On behalf of the Medical School, I would like to inform all those present at council that I have contacted the Duty Psychiatrist regarding Mr Piggott.

If you are attempting to say that if someone actually speaks their mind at Union Council, then they are refferred to a Psychaiatrist, this smacks to me of a certain period of history. I actually have the BALLS to speak out!

Tempers FLARE, not flair! Editor, where art thou?

If anyone would like to see the vote announcement, followed by Mr Piggott's 'outbreak'; they can stream the clip from the STOIC website

Ever vigilant...

Just wondering if this could be spoofed. I guess it can :)

In my opinion, Ed's outbreak, whilst neither constructive nor a good move, was completely understandable. There's only so much that you can take when you feel so strongly on an issue. Everyone has their own breaking point; mine has been broached already this year, but my reactions have (perhaps thankfully) been less public.

Importantly, you don't have to agree with someone to understand them.

NO MORE BEER IN THE COUNCIL.

It should be the agenda for the next Council. Surely the Medics will vote against it. Sod it! ;-)

A Couple of points:

a) I was not drunk (I didn't touch a drop at any point of the meeting), but I'm sure some people in that room were well on their way.

b) I do not regret saying anything that I said, whilst I do accept that it may have been over the top.

AFAIK

ULU Council have a no alcohol policy.

Follow this train of thought...

ICU wishes to be an inclusive body, Not everyone is happy with alcohol, ICU should ban alcohol at all public meetings.

comments?

We did have a no alcohol policy. Sadly, certain unimpeachable sabbaticals don't seem to realise that they need to renew policies every once in a while.

I thought the meeting was suitably ICU. The medics made no attempt to hide their meeting in the recess where they agreed to support the President (I wonder if this is linked to a promise on the Reynolds Bar) and the Guilds block abstain was frankly pathetic. You are on Council to represent people, not to sit on the fence, and you should all resign.

However (as ever) Emeritus President Common summed up the entire argument in a stylish and coherent fashion: the regulations were breached; if the President acted maliciously in doing so, then censure him. If however he was merely being a muppet (and just a little bit incompetent) then censure is too severe. To that end, the result was the right one.

Sam,

Don't be a dolt. If there are two diametric arguments (drunk vs sober) then it's not 'inclusive' to just side with one.

ICU is meant to be 'representative' so we'd want a vote on it. And I charge my glass and vote for a double gin and tonic (ice+lemon thanks).

I was not going to vote yes or no to a motion of such importance on the basis of a half-assed debate. I did not think Sen had up to that point presented a suitable defence - but he was presented from convincing me, as it were, by the move to vote. I have to say I agree with everything Ed said during his rant, I just thought the delivery was a bit over the top.

Adam,

Don't be a dolt...

If you can show me a religion which specifically prescribes alcohol, please do... (ICSMSU is not (as yet) an officially recognised religion, so you can't self-prescribe (even if the GMC would let you)).

However I can name more than one religion, suitably well represented at Imperial, which specifically prohibits drinking alcohol. In fact some believers won't go near anywhere serving alcohol.

So by holding our meetings in the Union (licensed premises) we are excluding those people, by drinking in our meetings (and I am by no means innocent of this) we are making those meetings exclusive rather than inclusive.

Now I'm not saying it would be a popular motion, but in order to be inclusive, we have to address issues such as this.

Why does a religion need to be officially recognised for it to count. Surely the important bit is what the individual believes and not what some religious leader somewhere or an ancient text tells him to do. Thus, people, such as members of ICSMSU, have just as much right to believe that drinking is required as they are to believe it mustn't happen. Self-prescribing should be the only way, really (of course, if you self-prescribe the same thing the koran says, that's fine).

Not to mention the interpretability of the teachings of all religions.

I think if ICSMSU tried, they might become a recognised religion...

I think whether the President was being malicious or not is not the issue. The issue is more to do with whether he is capable of carrying out the President's duties according to the rules, and I would say a lot of people would been keen to debate whether he is or not.

If we only discipline people who do things maliciously (and this has not been the case, as was demonstrated earlier in the academic year at ICU), what you are basically saying is that if students elect someone and then discover they are a lemon we have no right to reply at all and no way of removing them from their post. I fail to believe this is the case, and I think many people would agree that what you have implied is prepoterous.

Directed in response to Mr Heeps.

I am in the process of retabling the lapsed No Alcohol policy for next Council - which I hope to be the last that I attend this year.

Anyone who is interested in seconding, please email me.

I'm not quite sure how this debate managed to cross in to theology (BTW consumption of alcohol an integral part of communion, but we digress).

I was fairly satisfied with Sen's excuses, and I'm happy to accept that he made a couple of mistakes. However, many of those present felt that they were not given the opportunity to air their views, and others feel that the result may have been very different had there been a secret ballot. Not everybody, at least where I was sitting, felt that democracy worked as well as it should have in that council meeting.

In response to crude references to some attendee's mental health, I'd like to thank Mr Piggott for turning what was turning out to be a rather dull meeting into something a little more memorable!

Dear A N Other

You miss my point. The case made against Mr Ganesh proved that the regulations had been breached, but in addition, Council did not believe that it warranted censuring him for. That's not to say that disciplinary action was not called for, but Council may have felt that it would have been more appropriate for a more minor form of disciplinary action to be taken. However, the issue is now off the table, and cannot be addressed again.

Wow I laughed for ages. What a farce. The whole thing. Wow.

It is indeed sad that yet again people curtailed what was developing into a sensible discussion. I didn't contribute because I'm not a student any more, and it was sad enough i was there at all...but this was an issue that pissed me off all last year as some of you may have noticed.

People who call for votes inevitabley do it because they want to get home or they want to do something else. Why are they at council? Its not meant to be over in half an hour! These things should get a full airing, and most people failed to understand the gravity of the situation.

I happen to think that the election regulations are too contrived to allow seneible understanding of them, and so sen was not really guilty of any malicious intent. But there are so many of these little things that Sen is guilty of over the past 18 months, that last night a sensible opputunity to question the presidents whole attitude to upholding the constitution - one of his main jobs.

As AN Other has said (why can't people use their real names!), discipline is a form as deterrent (for future presidential candidates as much as Sen) as much as a form of punishment, and incomptence is just as much a form of culpability as malice.

OK so exec elections are small issues in the world of increasnig student welfare, but when you add that to incosistent meetings, appaling documentation and wish-washy policies produced by this administration its frankly depressing. The only person who comes close to having any decent ideas on how to run the place (myself included) is Andy Heeps (see manifesto article, even though all of that was so obvious, why can't Sen implment it??)

My biggest disappointment is my life membership was given to me by the current president. sigh.

I bought mine Gus...

£7 per annum...

bargain!

1) ULU Council does operate a no-booze cruising policy at its meetings, but that still doesn't cut down on outbursts.

2) If you wish to "make Council more relevent", ensure that you don't bog yourselves down in endless reams of paper in the form of reports - stick em all online and just move them all en bloc as starred items of business - the chairman and secretary of any large meeting such as a council should be able to construct suitable agenda and order for debate. Letting people droan on is also not helpful, particularlty when its the X and Y show that happens every meeting...

3) How about trying to hold Council at different times and different venues to break any Council Traditions such as "getting sloshed", "monday night kick such-n-such night".

4) And perhaps the makeup of Council should be addressed - too many portfolios? maybe not enough? too many ordinary members and not enough from specific constituencies such as departments or clubs/socs?

Council should be the policy maker, executive the policy implementer... not a monthy pantomime or imperial-state circus! :)

My comments on this:

• I was annoyed by the fact the discussion was cut short by someone who looks like he has been brought up by Rupert Bear. I had several points to raise, which although may not have affected the result of the censure vote, would have been recorded as being said. I may have been heard if the chair didn't give preferencial treatment to people he knows.
• I don't believe that it is fair to say that the censure can only go ahead if it was done maliciously. That's a pile of s***. If someone f***s up, it's their own fault. You cannot be incompetant or complacent in a position such as the President of the Union. In any real job you'd get the book thrown at you.

So if a complete muppet got voted in (as compared to a 90% muppet), and although he thought he was doing good, he was f***ing it up for everyone else, we can't censure him? Great. Fantastic.

• The minutes of council and exec are becoming a complete farce. Sen writes them. He often doesn't do this until the absolute last minute, at which point he does them from memory. That isn't acceptable.

They never reach the web, and this makes it very hard to actually tell what is going on.

I thought that maybe as he had charged people for not knowing what happened in a meeting that maybe something would happen about this. Oh, no, it won't will it, because he can do as he likes.

• Sen said that he knew prior to the meeting that STV would have to be used in certain circumstances. It was pretty clear that with the number of people standing, that it was highly likely to happen. And it did happen.

He then says it isn't possible to use the system because it takes too long. Not if you plan to do it. So it's a question of him being too lazy? So lazy as not to protect the democracy of proceedings....

• And as Gus said, there have been many, many other aspects of Sen's behaviour that should be kept in check. I don't know about most of them. I know about a few, but I'll keep my mouth shut for now.
• I'm also known as Evil One.

If I followed Sens argument correctly, and understood Hamish's point,

There doesn't appear to be a way that one could prepare for counting a complicated STV vote system. It takes how long it takes, which would be several hours. In order to get executive elected, everyone would need to wait around for another hour.

What Sen appeared to be saying was that papers wen't up for exec that people could sign up for before they got ellected to council, but that they would need to be ellected to council to take them up.

Hammish refered to this as double hopping or some equaly impenetrable jargon.

Therefore, because it was perfectly possible to sign up to be a member of exec before being elected to council no one could said to have been deprived, except by not realising this was a possibility.

Then comes the marked ballot paper, I'm not sure where this fitted in precisely, but I'm not sure that I care to know.

Basically, it seems to me that if the election system as I understand it is in place, someone is always going to have a problem, either the union by not having an exec ellected, or by those people who didn't know they could stand for exec before being ellected to council contingent on them being elected to council before they take up a position on exec, or everyone has to stay around for hours and hours while a complicated quota STV system is used.

I don't see how the votes couldn't have been counted within the council in October had there been people laid on to do it - the meeting went on for long enough.

And as for people being able to stand for exec ont he night, I don't believe this is true. There were 8 fully seconded candidates for the post on the night, that was Sen's exact words, so papers must have been up and filled in by those who stood.

So exactly when (if you don't know the ins and outs of union politics) was it made clear who could and when they should stand for exec? When it was too late I think.

ummm,

it's a minor contitutional point, but you don't need to elect Exec members at the first council. Everyone seems to be forgetting this.

To run STV easily, you elect OM's of Council, and then at the *NEXT* meeting of council (whether it is an ordinary meeting, or one specifically for that purpose) you elect the OMs Exec. Exec can continue without OM's... it doesn't have as bigger mandate, but it is quorate.

A few other little grenades to chuck into the discussion.

1. We could have held council earlier in the term. Sens attempt to prevent having more than 2 councils failed anyway as we had emergency this and that.

Maybe in future we should have one council 10 days after the start of term, hold elections then, then hold annother 10 days later to do exec elections and normal business. It was the 21st October before we held council for the first full time this year anyway.

Yes, this means we could get all the elections done QUICKER than sens job of it this year.

1. It is the presidents job to sort out how to do the elections, it is also him, is it not, that plans what meetings will happen when. Therefore this mess is due to his piss poor planning over the summer.
2. Remember who took our current constitution through council last year? So if he thinks it is bollocks, and unworkable why the hell did he not sort this out previously.
3. Does sen know who "we" are. Its getting very confusing. Is "we" ICU or is "we" college? It looked to me like sen is now representing college to ICU, not ICU to college....

Sorry, but have I missed something? There was a democratic vote, the result of which was 30 votes to 2! Even if you remove the medics completely (and, btw, lunchtime meetings would effectively do this, along with wye silwood...) that would still have been a comprehensive result. I think that council acted quite sensibly to kill a motion which would prejudice Sen's future employability for the sake of what appeared to be a personal feud. There wasn't a medic position on this issue, I suspect that we voted the way we did because we are, due to the nature of our employ, acutely aware of the reprecussions of what one does at university on their future. Clumsy sentence, apologies.

As for banning alcohol in council, it would be a little puritanical. To be honest, a little anaesthesia is required for many of the debates in council - witness the other night.

Finally, good work Katherine - whatever my opinion on the issue, she made a persuasive case for her paper, and didn't argue when it was voted out. Nice one!

>I was annoyed by the fact the discussion was cut short by someone who looks like he has been brought up by Rupert Bear.

Andrew, I am assuming you are cheap jibing at me... because we moved to a vote after plenty of bulls***.

Well, at least I don't spend my days crawling around plant rooms in shopping centres...

And just what is your problem with Rupert bear?

Tom - also known as 'bored one'