First time I’ve heard of a student union bar that needed to insist on undergrads attendance. The prices of ale in a pub versus the union has people queuing out the door IME.
I think the point is that the sports officer’s statement reads very badly and could be made to reflect badly on the university - we insist that you get out on the piss in order to receive funding, and what’s more, we’ll be watching! The thing to decide is whether it’s really worth the hassle of trying to do anything about it - You’ve got a uni representative making a juvenile, unfair statement of policy so you could easily get it written up in the student newspaper as a reasonable first step. That would at least start debate and you could tackle the matter sensibly at the sports cmttee or whatever. A write up in the local town newspaper: Drunk Students: University in drink to climb shocker! might also work.
At the end of the day, it’s a lot of effort over relatively little funding when all you really want to do is run your climbing club. Remember, though, that the like of Barack Obama and Tony Blair didn’t arrive on the political scene as fully formed statesmen. They began their journey by arguing over the square root of fuck all during their university days. So there’s something to be said for pursuing these sort of issues.
The devil in me said the same thing. Take up as much space as possible, nurse a beer for 2 hours. I don’t see any benefit in this arrangement and would post a letter to the editor upon leaving it.
A few options, but I would bring these up with the other members of the club before doing anything. I mean, it’s there(sic) club, too.
As mentioned, you could just tell the uni to screw off, shut down the official uni club and form a new, private club with slightly higher dues. You could do some kind of ‘soda drink-in’ to highlight the problem of accomodating all clubs there, with the option of making a public stink or not (hint: if the stink isn’t public, it’s going to be easier for the control-freak to back down, especially if you give them a face-saving valid reason).
Another option of course is to tell the uni that your club doesn’t have/no longer has drinking nights, what with so many members being off campus and all. The fact that you and a bunch of friends (many of whom are also climbers) happen to be getting together every Wednesday night for drinks is no concern of the uni.
Finally, you could run a campaign to get yourself on the funding committee, to ensure that more reasonable criteria are used for allocating funding.
I kind of agree with this. It’s a lot easier to threaten to cut off funding for not drinking in the University’s bar than to follow through.
I also wonder, though, if you emailed the University (not the sports officer, though, someone else higher up) and asked if they’re really requiring members of University clubs to go out drinking as a condition of getting funding, if there might be a lot of back-pedalling.
So plan of action, I’ve sent an email to the president of the student union, who is a acquaintance/friend, basically saying this is bullshit and are the sports office for real? If he supports them, I’ll start kicking up a bit more of a fuss through the various means suggested here, descending further into farce with each one.
I doubt this idea will stick, there are plenty of other clubs not happy about it either. It does however throw into sharp relief how few benefits we are getting these days for our trouble. The activities committee exist to help student clubs and societies, but they really are making it harder for me to run the club properly. But I suppose they are getting paid and I’m not so…who are the real winners here?
After talking to the on-campus lot, a few of them don’t mind putting in a token appearance before moving into town and joining the rest if it come to it. I love my climbers!
