The ACC are considering purchasing special gold plated tankards with their share of the money saved from not financing Guilds next year.

Rumors concerning ACC Exec team building week to Barbados are still to be confirmed...

Sure Guilds have been irresponsible in not submitting a budget, but if the CSB has zeroed the Guilds budget as a result - that is just as irresponsible on the part of the CSB. Everyone in every part of the Union should be working as a team. Deadlines are for getting things happening, not using as an excuse to kill off bits of student activity. I would have expected the CSB to penalise Guilds with a heavy cut on their previous year's budget, not zero it.

It's an appauling situation at the end of a bad year for guilds. It's going to be my job to collect back what I can and to secure finance by other means.

I am surprised and upset that the Union sees fit to treat one of their faculty unions - which it should be noted have significantly more responsibility than simple club administration - in such an offhand way.

Luke, did you mean that the extra money ACC receives should be allocated to all the martial arts clubs who have finally been told the Union Gym is unavailable next year after a long 15 month dilly-dally, and yet have not been informed that any contingency money/plan is available to help them relocate to somewhere like Wilson House/Ethos?

OTOH I agree that maybe Guilds should have taken a significant cut to their budget rather than have it wiped completely. I didn't realise individual CSB members were so keen on getting extra money for their clubs they didn't spare a thought for the poor incoming Guilds president who is quite literally left in the s*** due to no fault of his own.

It is a well known fact that certain post grad member of the CSB is extremely anti-FU. I am not surprise that "CSB" has taken such action.

Unfortunately this has an impact on Guilds clubs through no fault of their own, so I would expect CSB to understand that and restore the grant money.

They should also note that unlike a CSC, the clubs do not elect their chair and treasurer, it is done by faculty-wide ballot. Last year's club chairs can't even be blamed for electing a weak team.

Right. Can I point out, even though it is in the article, that CGCU missed TWO deadlines, we extended it once.

When discussing the introduction of a later deadline, we all decided that if this was not met no money would be allocated. THE CGCU REPRESENTATIVE WAS THERE, he agreed to the decision.

If you don't have penalties for missing deadlines, what is the point of having deadlines at all? And it takes the p*ss out of people who did work their asses off to hit the deadline.

Finally, with regards to their initial budget cut, to be fair they did ask for a "Slush Fund". I though my ears were broken.

The fault in no way lies with CSB, as Guilds have their (rightful) place there, and hence were involved in all its decisions. As with any layer of the Union the CGCU successors will just have to pick up the pieces of a poor preceding committee.

But Guilds clubs should not be expected to pick up the pieces of a poor committee they did not elect.

I presume Guilds is getting its welfare money from RWB this year, so representation will not take a hit?

So no guilds photocopier and no budget - perhaps I should take advantage of Tesco's andrex offer to print guildsheet on next year

One would be tempted to be flippant over this all affair and show the requisite two fingers to ICU, but I think it might be better to negotiate a contribution with the Engineering Faculty seperately to start funding Guilds seperately rather then sending all the money to ICU. Additionally, we can always follow the Medic ideology and raise some corporate sponsorship ourselves.

Sid, Nick, Tris, pg et al.,

perhaps a better course of action would be to first appeal the decision to the Executive Committee, after all, they are the ones that approve the budget and ensure the fair distribution of Union funds.

I don't believe two fingers are required to be shown to ICU, nor should people look to split the money the College gives to the Union (this would be bad for both parties), especially when there is still avenue for appeal. People on CSB sit there specifically to represent their clubs and so look out for their best interests, people on Exec sit there to look out for the best interests of the Union as a whole.

The CGCU representative (ironically, Boon himself) was present and agreed to the zero fund option if the second deadline was breached. Perhaps people should ask more questions of him than of the committee that enforced the decision he agreed to? Exec next meet on the 16th so there is still time for Boon (or James) to lodge an appeal.

Everybody seems have kicked into silly overdrive mode over this so can I suggest a few things:

1) I highly doubt that ICU Exec/CSB will deny Guilds money if and when they can finally be bothered to ask for it properly.

2) To this requires Guilds to 'do' something. It doesn't matter who, but someone needs to write an appeal to exec explaining where this all went wrong and why they need the money. It shouldn't be too hard.

3) Several people need to be shot for letting this happen in the first place. As James pointed out Guilds actually agreed to the decision, and then ratified it by failing to turn up to the meeting. Not very clever.

Now lets all put our toys back in the pram, write a letter and be friends again.

p.s. Sid - I wholeheartedly agree with you over the need for Guilds to raise sponsorship. ALL parts of the Union need to realise there is limited money and start raising funding for themselves. Sponsorship also has the added bonus of not having any pesky HEFCE restrictions, so you can buy whatever you want...

"I think it might be better to negotiate a contribution with the Engineering Faculty seperately to start funding Guilds seperately rather then sending all the money to ICU"

That would require C&G having to submit a budget request of some kind to the faculty. This is not much harder than submitting a budget request to ICU.

Either way, you actually need to submit something...

I look forward to seeing a budget appeal at the next meeting of the ICU Executive Committee.

I guess all the suggestions above are valid and workable, I guess its just a rite of passage for self-obsessed hacks and political movers and shakers to take some controversial decisions, to liven this place up. A couple of weeks of wrangling with appeals and counter appeals, where the onus will be on the process rather than substance will eventually lead to an amicable solution.

Obviously, there is always the case of incompetent CV-obsessed officers being elected to important positions comes to mind. I would be interested in knowing whether the VPFS's line manager was aware of the financial issue and whether DPFS had made any communications either.

No, I didn't contact the VPFS directly, Eric did as it was his job to do so not mine (CSCs/FUs may be responsible to me for the running of their budget but they are responsible to Eric for submitting the next one on time) this is not buck-passing either, just teamwork.

Eric contacted all CSCs/FUs that had failed to submit their budget numerous times and they were all made aware of the deadlines. The Guilds VPFS even agreed them as he was in the meeting that set them and the zero fund policy (coincidently sitting directly next to me if memory serves).

I sincerely hope to see the appeal at the next meeting of the Executive Committee (although as I will be on the committee that judges the appeal, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further at this juncture).

"It is a well known fact that certain post grad member of the CSB is extremely anti-FU".

Hmm, is that me, Jon or Sharma?

Personally I only do what is right by my clubs. I whipped them to get the budgets in on time before sitting down, working out what they needed, what they didn't need and checking that what they asked for was accurate (even down to the cost of diesel in minibuses for each trip next year - based on this years costs). We then pitched for about half of what we decided they needed.

Our 9 page budget submission was in on time, as was our budgets. It was also cut back, as with everyone elses, to below what the clubs need.

Now picture a CSC / FU / CU agreeing to a budget deadling, then missing it, then agreeing to an extension (with associated concequences), then missing it. What would you do?

If guilds is zero funded I can loosen the shackles on RCSU motor a little - I know that ashley is a little peed off with me and considering an appeal.

What would you do?

How can people stay in their jobs if they are so incompentent? When somebody takes on a job they should be aware of what they have to do and their responsibilities, and if they f*ck up, like what has happened here they should be prepared to take the consequence. What is really annoying is that people will still boast about their "achievements" on their CV.

Whilst I have restrained from commenting so far, here is my bit...

Clearly the Guilds VPFS is completely stupid, since no normal person would agree to something like that, and then not go and sort it out straight away, instead of leaving it.

The real questions that should be asked is why has it not been done. Instead of throwing threats around and being bureacratic, have any of the union elected committee (sabbs, csc chairs other guilds people etc...) gone and spoken to the VPFS to find out what the problem is? If he is that incompetent, then as a union, who work together, people should offer to sit down and help the guy out, because at the end of the day, all that is going to happen is that it will cause more paperwork and waste more people's meeting time to sort the issue out.

I sat in 2 years worth of SAC / BAG meetings to listen to arguments about money. Luckily I managed to get Silwood and Wye the same funding, when they failed to submit budgets on time, instead of being petty and zeroing them.

People make mistakes, some bigger than others, and those who want to waste time pointing fingers instead of helping to sort it out, really should get a life.

Guilds like any other FSU and CSC has a number of clubs, and other things it runs, and it is about time people helped each other out, rather than standing on the side lines, creating petty bits of burocracy.

Finally, every year there are budget cuts, every year no club is happy, yet the union get more money from college....

I like the fact that Boon's facebook profile pic shows him asleep in bed!!!!

hahahaha! I bet the slate could do a better job then this! I think 'Southwell Slate' is right; we need to get rid of the 'cv culture' of people in the union. Looks like there are a lot of committees doing too much talking/blaming and not enough form filling!

GO RCSU

Random student,

from what I've heard, one of the reasons that people may not have gone to see the VPFS is that no-one can ever find him when they try (http://live.cgcu.net/news/snippets/1353).

The CGCU president should draft his letter accepting Boon's resignation.

This all sounds rather jobsworthy to me. Surely the union of a top university is more mature than that? On second thoughts, maybe not.

@ the slate

I think you will find that the VP-FS & VP-A are unlikely to be union hacks, and more likely to be in it for the popularity contest, with little experience and or dedication to the role that they should be filling (reminiscent of more than a few other candidates for other roles in student representation over my years here).

I truly doubt that people without Clubs & Socs experience could even attempt to fill in a budget (i know i couldnt!), let alone juggle it with other academic time commitments, so your suggestion that such people would be the best is idealistic and fallacious.

Most members of club committees put large amounts of their time into the running of their club, both meetings and planning outside of that. From my experience, club officers who dodge committees are even LESS likely to fill in forms.... not the other way around.

Even as a RCSU member, i am saddened that CGCU has had such a bad lot this year to deal with, though maybe it will inspire members to vote more wisely in the future. I am equally sure that money will end up Guild's way somehow, by means direct or indirect.

Yaaay

To an0n

I agree with you! Those guys weren?t hacks; they tried to fill in the budgets and failed. I think that the union officers who are hacks should have helped these people. It seems to me that a lot of hacks are just an old boys club of CV builders on an ego trip, and when outsiders make it into the union hierarchy the hacks try their best to undermine them. Why couldn?t someone help the VPFS to fill in the form, or why couldn?t the overseeing committee just realise that CGCU is an integral part of the union and cant function without money and so just give them the equivalent of last years grant. To me all these committee meetings occurring without achieving a grant for CGCU seems vividly reminiscent of a Kafka novel. At least they got their budget now, that?s something.

I seriously think that someone who made into imperial can perform the job of an accountant/bureaucrat and fill in a budget if he/she puts enough time in it (you have a fair point about it interfering with academic achievements, in my naivety I forgot the C&G aren?t blessed with as much free time as we are in the RCS).

Finally I think I ought to clarify my rather basic ?GO RCSU? chant. In no way do I want the CGCU to have no money next year, just as a slateist I am usually very critical of the union, but in my opinion this year the RCSU officers have done a great job, that?s all I was implying.

The VPFS had plenty of oppurtunity to ask for help and didn't. When the first deadline was missed help wasn't offered because pretty much everyone missed it (SCC and RCC = awesome).

But come on, seriously, everyone at every stage knew that CGCU were going to get their funding. CSB had to take action so that alarm bells were rung at a higher level.

I agree with James...

There is plenty of help available to fill in budget forms, and this to some extent would have been covered in union training which everyone has to take.

to Slateist @ post 25:

Far from being unhelpful, you'll find that hacks (if they were CV boosting they wouldn't do take a proper interest in the union and wouldn't be called a hack) have so much to do that they can't do everyone's jobs.

Club officers all have to fill in their own forms, and people at CSC/FU level have to ensure their own budget AND that of their member clubs are accurate (so eg for RCC/SCC that involves checking that some 45 documents are filled in correctly). One expects most club officers at CSC/FU level to have had prior experience anyway and so should be capable of completing a budget alone.

it's a vital learning experience anyway, all this bureaucracy - nowadays you need to fill in a form if you so much as take a plaster from a first aid kit.

Don't club treasurers have to undergo financial training before they can assume their role? Was the Guilds VSFS present for the training?

If so then he was given as much help as most of the Treasurers of the god only knows how many clubs (well, him, Fok, Matthews and Collins) that ICU runs?

@ slateist

Knowing a load of the "hacks", and TBH being considered a bit of one myself, i'd say that they would be more than happy to give up THEIR time to help give some direction if need be. However sympathy for people that dont ask for help and THEN dont deliver anything is understandably low.

Bureaucracy is a PITA, though i always find it amusing when in many walks of life the people complaining about over-bureaucratic systems are those that also complain about lack of transparency and disclosure..... not realising that the latter inevitably requires more forms to be filled in.

much ado about nothing!