinforced by my visit to the Union

solicitor. I believed that to take

office you must be a student and

hence shown a willingness to play

the academic game. JS was no

different to anyone else who failed

and was asked to withdraw — so it

was right the judge told him he

couldn't return.

The whole saga was due to

confusion over the legal status of

the bye-laws and hence the Union,

In the end the court recognised the

bye-law's membership requirement,

and I reinforced the point by

putting "Academic Standing" into the bye-laws.

I was heavily involved in the interviewing of a new F E L I X typesetter. Maz Fellows was chosen and has been of great service to the Union during the year. I also interviewed for the Health Centre's Principal Nursing Officer and a Falmouth Sub-Warden.

As Hon Sec, I sat ex-offico on all Union committees. Naturally enough it is impossible to attend all, but I made the decision to attend those when important decisions were being taken or when I knew I could contribute.

At other times I was duty officer at three Hall dinners, the student orator in the Albert Hall on 25th October, and organising JCR stalls by outside companies. It was also part of the job to get dressed up as a mum for the Smoking Concert, explain why the 'punch has gone out of Christmas' and suffer during Rag Week.

Extra Activity

The role of the Union within

College is very often ill-considered.

The clubs and societies undoubtedly

make immense contributions to our

College life. As Hon Sec I was

anxious to organise a venture with

the same aim.

ICU's Environmental Week, in

the autumn terms, was a success

for three reasons. Firstly, a very

high proportion of College got

direct benefit from it (ie, 450

attended the 'Energy Future For

Britain' discussion; 210 the 'Nuclear

Power' debate; and some 450

walked amongst the stalls and

displays at the Fair). Secondly, it

united the College, for instance, we

collaborated with Prof Sutton, the

Centre for Environmental Tech­

nology, College block, academic

and many clubs and societies.

Lastly, it gave a forum for the fight

for the environment, in a non-

biased and rational manner

Another successful collaboration

was the 'Finniston and the Future'

Day on 3rd March. Firstly, the

need for a debate on the Finniston

report, relating to future engineering

education was put to us by the

Rector. Secondly, our newly formed

Industrial Society secured Monty

Finniston presence for three hours.

The result was an address by the

chairman of the committee of

inquiry, to eight hundred staff and

students and an open discussion

between Lord Flowers, Mr Heard

(STCL, Prof Brown and Sir James

Menter later in the evening. Thanks

must go to Steve Milner, Mark

Brown and Rick Waldenburg.

So often academic staff see the

Union as superficial. I tried to show

that we were not, by encouraging

them to attend these events.

Hopefully, they saw them in the

same light as the Jubilee lecture.

Lastly, the Union is staging, in

April 1981, the fifth International

Conference of Students of Tech­

nology. This already appears on

paper to be a mammoth exercise.

In this year the dates were arranged

with reference to accommodation,

rooms and catering requirements.

Secondly, four topics to be discussed in working groups have been chosen and studied. They are: Transport; the Information Explosion; the Role of Research; and Preparation for a Scientific or Technical Degree. It was encouraging to see sets of three prepared to lead these groups and coordinate the arrange­ments. The other administrative things are being dealt with by a group of ten led by myself at the moment.

College Work

Chris and Malcolm have dealt at length with many points that I could raise here, so I shall restrict this section to only additional material and my own views.

I sat on the following College committees: Refectory Committee; Refectory Suggestions and Com­plaints; Parking and Traffic; TAS; Bookshop; Lyon Playfair; Haldane Library; Associated Studies; Ad­missions Policy; and College Disciplinary Committee.

Sitting on College committees

was nothing new to me, for I had

sat on almost as many last year. If

UGMs are the public face of ICU,

most campaigning really goes on in

these private meetings. Refectories

are undoubtedly the most important

service provided by College — after

accommodation. I was keen to see

new developments to ensure its

preservation. The year began with

news that the Rector would not

tolerate the subsidising of non-

academic services. This put a real

question mark over many refectory

outlets. The Suggestions and

Complaints Committee, chaired

enthusiastically by Simon Perry,

has begun to revitalise the shop

and my target of doubling turnover

has been reached. Now the shop is

making a profit when last year it

wasn't. The Suggestions Committee,

with the help of complaints from the

new boxes was able to work with Mr

Mooney and his staff in other areas.

The Buttery in the JCR is now open

until 11:45pm, vegetarian meals are

being served in Sherfield, no-

smoking signs have gone up, a new

system of washing cutlery is carried

out, the breakfast service in

Southside is being advertised,

dinner-in-halls have been studied

and great annoyance has been

generated by the dinners card

serving of foreign coach parties. I

have felt the committee worked at

it was one of collaboration and

cooperation Mr Mooney and his

staff have taken up most of our

points, overwork often causing

unnecessary delays in the imple­

mentation. As a committee we

looked to service, quality and

marketing to increase turnover.

The Refectory Committee, under

the Chairmanship of Dr Schroter,

has been a nail in the head. To me,

the Committee just existed to

rubber-stamp price increases.

Whenever a discussion commenced

we were told that "this was not the

place for discussion". There is no

doubt that Dr Schroter wants the

Union on his side for good reasons:

finance. He is against public debate

on service, quality and marketing. He

warned me on one occasion not to put my views in FELIX for it would cause unrest amongst the students. It seems to me that the approach of the Suggestion Commitee is right. Cooperation should be between customers and refectory managers, not newly imported diplomats and Union officers. It has been a shameful year of inaction over major policy decisions and if in years to come refectories close, this year will appear as the year of wasted opportunity. Apparently the 'financial situation' is good, but 'what of numbers of staff and students using the refectories, what of modern stock-control (the so-called computerised till js still not utilised nearly a year after being installed!), what of a new Stan's Bar, what of rationalisation, what of marketing, etc, etc. The fault lies not With Mr Mooney for whom I have respect and often sympathy.

The Union could award 180 parking permits for the 500 ap­plicants we received in October. It was a long and soul-destroying task deciding who were the most needy cases. I chaired the executive meetings which awarded them in late October. Next year there will be 184 spaces.

On a College basis, 40 spaces will be gained behind Linstead (there were 50 spaces prior to the builders moving in and before the planting of trees), whilst five have been lost in Southside due to a new turning entrance and seven in Imperial College Road due to the planting of trees adding beauty to the view from the Sherfield Block.

Bicycle parking is at best, sparse around campus. In F E L I X we showed where the limited cycle racks were. College have also accepted the parking of bikes in Beit Quad, even though its been going on for years now. No bikes are insured under the Union insurance polices, so I have outlined a few of the policies available in FELIX. Speed humps have been built in Ayrton Road with succesful results. For instance, as far as 'through traffic' is concerned, the average maximum speed attained has fallen from 17.27mphto 13.49mph.

jl have joined Malcolm Brain representing our interests on the Haldane and Bookshop committees and I believe that student involve­ments on these has been very commendable and much credit must go to Malcolm.

Both may undergo much change. A business machine is likely to be purchased for the Bookshop along with staff reorganisation. The Haldane Library is facing financial problems, but I would argue that the best way of preserving this excellent asset is to keep the humanities books in the same place as those for general reading.

Associated Studies have con­

tinued to offer the best possible

courses, although the lunch hour

Glancing at a recent ULU survey

of library facilities in London we

are indeed fortunate to have here

the tiered structure of libraries.

Once again at this committee there

has been little to contribute.

5

programme was to me uninspiring.

O n 27th and 28th M a r c h , I attended the 'Meeting With Schools' along with Miss A Vitoria from Botany 3, as a student represen­tative. We were able to answer any points from a student viewpoint and we also took the opportunity to distribute the Alternative Pro­spectuses. I do not question the benefit of having such an event, for I would state that there is a two-way benefit, but I am naturally pleased to see departments, in­cluding my own, holding their own open days with school students participating. Satisfying the con­flicting demands of a student, a school, an institution and a society is not easy as we shall find out during INCOST.

F E L I X — T h e End A n d The Beginning

Finally, I should add that I edited FELIX for three weeks, at the time of the sabbatical campaigns, whilst Colin Palmer was in hospital, and it is one hell of a task. It's a fiting way to end my annual report as I first got involved in the Union through photographic and film reviewing work for FELIX in my first term at IC. I enjoyed my time then, last year as A A O and now as Hon Sec I have continued to love every moment.

I should like to thank all those who have given me encouragement, support, advise and help.

"Well, if you knows of a better 'ole,

go to it"

Bruce Brainsfather

1887-1959

Roger Stotesburv

D E P U T Y PRESIDENTS

A N N U A L REPORT, 1979/80

The Sabbatical This year I have regarded establish­ing and developing the post as a sabbatical and defining precisely what responsibilities it should involve as one of my main aims. The main reasons for creating the fourth sabbatical were to take some of the workload (particularly finance) off the President to enable him to concentrate more on external affairs (an area which is particularly important at IC due to our non-affiliation to NUS), and to ensure that various responsibilities which had previously been attended to (often, inadequately, or not at all) by non-sabbatical officers were properly looked after. I feel that this has been done successfully.

In addition to what is specified in the job description, I have under­taken two other major areas of responsibility; chairman of the College Bar Committee and a directorship with London Student Travel Ltd. I would not recommend future DPs to take on both of these added duties.

The Bookshop

The function of the Bookshop is twofold; to provide a good service to members of College, and as a source of income to the Union (£6,000 this year).

The sales for the year ended 31st July 1979 were £226,000 (an 11% increase on the previous year), and I would expect to see a similar increase in this year's sales. Last term, Council decided that the Bookshop should continue to be run as a profit making venture for the Union (rather than purely as a service and the lost income being added to our capitation fee sub­mission to College); I regard this as one of the most stupidly short­sighted financial decisions ever taken by Council and means that on the whole no price cuts will be possible.

The year started with some problems with the junior counter staff; these have since been resolved and I now feel that we have an excellent staff throughout, and would like to thank them for their hard work. In particular I would like to thank the Manager, Mr J o h n Samworth , who will be retiring this summer, and to wish him a happy retirement on behalf of the Union.

During the year I have mainly received complaints about two aspects of the Bookshop's service; availability of books and the price of stationery. The problem with the books appears to be largely with inadequate information having been received from certain academic departments with regard to the book requirements students taking their courses were likely to have; the solution to this problem (and also the lesser one of which books we stock too many of) must be through feedback from the Union's Departmental Representatives and I wish to thank those who have helped me with their comments in

this area this year.

The price of much stationery will be able to be reduced next year when our current stocks run out and we begin dealing with a supplier recommended by the Students Union Purchasing Consortium (which we are now a member of), but even our current prices are well below those of local shops for paper of comparable quality. Greetings cards which are more orientated towards student tastes than those currently on sale will also be available (through another SUPC supplier) soon. I would like to stress that neither the problem with the availability of books or the price of stationery need have arisen if the Union representatives on the Bookshop Committee in previous years had done some work in these areas and given the Manager adequate feedback on current student opinion on these matters.

In addition to books and station­ery we have continued to sell a wide range of College regalia at what I regard to be very reasonable prices. Other sundry items (eg, batteries, blank tape cassettes) are also sold, but it is impossible to expand our range of goods much further due to the severe physical limitations imposed by the size of the shop.

At the moment we are continuing to investigate the possibility of installing some kind of mini­computer or business machine to help deal with the very time-consuming paperwork which is needed to deal with all the Book­shop's ordering, invoicing, and stocktaking. Bar Committee

The College Bar Committee is a sub-committee of the Refectory Committee which makes recom­mendations to the Refectory Chairman who advises the Rector (who actually makes the decisions) and reports to College House Committee which reports to Govern­ing Body, ie, our job is to have good ideas which get put into practice a year later if we're lucky.

Well, perhaps it's not really quite as silly as this sounds, we do act as the main source of feedback of consumer opinion to the people responsible for managing the bars.

There have been two price increases this year, one of around four pence per pint due to increase from brewers and the anticipated extra wage costs, and two pence per pint imposed by the Budget. Despite these increases (which keep us rather more expensive than most student bars) we are still considerably cheaper than most local pubs. The profits from the bars this year is expected to be around £30,000 (compared to £22,000 last year) which effectively is used to subsidise losses made on the catering side of the College refectory account and to finance major items of capital expenditure. Takings so far this year show a fairly substantial increase on last year (after price increases have been taken into account) showing that the college bars are being used more.

The Union Bar hoist (which has

been under discussion for a number

of years) is now nearly finished at a

cost of around £17,000 — a lot of

money, but this work was essential

to provide the bar with extra

storage space (in the old travel

office) and to prevent further

damage to the Union Building and

danger to life and limb of the

barmen and dragment from beer

kegs being rolled down the steps at

the back of the bar.

The major decision taken this

year concerns the redevelopment

of Stan's Bar and the eventual

closure of the Real Ale Bar. At the

moment both bars are often open

when I feel that there is insufficient

custom to justify the staff costs

involved, and the Real Ale Bar is

closed on. quiet nights resulting in

many customers being unable to

buy their favourite beer; Stan's Bar

itself is basically just a corridor with

oppressive lighting and badly

chosen furniture thrown into

alcoves — whoever designed the

place deserves to be hung from the

top of the Queen's Tower by their

testicles. Our solution to this

problem is to close the Real Ale

Bar (which could be booked for

private parties, etc, in the future),

move the real ale pumps into the

main lounge bar, completely change

the lighting and decor (including

scenes from the College Archives) in

the lounge bar to create a more 'pub-

type' atmosphere, place screens in

front of the toilet doors, and install

high bench-type seating and stools

throughout together with suitably

high tables to provide more seating

space and a generally more convivial

environment, and to have a 'bar

games area' at the far end of the

bar. The cost of this could be as

much as £17,000, but I would

expect some savings in staff costs

and a considerable enhancement of

the atmosphere of the oft- leading

to an increase in trade over many

years, which I feel is at present

being lost to local pubs; even

students like to drink in pleasant

surroundings. Part of the cost will

be met by the Bar Amenities Fund

which derives income from the

pool table and video games machine

in Stan's Bar and at the moment

stands at around £2,000. I hope to

see this work completed over the

summer.

I also feel that a certain amount

of trade and a fairly large potential

source of income is being lost due

to the bars not serving good hot

food, especially in the evenings

when the refectories are not open.

I have stressed this point con­

sistently at Refectory Committee

meetings during the year; there are

some practical problems such as

lack of adequate ventilation in

Southside and hygiene regulations,

but plenty of pubs manage, and I

expect to see this service started in

the near future, probably initially in

the form of toasted sandwiches.

At the beginning of the year a

campaign was run to try and

reduce the losses of cutlery and,

more importantly, glasses, from the

bars and refectories, which (to-

gether with losses due to breakage) had cost around £10,000 the previous year. There appears to be little loss from the Union and Sherfield bars, and preventing people from taking glasses from Stan's to the various halls around Prince's Gardens is practically impossible, but we do seem to have been able to impress on people that in the end losses have to be paid for by higher bar prices and I hope that this may have had some effect — exactly how much will be difficult to tell until the end of the year. In any case, the outlets which are mainly responsible for the losses are impossible to identify due to inadequate central control of supplies.

I have felt that casual (student) labour wages this year (95p an hour) are adequate, but will be proposing that this be increased to £1.15 for next session.

At the moment lunchtime bar opening hours are restricted to 2:00, the argument being used by College in the past to support this being that longer hours would encourage students to miss lectures. However, lectures do not start until 2:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and not at all on Saturdays, and I feel that 2:30 closing these days will be both beneficial to the refectory account financially and will sa've a number of our patrons a walk to the Queens (and an extra eight pence for a pint!) and I will there­fore be proposing this change at the next Refectory Committee. Any change, however, would also have to be approved by the College House Committee, which does not sit again until next term.

Last summer holidays, for the first time, the Union Bar was closed on Sundays. I am recom­mending that this be repeated this year since it is clearly uneconom­ical to do so and only a handful of students are in any way incon­venienced. The Union Bar was also closed for some weeks during the summer due to badly needed maintenance work being done to the floor and the rest of the bar beind redecorated and thoroughly cleaned.

Finally, my thanks to all the barmen and the various people who have contributed to discus­sions on the committee, particularly the secretary, Roy Francis, for all the work he has done and the encouragement (and pints of Bass!) he has provided me with throughout the year.

Haldane Library

This year the Union has continued

to provide the fiction section of the

library and the pop, folk, and (after

some discussion) jazz sections of

the music library. We also provide

a large number of the periodicals

available.

The library did not open until

after a week into the first term due

to extension building work which

was running behind schedule; this

extension has proved most valuable,

particularly for having provided

extra space in the music library for

an excellent listening facility.

There was considerable dispute early in the year over three records which the Union had bought which the music librarian, Miss Cedric, considered to be "unsuitable" for inclusion in the library, and refused to handle. Many people have asked me why a person with such a sensi­tive attitude to this type of material was ever employed to work in a student-orientated enviornment in the first place; I regret that I have been unable to give a satisfactory answer. The records in question are currently available direct from the Haldane Librarian, Mr Richard Williams.

The libraries' statistics show that usage of the library (except for the recordings) has dropped over recent years; I find this most surprising since I consider it to be an excellent service and certainly rather superior to similar libraries in other colleges.

Thanks are due to Mr Williams who has not had the easiest of years to start his job as librarian and to Rick Kirman and Sarah Talbot, the Union book and record buyers respectively.

Finance

The most important decision taken

this year was for the Union to

change from the subvention system

of financing to the 'per capita'

system (as done by nearly all other

unions) for the next session only

(since the Government intends to

make the subvention system com­

pulsory for all student unions by

the 1981/82 session). The effect of

this will be that a certain sum,

which is negotiated between the

Union and college, is added to all

students' tuition fees and paid to

the Union through College. In

effect this means that it will be paid

for by the local education authority

in the case of'home UGs or by the

appropriate grant-awarding in many

other cases. Self-supporting students

are mostly from overseas, and I feel

that anyone able to apy £3,000 to

take a course here next year will also

be able to afford the £40 or so

capitation fee. The main advantage

of the capitation system is that it

avoids the situation arising where

the Union has to compete with

academic departments for a limited

amount of money available, and is

thus mutually beneficial to the

Union and College. Exactly how

the Union will be financed in

subsequent years is uncertain as

yet.

At various times during the year

I have had cause to investigate in

detail how different Union major

sub-committees and other bodies

organise their finances and am glad

to report that I have been generally

impressed by their efficiency and

stringency in organising their

internal financial matters.

One of the extra items the

Union will be financially responsible

for next year will be the print unit

and other facilities in the FELIX

complex, including the staff (who

are paid by College at the moment).,

At the moment I feel that this is

being run highly inefficiently and

much potential income, both from societies and individual members of College, is being lost due to FELIX having fully justified a reputation for being very unreliable, despite the fact that very little material for FELIX itself is printed on Mondays and Tuesdays. This situation must be rectified. Also, the general standard of FELIX has declined this year, which can do no good for the amount of advertising revenue which we are likely to receive (although I suspect that we received an artificially high amount of advertising income earlier this year as a side-product of the ITV strike).

During the year, it has been made clear to Ents on a number of occasions that the Union would be willing to underwrite any major Great Hall concert which they would like to stage and could show to be reasonably economically feasible; I would be quite prepared to see us make a modest loss on a few big concerts if it would help put us back 'on the map' as a venue for well-known bands (as we were, not so many years ago). Despite this all we saw was John Miles in the first term (a highly successful concert) and vague hopes and rumours of other bands which never came to fruition.

The great bulk of the work involved in preparing the Union's estimates for next year and their submission to College was done by Chris Fox; my sincere thanks to him for undertaking this onerous task which I quite simply would not have had the time to do properly.

House Committee Main items of work and expenditure this year: Lower Lounge (carpeted); ICWA Lounge (carpeted, decorated and refurnished); Bot/Zoo Common

Room (floor sanded and re-sealed);

Refectory (floor sanded and re-

sealed, decorated); U D H (floor

sanded and re-sealed); SCR (floor

sanded and re-sealed); Concert

Hall (floor sanded and re-sealed);

JCR (floor sanded and re-sealed).

Also, many parts of the building

were washed by Rugby Club last

term.

There are still a large number of

Union keys which I have been

unable to trace due to past Union

and society officers not returning

them at the end of their term of

office; I hope that the system

introduced this year involving

people having to pay a deposjt

before they receive any Union key

will help to solve this problem in

the future. The locks to the FELIX

Office, Union outer office, Rag

Office, Jazz Club and Ents rooms

have been changed to non-mastered

locks during the year to improve

security.

At the last House Committee it

was decided that a television room

is no longer needed in the Union,

and that this room should be

converted into another committee

room.

Our rooms have been more

heavily booked than ever this year;

we simply haven't got enough

rooms. Despite the very high level

of use (and frequent abuse) of

Union rooms, I feel reasonably

satisfied with the standard main­

tained. There have been a number

of occasions when people booking

a room have been fined for damage

and/or the mess they have left

behind them — notably one outside

booking for the JCR which sustained

a £140 fine.

External Affairs During the year I have attended

"various meetings and demon­strations concerning the Govern­ment's cutbacks in spending on education and proposals to charge the 'full economic cost' of course to overseas students. O n the whole, the NUS was conspicuous in its absence early in the campaigns, and -when it eventually got round to doing anything (too late) its token efforts appeared to be national demonstration/lobby of Parliament. Many individual SUs attempted to organise campaigns themselves, but these never stood much chance without good organisation nationally. We can only hope that the protests made may have some effect on future government thinking in these areas.

Our own main protest was the occupation of the Sherfield SDR, which I feel was done successfully without damage to College property or disruption to work, and gained us some Dublicity.

Despite the NUS' appalling lack of action this year, I am glad to see that most unions have very sensibly decided that whatever its faults, we need a national union and it's the only one there is. Due to inquorate union meetings last term we were unable to discuss reaffiliation, and since we have been unable to take advantage of claiming NUS subscriptions as part of our capitation fee submission I can see little prospect of our being able to afford membership in the future. Our involvement in external affairs will therefore have to continue to be through ULU.

London Student Travel

This year the company has

continued to establish itself as a

viable economic enterprise, whilst

maintaining the view that we exist to

provide a good service for students in

London (this being ensured by

having a majority of students on the

Board of Directors). I feel that

increasing confidence in the com­

pany has been demonstrated by

the number of new colleges who

have taken shareholdings this year,

and some unions which have

increased their number of shares.

Sales this year are projected to be

about £930,000, and we have taken

on another branch office, at

Kingston Polytechnic.

We have been able to sell Rail­

cards for the first time this year,

and are currently selling both

Eurotrain and Transalpino rail

products to European destinations.

Our flights to New York are well

below those of any others available

for confirmed seats from London,

and we hope to be able to announce

budget-priced flights to various

7

4

European destinations in the near future.

This year we have been involved in surveys done by British Rail (concerning academic group travel) and London Transport (about the possibility of some form of discount for students using LT), and are still awaiting proposals resulting from these surveys. Next year the BR Railcard will be £10.

We acted as hosts to the National Association of Student Travel Offices (NASTO) conference last term, at which it was agreed that the British delegation to the International Student Travel Con-ferenced should consist of repre­sentatives from NASTO, NUS and LST (who should represent Britain at the ISTC has been confused since the collapse of NUS Travel three years ago).

Our own branch sales this year (to the end of March) were £17,300 an increase of about 1000% on last year; this is largely due to increased sales due to railcards being available but also represents a considerable increase in sales for travel abroad. Unfortunately the office had to be closed for a couple of weeks at the beginning of last term due to it being moved from the Union to its new site in Sherfield, which I consider to be a far better position. I still feel that Jiere is a lot more potential trade available from staff at IC who do not realise that many of our products are also available to non-students, and from staff and students at nearby colleges. One of the problems with this year's increase in trade is that our opening times (11:00—2:00 and closed on Wednesdays) are becom­ing inadequate, and general dis­cussions have started on the possibility of increased staffing; this would be particularly important if proposals for our office to^begin acting as a BR domestic agency can be carried through.

Safety The annual fire audit was carried out earlier this year, and was generally satisfactory with only a few minor matters needing attention. The union fire hoses were tested on Shrove Tuesday as usual to coincide with the annual ICWA vs IC Exec Pancake Race.

The fire and rape alarms have all been tested and accidentally set off at regular intervals; the rape alarm system did need attention, but is now working properly, and will be extended to include an alarm in the Union Office. On one occasion the prowler who has given us so much trouble over recent years was seen and followed, but got away before the police could arrive.

My thanks to the Red Cross for being present at many of the events organised by the Union next year; I strongly recommend future DPs to take some sort of First Aid course during the summer — you must expect to be called out to deal'with any type of emergency in the Union at any time of night.

Noise

Complaints from our neighboursi

behind the Union Building and

students in Beit Hall have contin­

ued, and the police were called in

on one occasion. This is a perpetual

problem which always has to be

stressed to people booking rooms —

particulary the Jazz Club Room.

Security Always a problem in such a large building being used by students late at night; the security of many rooms has been improved by having non-mastered locks put on them. Due to the current cutbacks in College spending the possibility of there being only one security man to cover Beit Quad at night has been discussed — an idea which I am strongly opposing.

Beit Quad The Beit Quad redevelopment started at the beginning of the year, including the creation of a barbecue area — the only useful part of the whole scheme. The grass areas are now seeded and shrubs planted — very pretty, but I have doubts concerning their practicality.

Freshers' Fair This year'a Fair had to be split between the Union and Sherfield Building due to the redevelopment of Beit Quad. This resulted in there being more room available for stallholders and made it possible for people to circulate more easily; there just isn't enough room in the Union for this event and I hope that Sherfield can be used again in future years.

Crash Pad . Before the beginning of the first term, rooms in Southside were made available at 50p per night for a week for people coming to London to look for accommodation; after this the Union SCR was used (for which no charge was made) and was able to be closed at the end of the second week of term (a great improvement on last year). A crash pad was also made available for students who would be unable to get into College on May 14th, due to the T U C Day of Action against the government.

Vandalism

Very little damage done so far this

year, notable exceptions being the

breakage of a pin-table, a break-in

to the cash box on the pool table,

and an attempted break-in to a

phone box.

Duty Officers

The Duty officer scheme (by which

members of Council were respon­

sible for maintaining a certain level

of decorum in the Union and

Stan's Bars on a rota basis) was in

operation at the beginning of the

year, but was eventually abandoned,

mainly due to people not turning up

on the night, and partly because

there was no longer so much need

for the system after the first month

or so. Myself or another Executive

officer have normally been present

at all large social events in Union

areas or have been easily contact-

able by Security or the barmen in

case of trouble.

Athletic Facilities The squash courts were flooded during the summer holidays; temporary repairs enabled two courts to be available for most of the year, but College Estates claim that other repair work had to be held up due to some dispute over the insurance claim.

The Union has bought a multigym (now in the Sports Centre) which I consider to be an excellent facility which anyone can use. The A C C yacht, Impetus, has continued to cause problems and at present is under repair; it has been decided to sell it, and Yacht Club will operate on a charter basis in future.

At present a Sports Hall is being developed in the old Chemistry building, which should be ready by next year and will provide a badly needed facility.

Southside Shop Providing a much better service now than last year, largely due to the efforts of Roger Stotesbury and Simon Perry.

Refectories The introduction of the cook-freeze system has resulted in some improvement in quality, but the usage of refectories has continued to fall and prices rise. Students tastes have definitely changed over recent years due to the lower 'real' vaue of student grants, but I feel that the refectory management have been slow to act accordingly; the refec­tories pose a very substantial, problem to which no one has yet been able to find an acceptable solution.

Transport

At the beginning of this term it was

brought to my attention that the

R C C transport system was in

severe financial difficulties — so

much so that I had tb assume

responsibility for the transport

finances myself. This situation was

not helped by a crash to the A C C

van soon afterwards, which for a

vehicle of this age meant an

effective write-off. In future all

union transport will be organised

centrally (rather than through the

sub-committees) and administered

by the DP. I hope that this will

result in it being run more efficiently

and commericially than in previous

years — this facility must prove

that it is capable of being self-

financing (there is certainly no

reason why it shouldn't be).

In order to overcome the im­

mediate financial problem, one of

the vehicles (a landrover) will have

to be sold and not replaced, leaving

us with three crewbuses, a van and

a landrover, which I feel constitutes

just sufficient to satisfy our require­

ments and be financially viable. It is

hoped to replace vans when they

are two years old, but this is

dependent on sufficient income

coming from bookings.

It still seems ridiculous to me that a number of departments have vans which are seldom used at weekends whilst ours aren't used much during the week, but this problem can only be solved by adequate central organisation within College.

Student Discounts The idea of a local student discount scheme really hasn't got off the ground; I've concentrated on improving our own facilities already available in College since an extensive scheme locally isn't feasible — it may be possible to get some sort of discount from some of the more expensive local shops on some items, but it wouldn't end up any cheaper than buying the same product from cheaper out­lets. For people who are willing to travel to buy things, NUS Marketing will sell Discount Cards to anyone with a ULU card. I would suggest that the first FELIX next year (or possibly the Handbook in future years?) could contain a special supplement recommending where different items can be bought cheapest.

Vending and Amusement Machines

This year a coffee machine and two video games machines have been installed in the Lower Lounge. At present the coffee machine isn't taking enough to cover the rental charge, and we may have to consider removing it. The video games are very popular and are providing us with a useful source of income (although I have been keeping all games charges down to a minimum) and I hope there will be one installed in the JCR next year; I don't think it would be wise to put any more in the Lounge — it isn't meant to be an amusement arcade.

Mascotry

We've still got Mike, and he's

attended the Freshers' Reception

and all UGMs this year. Unfor­

tunately he still doesn't actually

work — a matter which should be

attended to sometime

U n i o n C o m m i t t e e s

I have attended each Union com­

mittee at least once during the year

and am satisfied that most are

running well. Two new committees

are currently being set up under

my chairmanship — Transport and

Services.

College Committees

I have sat on the following College

committees this year; Governing

Body; Finance and Executive;

House, Refectory; Refectory Com­

plaints and Suggestions; Bar

(Chairman); Bookings; Athletics;

Athletics Ground; Haldane Library;

Safety Council; Technical Advisory

Safety. I also sit on two external'

committees: U L U Students' Rep­

resentative Counci l and L S T

Shareholders.

Conclusion

Sorry this reports is so long, but it

all had to be mentioned (and it's

8

OTHER OFFICERS REPORTS

the best way of making sure nobody reads it anyway). Hope I haven't missed anything out!

It's been a very interesting year for me, but one which I wouldn't like to repeat for a while. I've too many memories of High Court actions, arguing with South Africa rugby teams who decide to invade Stan's Bar, and a thousand and one financial headaches.

Sabbatical or not, I still reckon that* this is easily the toughest job in th° Union — my best wishes to

I C C A G CHAIRMAN'S R E P O R T

The activities of I C C A G have

increased a lot this year. We have

a few more regular activities and

quite a lot more one-off ones. We

also have a lot more active mem­

bers.

We have had soup runs almost

every Tuesday and Friday night of

term, which have usually been very

well attended. During the first term

we often had to turn people away,

because there was not enough

room in the van.

We have volunteers who regularly

visit lonely old-age pensioners and

some who help at a playgroup at

Great Ormond Street Children's

Hospital. We have recently become

involved with a club for handicapped

children, which needs volunteers on

Saturdays. We are hoping to do a

lot more with these children next

year.

We did the WUS collection at

registration and the Freshers' Fair,

and also organised a collected for

the Cambodians in November. We

have also provided collectors (and

badge sellers) on other occasions.

The Blood Doning in November

was slightly upset by the activities

of Real Ale Soc, but so many

people wanteto give blood that the

Transfusion Service came back in

December and took a total of 443

pints. We have another session

coming up at the end of May. We

received a lot of food and clothing

for the 'Crisis At Christmas'

appeal, and four or five volunteers

went to work in the shelter at

Christmas. We provided most of

the workers who built the Holly

Street Adventure Playground, and

one vounteer worked there over

Easter. We are hoping to do some

more building this term. At the end

of February, we had thirty deprived

eight-year-olds down from Birken­

head for a day. They were shown

round London, and enjoyed them­

selves immensely (probably more

than our volunteers did, trying to

keep track of them).

We would like to have more

Saturday activities (eg, with Task

Force — helping old age pen­

sioners), but we can not usually get

hold of drivers.

The Short Life Housing Group

was set up as a sub-committee of

ICCAG, but they have not been

able to do much yet, as they had a

lot of trouble getting set up as a

company.

Fiona Sinclair

Kae for next year; I'm sure she's going to do a good job.

Finally, my to everyone involved in the Union this year who has helped me (especially Annie) or just contributed towards it being such an interesting year, and also my thanks to a large numbers of personal friends without whose constant encouragement and moral support I doubt if I'd have seen the year through.

I hate writing annual reports! Malcolm Brain

ICWA A N N U A L REPORT, 1979/80

ICWA, as most of you will know, has had a difficult year, with people trying to close it down. However, it has nevertheless been reasonably successful in trying out new events and putting forward different approaches. Next year's committee will continue to build on what we have learnt.

ICWA has two basic roles: at a social level and a representative one.

In the former case, this year's calendar has been filled with:

1. Freshers' Reception. This was well attended, albeit few post­graduate freshers, and should contin­ue in future years with possible changes to the actual structure of the event, eg, holding it in the ICWA Lounge.

2. The ICWA Ball. This was held in the first term rather than at the end of the spring term. We had hoped this would increase the attendance, but this was not the case. The future of this event will be questioned. The evening, how­ever, was enjoyed by all concerned; the meal was good; the enter­tainment was provided by Frankie Armstrong (an unaccompanied singer) and the Mekkers (a band and disco).

O S C CHAIRMAN'S A N N U A L

REPORT, 1979/80

As originally conceived, O S C was

an organisation which looked after

the welfare of overseas students,

represented their views and kept

an eye on the national societies. In

the past two years however, it has

been forced to take an active part

in politics. The fee increases by

Labour and Conservative govern­

ments have led to protest action

being organised by students. ICU

this year organised a campaign

against education cuts in which

OSC took some part.

At the beginning of the session a

reception desk was organised by

Mr C N Swapraksm. This was to

provide advice and information to

overseas students coming to this

country for the first time. Some

events were also organised such as

talks by union officials, British

Council, an informal supper and

trips.

One of the main objectives of the

committee at the start of this year

was to improve relations between

overseas and home students and

promote a better understanding of

each other's different cultures and

problems. For this purpose, OSC

3. We held a gig/disco in early December. The group, the Mixdix, providing the music. The usual JCR parties held by ICWA in the previous year did not come about (through lack of planing on our part) but should be returned to the social calendar next year.

4. At Christmas we held a Balloon Debate which proved very enjoyable.

5. We have initiated Staff Cheese and Cider Lunches where both women students and staff are invited to lunch in the I C W A Lounge. These have proved to be popular with both staff and students and we hope next year to make them a regular fixture.

6. We have arranged several trips to see the London Contemp­orary Ballet, Teresa, and Les Cage aux Folles.

7. A group of us spent a wonderful weekend in Oaklands Women's Centre, Glasbury-on-Wye.

8. A course of self-defence classes were organised at the Women's Arts Alliance and a group from IC attended it. The year before we had a teacher come to IC but this year we could not find a teacher prepared to take on the responsibility.

9. Pancake Race.

organised an International Week.

The events included: a debate with

Trevor Phillips and Martin Stevens,

MP; a fair with films, music and

stalls (food, posters, pamphlets and

wine); an International Dinner and

Disco attended by over four

hundred (organised with the help of

KCFFOS).

An attempt to organise a sports

tournament and a series of films

(one from a society per week)

failed due to lack of enthusiasm.

Most of the societies did an

excellent iob tackling the problems

of International Week and taking

their normal activities. Some events

worth mentioning are: Chinese

Society New Year; India Society

Diwali; and Latin American Week.

OSC as a major sub-committee

has been in existence for only four

years and there are still several

difficulties to iron out before it can

take a fuller part in Union activities.

For example, we need to make

.more students (both home and

overseas) aware of the kind of

work it does and to persuade them

. to take an active interest in it. This

year we collaborated with various

S C C clubs, and very closely with

Un the representative level, we spent a lot of the first term involved in the campaign against John Corrie's Abortion Bill (Amendment) including motions to Union meetings, etc. We sent two delegates to the Young Women's Conference held in December. I have sat on Council and from there on three College committees: Welfare. This deals with the student councellor, Wel­fare Centre, creche and Nightline; Residence; Admissions Policy.

From a meeting with schools the

E O C have floated the idea of

conversion courses for women with

Arts A levels to be able to take a

one year A level science course

and then be offered a place at IC if

they meet the required standard. I

'think this is an idea that the Union

should pursue so that it isn't just

shelved and forgotten about.

ICWA's greatest problem is the

reputation it has acquired whether

as a women's institute or a feminist

refuge. For these images to have a

chance of changing help is needed

from everyone. Don't label ICWA;

allow women to make their own

minds about how and if they want

ICWA; give it a real chance espe­

cially in early October.

Merche Clark

national societies to bring the O S C

closer to students and hope this

can be continued in future. A lot

more publicity is needed. OSC and

national societies do not make full

use of IC media. IC Radio have

suggested a half-hour programme

for overseas students. This will be

taken on by next year's committee.

Another problem to tackle is

making the committee more repre­

sentative; societies and students

(especially western students) have

to be persuaded to take an active

part.

From October 1980 onwards a

standard membership card and

headed paper will be used by

societies and the subscription fee

will be set at a minimum level of

fifty pence.

The Committe and national

(societies must provide a strong,

initiative in years to come, so thai

|OSC can take its rightful place in

•the Union. The future for overseas

students looks bleak and we do

need strong committees to look

after their interests.

Aftab Cujral

OSC Chairman

R A G CHAIRMAN'S A N N U A L REPORT 1979/80

The Rag year started, as usual, to the resounding chants of the CCUs, assembled around Marble Arch before the traditional Tiddly-winks Rag stunt. This was the first of many, varied and consistently successful stunts from RCS and Guilds, and even Mines, though remaining fairly insular as usual, have made a significant contribution to a street collections total which exceeds even last year's record.

The year also opened with controversy over the Rag Mag, which was first withdrawn due to illegality, but then was allowed to be sold on campus, after a motion was put to a U G M to withdraw it. Despite some oWts contents, it was somewhat of a triumph, being regarded as the best in the country by many other universities pro­ducing technically far inferior mags. Its high quality was partly responsible, rogether with the provision of regular Rag Mag trips, in the high sales, which mean we liave made a profit on the venture for the first time in many years.

Rag Week was its usual chaotic enjoyable and exhausting self, and this year was one day longer than usual, including some new events, such as the highly successful Beer Festival, and first major event staged by Mines in Rag Week — the Ragarama. I think that events were varied enough to cater for

S C A B CHAIRMAN'S A N N U A L

REPORT, 1979/80

A usually reliable source has

informed me that brevity is the

order of the day; therefore I will

give no detailed account of the

activities of the SCAB societies,

nor of the proceedings of the

bureaucracy within an.d without the

meetings of the Board. Rather I will

give a somewhat personal outline

of current trends likely to affect the

provision of entertainment at

Imperial College in the foreseeable

future.

First, inn rnosl difficult. The rock

'industry' has undergone a funda­

mental change in structure over

the time since I first darkened the

doors of IC. The big acts have got

bigger and more 'showbiz', and the

roster of 'college bands' appears to

have disappeared The few acts'

who are of the stature to headline

a big College gig are often survivors

horn the system of five years ago

and are inevitably such an anachron-

,sm to be unattractive to the

audience. The only way that I can

see the Great Hall being used (this

is no comment on the internal

College politics; merely upon the

availability of suitable acts) is to

build up very good relationships

with promoters and agents and to

attempt to become a regular venue

for 'warm up' gigs.

For this reason, and because

their activity is always an emotive

issue within the Union, Ents are

most tastes, and all the prices were kept low enough to be reasonable, yet every event still paid its way. This led to record profits of about £2,500 over the week, including £1,230 from the procession which went immediately to the National Deaf Children's Society.

This money was used to buy equipment for various children, and some of this was presented at a special event, the Caber Tossing, which was organised jointly with the Society. Such close liason with the charities has not to my know­ledge been carried out before, and it has certainly been very encour­aging and highly successful. The Caber Tossing was a great party for the fifty or so deaf children who attended, attracted wide coverage in the local press, raised about £130 to be added to our donation, and certainly changed some of the parents and teachers present, in their attitude to 'students', as those involved were superb in their handling of the children.

Another attempt to do something new was made in holding two Rag Discos. Unfortunately, though enjoyed by those attending, and making a small profit, they were not as successful as we hoped, for some reason lacking the magnetic draw of a C C U party.

Over Christmas we sent two delegates to the National Rag Conference, and contributed significantly to the proceedings

suffering from a great deal of discouragement and frustration. It is vitally important to keep the

committee active so that people

may be encouraged to spend

several years building the sort of

relationship outlined above with the

professionals in the business.

However, whilst ideas of new

activity are a necessary factor, the

fact that most students are willing

to proffer advice of the 'why don't

you book Led Zeppelin?' genre,

makes it difficult to convince Ents

that the outsider has a genuine

viable scheme; a lot of work must

be done to make the workings of

Ents less inward-looking.

The folk scene is generally in

something of a recession. This is

probably explained very ably by

John Peel: "Whatever it was that

attracted me . . . four or five years

ago isn't there — there's no bite

there. It's all rather comfortable

and even smug." Obviously this is

the image the (potential) student

audience shares and rejects.

Equally obviously, positive action

must be taken to change this. I am

not certain what this action is, but I

think that the change of direction

of Folk Club to a more participatory

society next year is a step towards

this end.

I suspect the time might be nigh

to consider splitting Jazz Club into

two sections: the Jazz Club as it

stands does not seem to contribute

especially with regard to the Rag Mags, and they also suceeded in obtaining the Conference for us to host this year. Recently we were invited by Charing Cross Hospital to take part in the Fulham Carnival Street Procession, which they were hoping would be a prototype for an all-London Rag Procession. However it seems we were the only College to stick to its guns and produce a float, as the others all backed out at short notice, but there was a lot of interest and I hope this can be worked on at this year's Rag Conference.

The year had its traditional finale with the Summer Fete, and despite the problems of moving it to the Queens Lawn because of the Iranian Embassy seige (not to mention the lack of celebrities!) I feel it was a great success, highly enjoyed by stall­holders and visitors alike, and with profits heading for the £1,000 mark.

To sum up, I think we have had a very successful year, combining money-making and fun well, and introducing several new ideas. This is due to the hard work and enthusiasm of the CCUs, Clubs and Societies and many dedicated individuals, and I know they will all find it as worthwhile as I do to know that most of our contributions will be used directly to buy equipment for schools and individual deaf children, who would not otherwise be able to obtain such vital aid from any other source.

Rae Snee

anything other than the room to

the rock groups who practise

there. I imagine that concerts by

College groups would become less

rare if they had their own organ­

isation, and they would possibly

have a greater respect for club

equipment were the club that they

belong to more in touch with their

needs and ideas.

Of the other societies, Dramsoc

will continue to flourish and will

probably expand in coming years. I

would not be surprised to see a

production from ICDS at Edinburgh

within a year or two. Filmsoc will

continue to grow thanks to the very

strong roots put down this year

provided that current internal

difficulties can be resolved. Opsoc

will continue as it always has.

Music Society will thrive, and I

expect the current increase in

activity of the instrumental side to

continue; there will be an increasing

number of small ensembles to be

heard. I do feel, however, that more

effort should be made to go to the

audience, rather than let the

audience come to the Society.

Finally, Debating Society needs an

injection of prestige to awaken the

student body to its existence and

possibilities.

Any questions?

Andy Cheyne

SCAB Chairman

PUBLICATIONS B O A R D

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT, 1979/80

Pub Board has run reasonably

efficiently this year with no major

controversies. I am happy to report

that we will be able to completely

pay off the typesetter loan granted

last year by College, after paying

off half last year. There has been

good inter-media co-operation

especially over news coverage —

although individual editorial in­

dependence has remained strong.

It is also good to note that most

publications have increased their

membership this year. The equip­

ment fund that I proposed setting

up has not been possible due to

the very small amount of outside

work done on the Print Unit

(maybe next year?).

The Phoenix

— must be given first mention.

This year's edition, coming after an

absence of two years, was a real

credit to the Editor and his very

enthusiastic staff. It is an excellent

production and I hope that the

admirable quality can be maintained

in future years.

FELIX FELIX started off the year in a controversial manner (remember JS?), but settled down to a regular schedule, although I can't say I am terribly excited about this year's standard. It is however encouraging to see quite a few freshers actively involved and next year promises well.

STOIC

STOIC have tried new ideas and

been pretty successful in their

tenth year. Producing television

programmes is a difficult process,

especially for untrained operators,

and because the results are not of

the high technical standard the

BBC/TTV produce, STOIC seem to

be written off too readily. This year

the results have been good and the

list ot programme guests and

features impressive.

IC Radio IC Radio, although suffering the loss of its Station Manager in mid-session has consolidated its position this year. The new 'Northside' Studios were operational from the beginning of the autumn term and have been used throughout the year. The news-coverage side has been commendable but, I feel, new programme ideas have been some­what lacking. The active member­ship has been higher than ever,

A P

The AP has maintained the high

standard set last year; the presen­

tation is original, the articles

informative and where necessary

critical.

ICU Handbook

The ICU Handbook was efficiently

produced and sent out as usual.

Jon Firth

Publications Board Chairman

10

S C C CHAIRMAN'S A N N U A L

REPORT, 1979/80

Due to the fact that I was given

very short notice for this report it

can only give a very brief account

of the activities of the societies and

the committee. Once again the

clubs and societies proved to be

the most active element within the

College. In the case of S C C

societies this was reflected in the

fact that several new societies —

Industrial, P A T A , Vegetarian,

Pimlico, FFF and Badge Society

were formed each with a large

body of active members. Societies

already existing continued to grow

and increase their activities.

In the religious societies the turn

away from belief in materialism

(dialectric or otherwise) has been

reflected in the increased member­

ship and activities of all the

religious societies. Further new

growth towards ecumenism in

which I noted in my last report has

continued unabated.

On the political front the main

item of interest has been the

sudden re-emergence of the Con-

E X T E R N A L AFFAIRS

C O M M I T T E E CHAIRMAN'S

A N N U A L REPORT, 1979/80

Education cuts, I suppose, was the

most commonly used phrase thi

year and that remains as an.

'ongoing situation'. External Affairs

spent much of the first term

working/making a noise about the

cuts and about the 'full cost' but it

does not seem so far that overseas

students numbers will fall.

We produced a paper on grants

in London which, however, was not

passed by U G M , but somehow

finished up as part of the Exec

main motion at an NUS conference

and was passed.

U L U has seen a dramatic improve­

ment over the past year and the

input by IC students whether in

sports, societies or SRC has been

W E L F A R E OFFICER'S

A N N U A L REPORT, 1979/80

Most of what follows occurred

before I took over, so please

excuse any omissions in detail.

The Welfare Centre continues to

be an asset to the Union, especially

now that Michael Arthur has a

part-time assistant, Sue Telling.

Accommodation has been the issue

of the year with the Centre nego­

tiating head-tenancies, compiling

questionnaires and providing an

efficient flat 'agency' service to

name but a few areas of work.

The Health Centre 'ticks over'

nicely as ever.

Don Adlington, the Student (and

staff?) Councillor is situated in an

office in the rear of the Health

Centre. This is not fully satisfactory

as his visitors have to walk past the

waiting room for the doctors and

follow a winding but signposted

route. So nerves aren't calmed and

anonymity is endangered. Hopefully

servative Society as a political force within the Union — mainly due to an increase in membership. The Liberals have kept up their ususal amount of involvement in College life.

Of the miscellaneous societies, Amnesty has been very successful in releasing the prisoners whom they have adopted; Vegetarian has been a successful pressure group in obtaining vegetarian food in the College and so on for each society.

One would have thought that the S C C societies being so active and containing large societies with memberships such as Chaplaincy of more than three hundred, the Union Executive would be interested in what is after all student involve­ment in Union activities. Unfor­tunately I am compelled to report otherwise. Of the five meetings held so far this year, Mr Fox has deemed it wise to attend none of these; Mr Stotesbury, one and Mr Brain, two. I leave you to draw your own inferences.

Frank James

SCC Chairman

this will improve soon.

The Day Nursery is all our own

once again as Chelsea College now

have their own. The year has seen

typically heavy use of the facility.

The opening times and situation of

the Malet Street nursery seem to

make it unsuitable for an over flow.

Finally, I would like to offer

thanks to Shona Ward as her year

as Nightline Director draws to a

close. She has given a superb

year's work and her influence will

remain for a few years yet.

In March a one-day seminar was

held on accommodation, combining

admin, staff and students. This

discussed the running of present

halls and possible new initiatives on

the problems of housing in the city.

It is still too early to see any

results. A short life housing group

with members from IC is now

•almost operational.

Pete Stevens

Welfare Officer

R E C R E A T I O N A L C L U B S C O M ­M I T T E E C H A I R M A N ' S A N ­

N U A L REPORT, 1979/80 Club Activities

Two clubs were newly formed this year, and one last.

Hang Gliding Club reached twice its projected membership, and is now training members to fly its two 'kites'.

Microcomputer Club was ac­cepted as an R C C Club at the February meeting and is now doing very well with a system up and working donated by ICCC.

Pottery Group is the most recently formed and is in the process of organising its facilities, to be provided by the RCA. They are expected to be active from the beginning of next year.

Two clubs have had problems:

Go Club are now running well after a false start with no committee to begin the year.

Croquet Club are still inactive, but this is typical since the season has not yet begun. I wait in trepid­ation to see how thev fare.

A C A D E M I C AFFAIRS

OFFICER'S A N N U A L REPORT,

1979/80

The 'Academic Scene' has been

fairly quiet this year, either because

there hasn't been a lot for the

Academic Affairs Committee to

deal with or because we haven't

been doing our jobs as well as we

might; I think it is mainly the

former.

We spent a lot of committee

time discussing the structure of the

committee and the mechanism for

electing Academic Reps; in both

cases the well established systems

were favoured. Investigations into

the setting up of committees along

the lines of Engineering Board in

R C S and R S M met with firm

opposition from the senior staff in

the department concerned. I think

we all agree that more committees

of this nature just mean more

bureaucracy.

One of our few real achievements

this year has been to persuade some

departments to have Open Days for

school students, which is an

to R Stotesbury).

Our working party on personal equipment sorted out an age old problem (at least for the time being). There is now no grey area about what R C C should be expected to pay for in cases like Underwater Clubs' wet suits or Mountaineering Club's safety helmets.

Regretfully, due to financial limitations the rate of travel subsidy for supplementary grants had to be halved in February.

A brief look at the rate of subscription paid by the clubs members immediately showed that, generally, the big spending clubs are getting a very good deal. If for no other reason, 1 shall be satisfied with my year of office if I can ensure that this unfair financial imbalance is discontinued, thus averting any reaction by the small cftlbs against the interest of the larger ones, and R C C as a whole. The aim of myself and of my executive is to work towards a total income per capita from each club in subscriptions of approx­imately 25%, although of course, this will vary slightly from club to club.

Hopefully, this reduction will

allow summer tours to be sub­

scribed at a rate of around 20%.

Transport

I am most pleased, and not a little

relieved to report that the res­

ponsibility for the Union transport

service now falls upon the IC

Union Transport Committee.

As the details of this will un­

doubtedly be reported elsewhere, I

shall refrain from doing so here

except to say that I would hope

that there will be adequate repre­

sentation of RCC clubs' interests

on their transport committee.

Finally I would like to express

my thanks publicly for the invaluable

assistance given by my Vice-

chairman Roger Brugge, without

whom my job would have been

made impossibly difficult.

John Tidy

RCC Chairman

encouraging sign. The AP has been

successfully produced; my thanks

to everyone who contribu 'ed

articles or helped with the paste­

ups — I hone you all like it!

I will admit to devoting more

time and effort to producing the

Alternative Prospectus than doing

the job of ICU AAO, but I make

no apologies for it. I think it is too

much to ask anyone to do both

jobs to the abest of their ability. (It

is worth noting that in some other

colleges the AP is produced by a

sabbatical officer). However, I do

feel that the AP should be produced

by a senior union officer who sits

on C o u n c i l , because it is an

important and responsible job and I

don't think it would be a good idea

to set up a new post of AP Editor.

In order to all to alleviate the

workload on the A A O so that

he/she can devote more time and

effort to the AP I have put forward

a proposal to Council.

Gary Nichols

ICU AAO

very great. At SRC we have been

very active, with full delegations to

all meetings and active participation

by most.

External Affairs still gets mailings

from Compassion in World Farming;

National Council of Civil Liberties;

Chile Solidarity Campaign; WUS

and some others. However, we are

only affiliated to N C C L and WUS.

Various members of the Commit­

tee have been generally active and

have attended conferences. Various

other members have done very little.

Overall External Affairs remains a

subject in which few are very

interested but I feel that if such

External Affairs as U L U and WUS

are promoted more then general

interest can be increased.

John Passmore

External Affairs Officer

Major claims were granted to the folowing clubs: Canoe (canoes); Billiards and Snooker (both tables re-covered); Electronic Music Group (string synthesisers); Hang Gliding (two gliders); Caving (new ropes and lamps); Amateur Radio (microwave project); Audio (joint

use with IC Radio of a Revox tape machine).

Christmas tours were undertaken

by Caving, Mountaineering, and

Scouts and Guild Clubs.

Easter tours by Canoe, S&G,

and Underwater Clubs and Youth

Hostelling Association. Everything

was satisfactory, to my knowledge

during each tour, and around nine

clubs are planning summer tours.

General Demands for copies of insurance policies held helped unearth a few cases of under insurance which are now being remedied by the new comprehensive Union policy (thanks

11

A T H L E T I C S C L U B S C O M M I T T E E C H A I R M A N ' S

A N N U A L REPORT, 1979/80

So another year passes by and more Union hack faces bite the dust. What's happened this year? Not a lot, apart from things going up in smoke and people being shot all around us. With 'entertainment' like this, who needs sport you may ask — well you can carry on asking because I'm not going to answer stupid questions like that.

Anyway a brief resume: At the beginning of the year

Basketball Club had nowhere to play and the situation looked hopeless; but a mere two weeks, of my summer, spent in intensive and top secret negotiations soon fixed this. A glace was found and the

Club had an OK season.

Sporting Motor Cycle Club were able to recover their stolen bikes, via the police, and in fact gained 1/2 others — sounds like a good return on investment!

All the squash courts should be ready for complete use in the next few weeks — this is a long awaited development.

The biggest development in the 'new' is the fact that a rather large old chemistry lab is to be converted into a sports hall and should be ready for use next term. It took a lot of pressure to persuade College, but it will be well worth all the effort.

Coaches — running better and more organised than any year I can remember; but I can see big financial fosses in this field when the final

figures come through and looking forward (you didn't know I was clairvoyent) I think that this is where our biggest increase in expenditure will be next year.

Multigym is going great Gunns (sorry Steve) and every day hordes of people seem to be busy growing muscles — John Stocks has been seen in there looking all macho and rumour has it that a Certain Fox has also made visits.

What about the sports front?

Mens hockey won the UL Cup.

Boat Club won the Southern Universities Championships (sur­prise, surprise) and a few of them managed to get a 'free trip' to South Africa — and back.

On the individual front:

Purples (Univ of London Sports

colours) were awarded to at least thirteen IC students — 9 full purples and four half purples.

Dave Derby came first in the World Mirror Dinghy Sailing Cham­pionships.

Also one of our volleyball players (modesty forbids me from naming him!) was selected and subsequently played for British Universities.

All in all it has been a good year with: it is a picture, from Roger, flashes of inspiration from Tim, flashes of teeth from Johnson and just straightforward flashes from Jo.

Anyway happy Moutong folks.

Suki Kalirai

ACC Chairman

This special edition of Exec News has been typeset fay Maz Fellows and printed by

Ian Morse on the Union premises. Production by Roger Stotesbuty.

with the compliments of

THE HON. SEC.

B L I O L I C L Da-Mias

I M P E R I A L

C O L L E G E

U N I O N Prince Consort Road.

London. SW7 2BB

Tel: 01-589-5111 ext. 1040 1042 1043.

Pres ident , Chris Fox,

D e p u t y Pres ident . Malcolm Brain,

H o n . Secre ta ry , Roger Stotesbury,