JCR meeting 26/01/2025

Foundation year students on the JCR

-unknown nodeLN: suggestion of having a foundation year rep on the JCR – could be current foundation year running into next year, if they’re still here next year then they can oversee the foundation years next year

-unknown nodeBy-election could be run in October if they don’t stay for first year

-unknown nodeTM – purpose of the role?

-unknown nodeLN: represent foundation years on the JCR. Solves some of the problems, e.g. not freshers’ rep but could be foundation year rep instead

-unknown nodeSK: same term we serve, March to March?

-unknown nodeLN: yes, but might be able to make an exception for the foundation year rep and run October to October

Dates on 22nd & 23rd Feb – ballot

JCR elections 1st and 2nd weeks of March

17th March JCR handover dinner

Trees

-unknown nodeLN: current working plan in college (not yet approved by governing body) – remove 4 trees, ones most critically at risk

Funding: JCR Stash

-unknown nodeLN: we talked about committee stash before, came to quite a high price

-unknown nodeSW: £22 per hoodie

-unknown nodeLN: money couldn’t come from reserves bc it’s an annual thing

-unknown nodeSP: thinking about not funding the entire thing from the JCR budget

-unknown nodeLN: maybe each person could contribute say £15

-unknown nodeDiscussion of design/colour of hoodies

-unknown nodeLN: cap to £200 paid by JCR

Funding: Pink Week

-unknown nodeLN: request from pink week for some funding to run some events – about £100 total, 2x £50 for different events

Funding: co-curricular scheme

-unknown nodeLN: students could get some funding to encourage doing a project completely outside their degree, give around £50 to help them make a start

-unknown nodeLN: probably £50 cap per person, would have to limit the numbers

-unknown nodeSC: who would decide who gets the money?

-unknown nodeLN: for other colleges, it goes through their portal, looked at by academic registrar who is given guidelines and makes a decision – any contentious issues get sent to JCR Pres

-unknown nodeSP: where would the money actually come from? Which pot

-unknown nodeLN: maybe from the reserves?

-unknown nodeSP: how much would it cost, sounds v expensive

-unknown nodeIL: how many people?

-unknown nodeLN: how it works at other colleges – they have a termly pot, students give a presentation and people vote on who should get the money. We probs wouldn’t do that model

-unknown nodeJK: people could apply, one-time sort of thing, not just ongoing applications

-unknown nodeLN: people could submit ideas and vote online?

-unknown nodeTM: this would be expensive and we couldn’t give a meaningful amount of funding. We could give one person a decent amount or lots of people such a token amount that it’s not worth it. We don’t have that much money to spend. Optics about rent issue, giving out money for hobbies doesn’t look great. Also issues about if students misuse the money etc

-unknown nodeLN: rationale is that we should support people doing things outside of academics bc Cam is stressful. What sort of figure do u think we could spend?

-unknown nodeTM: if multiple people apply, say the budget is £1000, £50 isn’t actually that much money if you’re doing something that you need money from the JCR to do (expensive hobby that people couldn’t otherwise afford). Maybe run on a very small scale at the first instance to see how it goes

-unknown nodeSD: there’s so many other funds that cover a lot of extra curriculars – there’s lots of societies, uni grants etc

-unknown nodeLN: a lot of those are tied to your degree though, e.g. if you’re an engineer it’s easy to get that funding but not if you do English or something

-unknown nodeTM: but that comes back to £50 not being that much money

-unknown nodeLN: more a form of encouragement?

-unknown nodeSK: how would that work? They buy the stuff first and then reclaim the money?

-unknown nodeSP: we can’t give money to people, it has to be a reimbursement

-unknown nodeLN: so system where you’re promised the amount and once you’ve done the project you submit your stuff and get reimbursed?

-unknown nodeJK: could be an opportunity for access etc, where the money is a barrier

-unknown nodeSC: the presentation element would put people off unless they really want to do it, put in the effort etc

-unknown nodeSP: feels like money that shouldn’t be coming from us, hard to make the budget and take money from another society. Would be difficult for it be a yearly thing

-unknown nodeIL: where’s the money for the JCR reno coming from?

-unknown nodeSP: the reserves

-unknown nodeLN: reserves are intended for single-use things, like redecorating the JCR, running a trial of something etc

-unknown nodeIL: run a trial of it to see how it goes?

-unknown nodeLN: seems like we need to agree on (i) the principle of it, and (ii) how much it should be

-unknown nodeTM: we don’t have a crazy amount of spare cash, it is a nice idea but not really feasible in the long run. If we started with a small amount of money and only a few people, that would be okay, but if it becomes really popular, at some point priority decisions will have to be made which causes issues – why does my thing count for less etc. Maybe it will only be a few people and the money will make a difference, but there’s a worry that it won’t go like that – who knows, no one ever comes to the open meetings. If it gets out of hand it will run away on its own success. On principle I’m not opposed, it’s a great idea, but money isn’t infinite, there’s a lot of funding available and we do fund a lot of things, I worry that we’ll spend a lot of money for not a lot of good

-unknown nodeLN: we need to decide some sort of cap – how much? Sam, budget?

-unknown nodeSP: we’ve got two new socs already this term (table tennis and volleyball), it probably is feasible but it would have to come from anticipating underspending from certain areas. We’ve already over-allocated for this year by like 35%

-unknown nodeLN: how much money should we allocate?

-unknown nodeESR: for a trial, maybe 3 people getting £50? Depends how many people are interested etc

-unknown nodeSK: maybe do a survey first to see if people are actually interested in it?

-unknown nodeSP: not really in favour

-unknown nodeIL: maybe it’s something that we pass on for when we have more money

-unknown nodeLN: vote on 3 people getting £50 each – 8 for, 3 against

-unknown nodeJK: could ask at an access meeting, they might have ideas/other venues to go down

-unknown nodeTM: I think that’s where we should start, there might be some funds from parts of the uni that aren’t well-publicised. We should identify some other sources of funding and make those known to Downing – then if we run a trial for this, it could be a criterion that you aren’t eligible for any other funds/have already been rejected

-unknown nodeLN: we’ll start there, and TM and I can start to build a page on the website to increase transparency about funding available through the university; based on that we can decide whether to go ahead with the trial

Rent

-unknown nodeLN: ballot is coming soon

-unknown nodeTM: rent pot (amount of rent money that will be paid to College by 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th years) is £2,744,530 – 4.9% increase. Average price per week is determined by ‘rent weeks’ not ‘lease weeks’ (College shuts down over Xmas so don’t pay for those weeks) – mean average rent per week will be £202.61. With regret, we can’t do anything about that. We’ve tried our best to soften the blow, e.g. so band 1 doesn’t go crazy. I don’t think this is sustainable in the future and things will have to change

-unknown nodeBand 12: £164

-unknown nodeBank 7: £200

-unknown nodeBank 1: £241

-unknown nodeWe tried lots of things but this is the best we could do. Either in future they’ll have to move to a different system e.g. without banding, everyone pays the same, or something significant will have to change. Out of ballot starts allocating from Monday.

-unknown nodeSK: availability of short and long term contracts for 2nd and 3rd years?

-unknown nodeTM: usually pretty evenly split; freshers all get short lease, and about 2/3 of 2nd and 3rd rooms are long lease

-unknown nodeSC: did the MCR rent go up by the same amount?

-unknown nodeLN: yes they go along with the JCR most of the time

-unknown nodeTM: the weightings of bandings haven’t really changed since last year. A few things in the rooms browser are inaccurate but should be mostly sorted

-unknown nodeSK: do you think there’ll be more issues this year with freshers choosing accom?

-unknown nodeTM: still expensive, but freshers have short contracts so they can probably absorb it a bit more, I suspect the freshers might be fine. The things I’m worried about are like 38/36 Lensfield Road as they’re mostly Band 1 and it’s a lot of money. You can apply for rent reduction from College if you chose the cheapest room available when you picked it – if you didn’t then they won’t give you anything and we can’t do anything about that. I do think this is unsustainable

-unknown nodeSK: the optics are so bad. People might be put off applying when they see how much the accommodation is. They’ll just keep renovating and putting the prices up

-unknown nodeTM: I do think this will be a big issue in the future, people might be pushed to rent strikes. If anyone has any questions, I am happy to answer them.

-unknown nodeTM: we want College to do an explanation. The balloting system is complex and the inner workings aren’t always apparent. People sometimes assume that the JCR decides a lot e.g. the rent pot, when really College has the power. We want College to do some kind of presentation about why rent is going up, where that money is going (what it’s paying for), what they’re doing to try not to pass this onto students. College have said they’ll do an open meeting but we oppose – people don’t really come to open meetings, it won’t be recorded so hard to hold College to it, it might end up being confrontational so people won’t want to come, it’s boring etc. Lucas and I want them to do a recorded presentation, put it in writing, coming from them and not the JCR. We don’t want to be asked those questions

-unknown nodeESR: College need to take accountability, send out a video presentation and an email setting out the same info, so that students hear it directly from College

-unknown nodeTM: College does subsidise the rent, but where is that money going? i.e. are the cleaners being paid well etc

-unknown nodeLN: sounds like we all agree and want College to put something recorded/permanent out. They’ve said they’re opposed to putting something in writing.

-unknown nodeTM: reasoning was that they think people will misunderstand

-unknown nodeESR: important to try and have a bit more continuity with the JCR so we can put next year in a better position

Officer updates

-unknown nodeIL: guide dog meet and greet next Saturday, drop-in session in the next few weeks

-unknown nodeLE: we have a date for rainbow formal – 1st March

-unknown nodeCM: trying to organise Varsity, could be 2 weeks today

-unknown nodeSU: clothes drop-off towards end of Feb

-unknown nodeSC: gown donation scheme is pretty much up and running. Joint gardening sessions with Emma?

-unknown nodeJK: academic discussions happened, payment should be going through soon; the SU-permarket has opened, runs tues and thurs 5-7, free food to people in hardship positions

AOB

-unknown nodeSK: ents – hard to actually get people to come and to make profit off an ent. Wanted to ask the committee, how do we feel about just having one ent this term but a bigger one, as a handover ent. Apple and I wanted to do a handover ent with the new officers, maybe in the Howard Building instead of the JCR (difficult in terms of space).

-unknown nodeLN: logistically does it work in Howard?

-unknown nodeSK: yes, there is a bar, it’s a bit more expensive but it’ll work