"James Fok, leader of the 'Yes' campaign responded:"

Editor, where art thou

James Fok, leader of the 'Yes' campaign...

Well done Imperial on wasting £52,000 on affiliation and £125,000 on NUS extra. Surely the NUS will be out of debt now!!

Editor was in the bar on a PDA.

This leads me to four conclusions:

1. The No campaign must have been pretty c**p.

2. The somewhat fishy decision to allow millions of NUS peeps on campus paid off.

3. If ever one needed proof of dumbing down, this is it. I've lost a LOT of respect for Imperial undergrads..

4. We'll be out at the first opportunity.

This is pretty tragic. Now we're gonna be wasting £52k on them, and what we'll get in return is a load more penguin propaganda telling us to buy their pointless discount card. For discounts we can get for free anyway.

The sad part is

1)Many freshers and uninformed people were swayed by lies (discounts! isolation!) and penguins with sweets

2)Many others who were against it didn't vote as they assumed it would never pass.

Here's hoping we can get out asap..

Well, last time ICU joined the NUS, it left 12 months later, as I'd imagine the lies of the Yes campaign then were unmasked for what they were.

With all due respect to all the naysayers, there was an election, the students said yes, plain and simple.

Can we stop assuming that because some people voted yes somehow they must have been 'uninformed'? This is highly arrogant and stinks of an unfounded level of superiority.

Let's start looking forward people, if we don't like it, it least now we can change it.

Tony:

What is arrogant is the nerve of the people who supposedly represent our interests to let this circus (or zoo?) of a campaign to take place in our campus. Everyone who has been here long knows how easily undergrad opinions can be manipulated using promises of discounts or free food. I suspect that the terms of the campaign would have been very different if certain people supported the opposite camp.

I think the fact that 70% of Live! reader voted NO shows just how unrepresentative this forum is. Why should we care?

This is an awesome result. An awesome result for our Union and more importantly an awesome result for Imperial students. In the biggest democratic exercise ever undertaken at Imperial College, students have voted to join the largest democratic student movement in the world.

Thanks to all those who voted, thanks to all those who voted yes and thanks to all those students who worked tirelessly for a yes vote (despite reports, we consistently had more Imperial students out for a yes vote than the no campaign). Finally, thanks to James and the entire no campaign for an entertaining referendum.

We're back where we belong: leaders not followers in the national student movement.

Well.. Whether we belong there or not is debatable, seeing that we NEVER actually joined NUS for any respectable amount of time in the past. I guess time will tell, and when the current batch of pro-Labour union hacks go their merry way, we are bound to have another referendum that will hopefully bring everything back in order. Just wait and see!

What a pathetic result: 130 votes decides the spending of £52,000. This margin, in my opinion, doesn't approach the swing that was caused by the unbalanced campaigning, petty complaints and sematic warblings of the Yes camp.

Using external campaigners and supressing competition is base and low - the Imperial Students who realised how bad the NUS will be for our college were unable to respond to propaganda-spreaders who weren't even part of our community.

The impounding of Guildsheet is the highest-profile example: the Yes campaign dealt with disorganisation by invoking ghost rules unwritten, un-minuted, unrecorded and unsubstansiated to supress intelligent advertisement placement by their competition.

C'mon people. Be magnanimous in defeat.

The main fault with the whole referendum is that the real issues got lost in the throwing of s**t from both sides. I'm disappointed in how the whole thing turned out. No side came out from this looking rosy; read my editorial in Felix if you want to know my entire opinion on the matter, as I can't be a**ed to re-type it here.

As for the other decisions, well, Mr Matthews was doing a difficult job under difficult conditions, and you should think about how you would act if you were Returning Officer. There are a number of decisions that I would have acted differently upon, but that would probably have drawn me criticism as well.

So we're NUS affiliated. How much difference do you think it will make to your day-to-day dealings with the Union or with other students? I don't particularly like the NUS or its President, but I doubt it will make a blind bit of difference.

As for the money, well, ICU has always been able to financially bodge things to make it work.

And just to make it clear, I'm unhappy with the impounding of Guildsheet as well, Tris. I think it was a bit of disproportionate action, and I think the referendum committee should have at least met and discussed the matter before the decision was taken.

Cheers Andy. I still believe, no matter the official quotes given by Guite, that the background motives of the complaint were to surpress competition.

I do agree, though, that Jon Matthews isn't at all to blame for any of the c**p that this "survey" has fostered. I'm surprised he didn't drown in it all. I think he's probably the only person directly involved who has come out of this able to hold his head high.

Well said, Tris.

I know he was becoming deeply unhappy with the whole thing. I certainly couldn't have coped with it.

At least Gemma was looking happy. Heh-heh.

Just for the record: I wasn't convinced that the NUS was bad until

1) I found out how convincingly our new Political Voice writes: http://live.cgcu.net/editions/nus/1308

2) Became the butt of the campaign.

Ah, well. Better luck next time, eh?

The no campaign, and me by extension, lost - we need to accept that and work to get the best from NUS - that's what students at Imperial would suggest.

The famous quote comes in here - it takes one vote to win an election, the rest are for bragging rights. It doesn't matter what the margin was, what matters is that Imperial has voted to join the NUS.

I am disappointed that Guildsheet was impounded - it was an unfair and disproportionate action, but I do not believe that this swung the vote. As James has said, it's time to make sure NUS deliver on all the things they've promised. Experience tells me this will be an immense challenge for them - we need to hold them to this.

I was wondering if there is a way to opt out of the union and not be a member of Imperial College Union [aka ICNUS]. I respect the decision but can not get around the subject of being called a member of NUS.

For the first time in years, I'm ashamed to be an Imperial graduate.

Dammit, I knew I should have hacked the election server.

Our Students' Union is part of NUS, they represent Students' Unions, who in turn represent us.

Alex:

Ahem. Before you start announcing us leaders of the student movement, could you actually do something to demonstrate we are leading?

I suspect that we will not be leading, but following.

Real leadership would have been building up the Aldwych group.

andy:

I'm slightly worried that having affiliated, and provided a national platform on which to prance, we shall get a lower quality of Sabatical candidates in the future. But other than that, it's just a big waste of money.

Lets hope College make good on their apparantly unwritten promise to cover the costs from the ULU subscription. Otherwise I think there will be a sudden and violent backlash come BAG season.

@Siavash:

You can opt out of being a member of the Union, simply by going to see John or someone similar and asking to opt out. I know a few people that did, many moons ago.

I'm pretty sure (but don't quote me on this) that this prevents you from being a member of any clubs or societies though.

Seb:

Hah, that implies we had a high quality to start with.

I kid, I kid.

You might be right with that, but I can only hope that our electorate is smart enough to pick the one who isn't going to prance around. Time will tell.

I am personally very disappointed by the result and I have clearly let down those who firmly believed in the incompetence of the NUS (and this includes me).

Ed, I have not idea where you got the idea of me being the leader of Yes: "James Fok, leader of the 'Yes' campaign responded:" I am probably one of the most upset individual within ICU. What is important now is that we need to prove those who have voted yes that it was the worst decision they have made in this referendum.

I believe within 12 months many people will think again and I hope they realise that the discount the NUS offer will be pointless and the fee we have paid could be better spent in other areas.

The Yes campaign have publicised that no club budget will be cut and as an ICU exec member, I shall make sure this will be the case.

I will no longer be a student at Imperial in the following year. I sincerely hope that the students in the future will make the right decision, be that we remain in having changed the NUS or leave it after realising the lack of benefit we will receive.

can someone just confirm to me what the exact wording of the referendum question was?

James,

That's what was written in the article before it was edited - hence the phrase "Editor, where art thou", which qulifies the statement.

And now, as to how one opts-out:

Merely talking to the President is not enough - you have to write to the Academic Registrar, confirming your intention to opt-out of the union, and it's also a good idea to acknowledge the consequences of the action, as well as CC the President.

These include the ability to hold a Union post, however, you can still be a member of a club, as well as use the facillities - ICU get the money for your membership whether or not you are one. So you can also use the bars etc.

Yours,

E J Piggott

Who opted-out of ICU February 2005

What is disappointing is how this seems to have become a personal issue for some - why can't we simply accept this as democracy in its simplest form - more people voted 'yes' than 'no'! Why don't all in both camps acknowledge that this was a campaign for and a decision in the interest of the students rather than an attempt at political or egotistical gains.

I voted yes because I believe that the NUS offers us a lot of opportunities that will benefit our students at the same time I am skeptical of the abilities of our union and its officers to avail these opportunities on behalf of the students.

I guess the margin of victory suggests an even keel, which should keep the Pro-NUS lobby on its feet to make sure this affiliation works. And if it doesn't - let's ask the question again, but let's not dismiss it before.

Can anyone explain to me what happened Wednesday afternoon?

The rest of the time the voting follows a smooth curve, with both answers parallel, but there is such peak then for the Yes that has me baffled.

Personalised 'remember to vote' emails went out Weds PM, and I think the medic president sent one out too.

So the No campaign lost because they were less willing to spam people with emails and bully people on walkways? Rather typical of NUS student politics - arguments are ignored, and s/he who is the most obnoxious idiot wins.

The people have spoken we're in, end of story. It was a narrow defeat for us but a defeat none the less. There are questions surrounding how the referendum was run and the conduct of both campaign teams but this is an entirely separate issue from the fact that we are joining whether people like it or not.

Now the onus is on the NUS and those in favour of joining to show that they are worth the money. If they don't, the rabid media that they have been moaning about will be down on them like a ton of bricks to publicise every single example of waste, incompetency and irrelevance that the NUS has been accused of perpetuating. If a lot of it is true, we'll be straight back out the door.

I would love to be proved wrong on the points A-NUS have been making about it being a fairly useless organisation but realistically I can't see that happening.

Lets wait and see what happens.

PS. Most of the A-NUS team are graduating this year. If anyone wants to keep our flame burning please get in touch and we'll pass on all our contacts, material etc for you to use in the disaffiliation referendum :)

The most dissapointing thing about the result is that both The Imperial and Edinburgh executive would agree that the NUS still has a lot of problems and that by being affliated they can somehow lead the "reform agenda".

The fact remains that besides the cheer imperial will get at the beginning of national conference and the self gratiating message from Gemma Tumelty in her presidential address, nothing will change.

Imperial's voice will get lost in the cacophony of far left ideological rhetoric, you will be ignored and your influence will be minimal.

The only way to reform the NUS is to register your dissatisfaction by leaving the movement.

I hope more unions leave in the future not becasue i'm a scab or a tory but because i can never believe that a conference that would rather debate the merits of protecting columbian coke workers over the futures of thousands of their members by supporting a irresponsible lecturere strike. Is a national union that i could, with a clear conscience, ask any student to be a part of.

Speaking to several people yesterday evening, it seems that there were alot of people who did not support NUS but didn't (or forgot!) to vote because they thought the referendum wouldn't go through anyway.

It is extremely infuriating that these people don't want to spend 1 minute of their lives logging into a website and expressing a preference, leaving others to fight the 'fight'; however it highlights the apathy of many Imperial students who don't particular care about being in the NUS and are almost disinterested by the whole affair because it won't really affect them enough for them to take action. To an extent they are right - will non-hacks ever really appreciate what the union is about, or whether the NUS can offer us what all the central hacks care about?

The other frustrating point I found was that many freshers I spoke to voted Yes because of the promise of 'discounts' and free food - they have not really got involved in the union (you generally become a Union/club officer from 2nd year upwards) and thus do not fully understand the arguments each way and the implications of being in the NUS.

The phrase: 'It's just not cricket' springs to mind.

The leaders of the No campaign have my utmost respect for (in the most part) losing graciously. We voted in and there isn't anything you can do about it now. Our time would be much better spent making the NUS work for us than moaning that we'll be out in a few years.

Incredulous - I've been a club officer since the end of my first term at imperial in my first year. There are always oppurtunities to get involved and I know many freshers now who are just as active as I was last year.

u ppl are so f**king dumb. if youre so sad about the results, why didnt you campaign properly? and why is the only place you give a s**t on live? clearly this points to the fact that youre nerdy hack losers that havent seen daylight in a year and just sit in front of your pcs writing insolent c**p. get a life and get to grips with it, its not the end of the world you faggots

that's just not cricket

freedom of speech!

Several posts have been deleted from this thread because they were off-topic and/or offensive. They also fell a bit short of the IQ filter.

editor, i know who just posted some of that and i HIGHLY doubt your IQ is anywhere near his/her. but try it on, maybe someday you'll make it somewhere with cheapshots like that

"freedomofspeech" - your comments which are directly related to this thread have been left in place, despite sounding like the ramblings of an uneducated moron. Comments relating to John Collins' mum have been removed.

I love you adrian

oi! that wasnt me. adrian youre a slut

editor,

are you allowed to insult people on this thread like that?

concerned reader

'no' lost because of edmunt hunt. how many more times is that guy gonna get put down...

Hmmm, 8/10 for the rant I reckon.

2 marks subracted for pro-NUS not typing enough flames here.

Full marks to the editor being awake too.

Well I've very much enjoyed being a member of an entirely apolitical union. I'm surprised that there is such a big thing about national representation, I thought that was what MPs were for but I might be wrong. Also I think an MP has less than 5m constituents each to represent so you'd actually have a better chance of getting your voice heard (as well as having a rational discussion).

Besides I'm genuinely upset that we couldn't just get the extra money off college we'd have needed to join NUS and spend it on beer instead.

Realistically I don't think it'll make really much difference to most. The Union in my experience has only really affected clubs, 'freshers' week' events and the Summer Ball. IC already offers an excellent package for clubs and I don't think they'll be too bothered about our summer ball.

And at the end of the day it's not my problem, I'm graduating this year!

It's up to the editor what is published, so he can insult who he likes. The CGCU exec will happily consider any complaints against the editor.

Is it possible for the 2000 of us who don't want to be co-opted into the NUS to individually opt-out?

Apparently, Part II of the Eduction Act 1994 says:

"(c) a student should have the right?

(i) not to be a member of the union, or

(ii) in the case of a representative body which is not an association, to signify that he does not wish to be represented by it,

and students who exercise that right should not be unfairly disadvantaged, with regard to the provision of services or otherwise, by reason of their having done so;"

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1994/Ukpga_19940030_en_3.htm

Does this mean we can opt out of 'representation' and still continue using the Union's facilities?

Yes it does. But if opting out makes you feel better then you're a bit weird really...

No point getting this angry about everything peeps. I voted no but 53% is hardly a massive margin and will be easily overturned if we rock up to conference and things are as bad as Tom Page etc make out we'll be out in no time. If not, im sure our A-NUS chums will be big enough to put their defeat to one side and ackowledge they were wrong if the NUS really is a good think for us.

Remember, Yes had the (very public) backing of 2 sabbs, the medic pres, was led by an experienced political campaigner and had the benefit of every single body that the NUS could muster including a lot of their exec and they still only beat the far less high profile and inexperienced No! campaign by less than 200 votes.

I've spoken to several members of the No campaign. They never argued that the NUS should cease to exist, only that in its present form we will not be able to bring any great reforms that would make it more palatable for us. If you check the video on the stoic website of the NUS debate you will see that No, far from being hysterically anti the NUS altogether actually had some quite good ideas about how the NUS could be made a bit less farcical. If after a couple of years it is clear we are getting nowhere then disaffiliation will be a no-brainer as the next No campaign will be able to stand up and say "we've tried, but the NUS is that bad".

Ah, if only this had been held on a level playing field. With two sabbs, the NUS "officials" (surely they should be off doing their proper jobs - although, that would imply they had something productive to do in the first place) helping out, and basically bribing people, is it any wonder the Yes campaign was going to win? OK, free food isn't really bribery as such, but if someone who has been at Imperial for six weeks is offered some free sweets and told to vote a certain way, are they more likely to go with the food?

I really disapprove of the timing of this too, why hold it at the start of the academic year when freshers don't really know much about the Union and how it is run?

Would it also be possible next time to limit campaigning to IC UGs/PGs only, i.e. not allowing all the paid-up external hacks to come in and assist one campaign when there exists no equivalent body for the opposing campaign? Or am I just being an idealist?

What a tragedy and a travesty.

I'll be handing my ICU life membership card into the Union Office on Monday. I want nothing to do with a Union that wants to throw money at an organization which thinks grand political schemes are more important than student welfare.

Hurray. The NUS are condemning changes to the mental health act: http://www.nusonline.co.uk/news/273419.aspx.

the cgcu exec has done nothing this year. sid was active last year, trying to save a dying faculty union. a bit sad to see them overturned already by the rcsu in its first year. bye bye engineers!

as to guildsheet, nominee for worst/most boring student publication of the century?

cgcuexec - I don't know what cgcuexec has done this year but regarding Guildsheet, I think Tristan has done a wonderful job. Keep it up!

cgcuexec and Ron,

Without sounding incompetent and asking you to do my job, please if you have any good idea to share with the rest of us, post them on here or email me direct.

My team and I have already put together a number of events and there are more to come. 200 engineering freshers had a very enjoyable evening at the Freshers' Ball. Civil Engineering students had a great pub crawl in the 3rd week. Mech Eng also had a number of careers presentations. Materials and RSM had a paintballing trip, etc... If my officers and I am not looking after a particular department please tell me. The volunteers have put in many hours of hard work without even being thanked. SO please do not accuse them of doing nothing whilst there are clearly events being run.

Most of the past events were run by individual dept socs and we are currently working on integrating these event. I hope this will improve in the near future.

James - I wasn't suggesting that you and your team are incompetent, I was just replying to cgcuexec and commenting that I personally was not aware of what Exec had done this year.

Not wishing to digress from the argument at hand, I don't think the job of running any Faculty Union can be managed by students, there is an undeniable need for a Sabb. John Collins during his campaign made some promises regarding this, and now that he has ensured affiliation with the NUS, I think its time he move to more pressing and impacting issues like gettinf Faculty Sabbs.

without sounding incompetent myself...i used to run a faculty union and know that it is a lot of work. however, this years cgcu exec hasnt got a lot to show thus far. theres the JOINT freshers ball, which admittedly, is a bit of work but primarily over the summer and therefore not really relevant to whats been done during the term, the lord mayors show (which 99% of students dont even know about), and to my knowledge 2 bar nights. what departments do is what departments do and shouldnt be mingled with by the exec. the exec should, on its own, organise events cross-dept and integrate the faculty. eg sports competitions, sports leagues, drinking events, non-drinking events such as trips, careers fairs, fund raising events, etc etc. the rcsu has done plenty thus far and last year all faculty unions did a lot. i dont see why this years cgcu exec doesnt get more involved. this is not an insult to the exec, who i'm sure are involved to a great degree, but they simply arent doing things which students can see. did rcsu president jad marrouche get involved with the nus referendum? no, because he wanted to invest his time in things more pertinent to his faculty. now, james might be adament about his position with relation to the nus, but there are a lot of things that the cgcu has missed out in the meantime and they need to catch up. constructive criticism, i'm sorry if it doesnt come off like that. but do something!

ps...yes FU presidents should be sabbaticals, there's no doubt in my mind that they dont do just as much as a union sab

I'm not an engineer, but I still knew about the LMS when I was at Imperial. Heck, I even knew some of the intricate details about the float last year. OK, I don't know too much about the publicity for this event (I rarely went in the Engineering buildings, and probably never again will) but if people from outside Engineering know about this event, then it looks a bit silly saying that "99% of students don't know about it". Now as I seem to remember, there were a few teething problems last year, which required all the VOLUNTEERS to put in extra time (outside their study hours too) in order to get the float ready for the day. As a cross-department event I thought it has been well organised in the past, and this is coming from a scientist!

If 4,000 people voted yes with a 3% majority and a 30% turnout, then apparently Imperial has a population about 24,000! Has something gone wrong here?

Yes, your maths has gone wrong. 30% of a 13,500 population is 4,000. And I'd have said it was a 6% majority, as 53% - 47% leaves 6%.

4,000 people voted, not all of them voted Yes.

Thank you for the constructive criticism. During Wednesday morning and afternoon when all those NUS volunteers were campaigning at the walkway, I had a meeting in the Faculty Building and a meeting at 170 Queen's Gate both concerning the well being of the students. So I was not all about the NUS.

Regarding spend time for the students in my faculty. I agree that the exec can try and do more. There has been a number of events the exec had organised. The football tournament is happening already and there are many teams involved.

I too think FU Presidents should sabbs.

If we scrapped the role of DPGS and withdrew from the NUS we'd probably have enough money for a C&G and RCSU sabb.

Who would like to start the petition next year for another referendum?

"He Who knows all" you did live with the designer of the float, and yes, making that 20m long bridge stand up and able to take a persons weight using only 1" box section steel did take a bit of thought!