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Guilds Empire Expands

Apr 06 2005 20:58

Walter Plinge

After months of political wrangling, bureaucratic ping-pong and shameless begging, the department of Mechanical Engineering has kindly given City and Guilds College Union the key to an empty, spacious storeroom directly opposite the office in room 341.

The latest C&G conquest...

The new storeroom, room 344, is roughly half the size of the smaller C&GCU Office (341) although with poor light and a little damp could only be used for storage. However, according to C&G President John Collins, that is exactly what the Union was looking for.

"We would like to thank the Department of Mechanical Engineering for kindly offering us this spare storage space, and the Faculty of Engineering for agreeing to pay for it", said Mr Collins, who also categorically denied that this new room would be converted into a new bar, sordid love den or kart garage.

Keen Guilds hacks, Dan Lehmann and Chris McIver, have already moved the entire regalia stock and four cabinets in to the new storeroom, freeing up a substantial amount of new space in the existing Guilds Office. This development has presented C&GCU with an exciting opportunity to implement the much-needed second stage of the office refurbishment programme, which outgoing and incoming Presidents Collins and Latif are reportedly keen to see through before the start of the next academic year.

C&GCU have been lobbying the department for additional storage space since the construction of the new Tanaka Business School, which resulted in the demolition of the old C&G stores. It is thanks to the College's new space charging scheme and the Mechanical Engineering Department's cost cutting programme that this welcome expansion of the Guilds Empire has finally come to fruitition.

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Discussion about “Guilds Empire Expands”

The comments below are unmoderated submissions by Live! readers. The Editor accepts no liability for their content, nor for any offence caused by them. Any complaints should be directed to the Editor.

1. Zaki

Apr 06 2005 21:22

Glad to hear we have more space. I am very keen to have a 'new look' for the office... I dont want to have random things lying around next year!

2. John Collins

Apr 07 2005 13:51

I've sent a message around Exec members asking for their thoughts on how we should refurbish room 341. Some ideas I've heard so far include:

>> Moving the printer and paper store / workspace into 341 - centralising all paper activity

>> Creating a treasurer's corner where all appropriate paperwork, filing and storage are in one place

>> Creating a president's desk

>> Creating a clubs corner / hot desk

>> Finding one or two more PCs

>> Redecorating - white, beige, gold and red colours have been mentioned

>> A new display on the main wall (Ditch the spanner and sign) - how about emblems for each department?

>> Moving one sofa from 340 to 341

>> Improving the kitchen

>> Refurbish the doors (similar to 340)

If you have any thoughts then please email me or post them here

3. Ashley Brown

Apr 07 2005 14:56

A free beer area to encourage people to fill empty representative positions!

And don't let Ed get away with a suggestion of an Ed shrine or something.

4. One Ed

Apr 07 2005 15:04

Ashley, is this one Ed, or the other "-----"? I hadn't thought of a shrine to myself personally, but now you mention it.....

5. tom t

Apr 07 2005 18:35

How about fHow about filling the new space with hundreds of copies of glossy brochures telling everyone what Guilds is meant to do for them - along the lines of communication and representation, perhaps?

6. Bob

Apr 07 2005 19:49

They are printed on recycled paper tho Tom....

7. Chris J

Apr 07 2005 21:09

A couple of points:

Zaki, good luck with sorting out those 'random things', when asked about this the current imcumbant mentioned 'pigs' and 'flying'.

Mr Collins: Now that the shields are sorted can we get an extra one in the cupboard for those that get lucky in there ;-)

8. empire

Apr 07 2005 22:14

Could we have a rival store room wall? Then even Dramsoc would have less need to go to Beit.

9. Oliver Pell

Apr 08 2005 11:11

That's what the Intranet is for...

10. dram@soc

Apr 08 2005 23:02

I thought the intranet was for Live?!?

11. chris

Apr 09 2005 09:29

No no no, it does far more than that, it is a modern technological wonder and a quotes page of unstoppable innuendo.

Has anyone else read live whilst doing 100mph on a GNER train??? The joys of technology.

12. Tom C

Apr 09 2005 12:52

No Chris, as no one could find a GNER train in the first place, and then when they did it sat at some points for 3 hours outside Birkhampstead for no apparent reason. 100mph?? Did they throw it off a cliff???

13. Pedant

Apr 09 2005 16:23

Birkhampstead doesn't exist. Berkhamsted, on the other hand, does. Unfortunately it isn't on the East Coast Main Line, which may explain why you're unlikely to find a GNER train there.

(Parden the pedantry, but I do find it amusing when geologists get their geography wrong)

14. Another Pedant

Apr 09 2005 23:15

In a similar vein to Pedant, I should imagine the terminal velocity of a train falling under gravity is less than 100mph unless you could carefully drop it straight down off that cliff to decrease air resistance. I couldn't say for certain though, and it would have to be a bloody high cliff to get that fast anyway. Perhaps a similarly bloody minded physicist could confirm this.

15. Blackett Labs

Apr 10 2005 03:26

"First, assume the train is a sphere..."

And skydivers can easily go over 120mph (53.6m/s to you) so I would have thought that a train, given sufficient vertical distance, would *easily* be able to go faster than that. I don't know what a typical drag coefficient would be for the train (not on any Physics course I've seen), but it is possible to find a suitable mass for it.

A typical class 43 HST power car is 69.5 tonnes. A "standard" HST with 2 First Class coaches, a Buffet coach and 4 (or 5) Economy coaches will, together with the power cars, weigh 423 tonnes (463 tonnes). Oh, must remember to add a few pie-eating Geordies to that... (FYI, the pies are ~140g each - Somerfield 4 pack, 567g, although Mr Jackson might want to correct me on that)

For simplicity, and keeping with the pedantry, I shall ignore the amount of energy it would require to elevate the train to a sufficiently high altitude (approximately mgh, but I haven't specified the h).

As much as I'd love to sit here and work out the calculations, I'll leave it up to you engineers - just plug in the drag coefficient and and Bob's your sperm donor's crossdressing sister. And no, I don't have anything better to do at half three in the morning.

16. Tom C

Apr 10 2005 13:14

Now there we are. Thats it. Thats the reason I should have gone to Royal Holloway INSTEAD OF "Really rather rude word" IMPERIAL!!!! To all Pedants- sit back, chill, and try not to think of Fourier equations. Just laugh at jokes sometimes! It's far more fun....

17. Tom C

Apr 10 2005 13:15

PS- Geologists don't do geography.....we do geology. Duh.

18. Chris

Apr 11 2005 14:04

I assure you they can do more than 100mph, otherwise how could they do a 340 mile journey in 3 hours including stopping a couple of times along the way?

19. Another Pedant

Apr 11 2005 17:30

I meant under gravity.

20. james devine

Apr 11 2005 23:01

Nice cupboard, if a little damp..

It isn't quite news, but I've herd rumours that Union President Mr Arif is standing down early and going to Rome to stand for election as the next Pope!?!

I can see the next live article now.. "Guilds empire goes holy roman"...

Good Luck Mustafa!

21. Anon

Apr 12 2005 18:17

They wouldn't let him in, surely they want someone who is at least seen to be honest and trustworthy.

22. Unknown

Apr 12 2005 20:39

What about an MP - that would be more relevant at the moment...

23. james

Apr 12 2005 23:36

I don't think you can be an MP and Pope at the same time..

24. Siddharth Singh

Apr 13 2005 11:59

Is that because of the seperation of church and state?

25. Nia

Apr 13 2005 12:24

Haha! Not likely, given all the bishops in the House of Lord. I would guess there's nothing explicitly saying you can't be pope and mp at the same time. But I would also guess people might complain and suggest you resign from one.

26. tom t

Apr 13 2005 13:27

>>But I would also guess people might complain and suggest you resign from one.

Hasn't that happened somewhere before, without anyone being an MP or a Pope?

27. Siddharth Singh

Apr 13 2005 14:18

Come on Tom get over it, he has other constituencies in mind now!

28. Seb

Apr 13 2005 23:41

There used to be legislation saying you couldn't be a catholic and be an MP (whole catholic/protestant war thing dating back to the Glorious Revolution) but that was changed in the 1800's.

The only thing left is that you can not be a reigning monarch and a catholic. Though there is nothing to stop you being King and also a Suffi (for example). Except that it would be difficult as you are also head of the Church of England.

Philosophicaly speaking, an established church is not a pleasant thing. In practice it is broadly irrelevant, but it seems to complicate the lives of certain royals, which are complicated enough anyway (though they could always abdicate I suppose) and dosn't seem so appropriate now.

29. C!

Apr 15 2005 01:01

To Chris...

today I read Live via the GNER wifi access. I was on a train running parallel to a GNER service. My carriage was next to one of their 1st class carriages so the connection was free!

30. Chris

Apr 15 2005 08:53

You lucky git, I had to pay for the privilage.

31. tom t

Apr 15 2005 14:27

does that mean that coach b or whichever is adjacent to 1st class could also pick up free wifi, on the actual GNER train?

32. Siddharth Singh

Apr 15 2005 21:14

FYI

33. RussoEnt

Apr 16 2005 11:06

Hi there

what do u think about Russia and russian entertainment web-portals?

tnhx

34. C!

Apr 16 2005 22:54

In theory no. All the carriages have an access point and they all have the same SSID so windows based laptops will choose the one with the strongest signal. You could put some tinfoil over the access point in your carraige I suppose

35. Chris J

Apr 17 2005 12:00

In response to Tom T, on GNER the buffet and restaurant car is between first and standard class, so I'm guessing the signal would be next to useless by the time it had passed through the GNER breakfast ciabattas which I'm sure are lead lined.

36. Sanjeev

Apr 25 2005 11:10

This is a victory for CGCU and the past presidents who have woked hard to try and get that store room.

Congrats.

37. Sanjeev

Apr 28 2005 12:50

James - actually, one more vote and I would have been the first Hindu Pope....another election lost :(

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