KCLSU Annual General Meeting 2015
6pm Thursday 29 January 2015
Chaired by Sebastiaan Debrouwere, KCLSU President 2013/15
Agenda
6pm Registration – Don’t forget your King’s ID card
6.30pm KCLSU President Opens the AGM
1. For members to approve:
· Minutes of the AGM held on 23 January 2014
· Matters arising
· Receive the Trustees Annual Report and Accounts and KCLSU in Numbers for year ended 31/7/14 Agreement that Knox Cropper LLP be retained as auditors of the company
· Agreement that the Company’s Directors (Trustees) may set the auditors remuneration
2. To Report:
· Student Officer Agenda
3. Welfare & Community Zone
· Motion for Peer Mentoring in Society’s and Associations Ben Hunt
· Affordable Meal Plan for KCL Sam Bysh
· Lad Culture Motion Hareem Ghani
· Introduce a Working Class Officer and Working Class Association Jamie Sweeney
· ‘Students not Suspects’ Motion Noor Khan
· FT Liberation Officers Rachel Williams
Access Break
4. Policy & Governance Zone
· Democratise KCL! Sam Bysh
· Move KCLSU’s Money Alberto Torres
· IoPPN Representation on Guy’s Campus Amy Gillespie
5. Education Zone
· Undergraduate Home Students’ Payment of Tuition Fees Mohamed Elbuzidi
· Plagiarism Motion Nadine Almanasfi
6. Student Groups, Societies & Sports Zone
· More Staff Needed for BUCS Fixture Management Juli McCulloch
7. Any other business
Close of AGM
Motion Debate Process
1. Chair introduces motion debate
2. Proposer (or their representative) speaks for motion
3. Points of information
4. Speech against motion
5. Further rounds of speeches at Chair’s discretion
6. Vote
Proxy Voting
If you’re unable to attend the meeting, you can still have your say by proxy vote online through the KCLSU website. Deadline for submitting a proxy vote is Thursday 29 January 2014 at 12pm (noon). Any proxy votes submitted after this time will not be counted. You may only vote once.
Should any member plan on attending the AGM in person it is advisable to not vote in proxy online and vote in person at the meeting on Thursday 29 January. We will be checking all students KCL Cards against a list of those who have voted online through proxy before the AGM meeting.
Motion for Peer Mentoring in Society's and Associations
Student Number: / 1339717
Zone: / Welfare and Community
This Union notes:
1. Currently there is no part of the general training for Liberation Association Heads or other welfare orientated society’s e.g. the LGBT Society to help them to deal with welfare areas that they may be faced with.
2. Currently there are schemes at universities which put Peer Student Support as a central aspect of welfare, such as the one at Oxford.[1]
This Union Believes:
1. It is often the case that many students with mental health issues or other problems will not go to their personal tutor or seek out advice from other sources.
2. Individual students will often confide in other students who they feel may have a better understanding of what they are currently going through.
3. Having skills to enable a trusting and welfare-orientated relationship between Student Councillors and others who are part of Society’s orientated towards welfare is fundamental and further may enable students who are part of certain oppressed groups to be able to share their experiences in a safe space.
4. There is a current lack of support for oppressed groups being shared by those who share their problems e.g. a lack of people of colour as councillors.
This Union Resolves:
1. To look into ways of giving Liberation Association Heads or their relevant committee members some training in Peer Mentoring or a similar scheme.
2. To look into expanding this training to Society Committee members of welfare orientated Society’s or to academic Society’s who wish to volunteer to be part of this scheme.
Date this policy should lapse (maximum 2 years): / 29/01/2017
Affordable Meal Plan for KCL
Student Number: / 1332381
Zone: / Welfare and Community Zone
This Union notes:
1. There is no affordable meal to be purchased from KCL catering facilities. By affordable is meant cheap enough so that the least well off in the university can sustain themselves from it.
2. Hare Krishna hand out free meals to thousands of people across London every day. They are able to fund this service by donation and grant1.
3. Every student pays a minimum of £9000 in fees to KCL.
4. The Principal earns more than £300,000 PA. More than 200 staff earn more than £100,000 PA2.
This Union Believes:
1. There is no affordable meal to be purchased from KCL catering facilities. By affordable is meant cheap enough so that the least well off in the university can sustain themselves from it.
2. Paying (something like) £1 for a large portion of food should be accessible to everybody.
3. If Hare Krishna are able to do it then it should be possible at KCL. There’s is a wonderful provision and shows it can be done, but KCL should take on that responsibility. Vegan food such as a curry plus carbohydrate is one of the cheapest possible meals yet can/should fully serve nutritional needs.
4. If people want choice in what they buy for lunch that’s fine but that need not come to the detriment of those who have no choice but to choose the cheapest option.
5. This is in the interest of student welfare. Part of studying successfully is being nourished in order to maintain concentration. KCL Strand Campus is located in the very heart of London where there are limited options for eateries that aren’t luxury priced. The alternative is a falsely named ‘meal deal’ which is neither a meal nor a deal.
6. It should not be necessary for KCL catering to be a profit-making organisation. Points 3 & 4 of TUN demonstrate that the money is there to feed everyone at the university in an affordable way. This is a part of the wider problem - including vast pay differences, selling off and overcharging for housing and generally putting students and staff last - of management interests being in the wrong place.
This Union Resolves:
1. To lobby the College to begin an affordable meal plan at KCL.
2. To support any campaign with aims to change the university's catering in the ways stated with campaigning and marketing resources.
Date this policy should lapse (maximum 2 years): / 19/01/20171http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Krishna_Food_for_Life
2http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/mar/15/university-vice-chancellor-paythis is the most up-to-date information available online.
Lad Culture Motion
Student Number: / 1317808, 1313248, 1004981
Zone: / Welfare and Community Zone
This Union notes:
1. That according to the National Union of Students’ (NUS) lad culture report That’s What She Said[2] (published September 2014), “lad culture” is defined by participants as a group or “pack” mentality residing in activities such as sports and heavy alcohol consumption, and “banter” which is often sexist, misogynistic, and homophobic
2. Groping in nightclubs was viewed by some as part of a “normal” night out[3]
3. The survey of 2,156 students also revealed that one in four students (26 per cent) – and 37 per cent of women[4] – have suffered unwelcome sexual advances such as groping and touching at universities
4. In addition, the survey also revealed 62 per cent of the students had heard jokes being cracked about rape or sexual assault[5]
5. 75 per cent of students were aware of online communities such as UNILAD and LADBIBLE, with almost two-thirds of women students (63 per cent) agreeing that these contribute to an unfair representation of women[6]
6. Jamie Street’s UNILAD article entitled Sexual Mathematics sought to trivialise and encourage rape. The article stated: “if the girl you've taken for a drink… won't spread for your head, think about this mathematical statistic…85% of rape cases go unreported. That seems to be fairly good odds”[7] and that attackers should call out “surprise”[8] - thus making light of rape
7. In 2010 NUS conducted the first ever UK-wide study of women students’ experience of harassment, stalking, violence and sexual assault – entitled Hidden Marks
8. The Hidden Marks[9] report (based on a survey of 2,058 women in further education and higher education in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) revealed that 68 per cent of respondents had been victims of one or more kinds of sexual harassment on campus during their time as a student, 1 in 7 respondents had experienced serious physical or sexual assault, and 12 per cent had been stalked while at university
9. In October, the LSE Men’s Rugby club distributed leaflets which were sexist, homophobic and classist –referring to female sports players as “slags” and “beast-like”, and King’s students as “scum” who enjoy “homosexual humiliation”[10]
10. It was later found that LSE Men’s Rugby Club had a history of racism and misogyny – prospective members had been involved in actions including “blackening up”, and playing Nazi-themed drinking games on tour which lead to a Jewish student’s nose being broken[11]
11. Good Night Out is a national UK and Ireland wide campaign started by street-activist group Hollaback London to end harassment of women and LGBTQ at student venues
12. Good Night Out aims to produce innovative zero tolerance-training resources for students’ union staff as part of NUS’ national strategy to tackle lad culture on campus.
13. The Good Night Out is dedicated to raising awareness of the issue of harassment on night out, and aims to help clubs, bars, and pubs tackle and prevent it and deal with it more effectively by training staff, security and management on how best to handle and prevent harassment[12]
14. KCLSU Intersectional Feminist Society (iFemSoc) is dedicated to working with the NUS Lad Culture Campaign to tackle lad culture on campus effectively
15. The KCLSU Intersectional Feminist Society has already launched a campaign to tackle lad culture at King's. There are three main elements to this campaign; they seek to uncover and suggest improvements to current university policies and procedures relevant to lad culture, will deliver sexual consent workshops to students alongside KCL Sexpression, and also run various social media campaigns on lad culture.
This Union Believes:
1. KCLSU Safe Space policy is committed to providing an inclusive and supportive space for all students
2. That all students should be free from intimidation or harassment resulting from prejudice or discrimination on ground of age, disability, marital or maternity/ paternity status, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, trans status, socio-economic status, or ideology or culture, or any other form of distinction[13]
3. Lad culture encourages “banter” that is sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, racist and classist
4. Sexism takes a variety of forms in lad culture - in particular the trivialisation of sexual abuse
5. That lad culture is a term attaches a veneer of respectability to what’s really “sexism with an alibi”, and produces the fatalistic “boys-will-be-boys” dismissal[14]
6. That sexual harassment and violence are very much related to “lad culture” - this includes verbal harassment and “catcalling”, as well as physical harassment and sexual molestation[15]
7. That LSESU’s decision to disband LSE Men’s Rugby Club for the rest of the academic year was an appropriate course of action in that it made clear that lad culture promotes sexism, homophobia, racism and classism, and would therefore not be tolerated at a Higher Education Institute (HEI)
8. Signing up to Good Night Out would establish that sexual harassment is not tolerated at any KCLSU venues
9. The training received as part of the Good Night Out Campaign will ensure staff know how to appropriately handle reports of sexual harassment – including how to speak to students who might be in distress
10. Good Night Out would ensure that students feel comfortable reporting incidents of sexual harassment (and even other types of abuses), and can trust that their report will be taken seriously
11. iFemSoc’s Lad Culture Campaign will help to make tackling lad culture on campus as effective as possible
This Union Resolves:
1. That KCLSU should take zero tolerance stance towards lad culture
2. For KCLSU to support student led initiative, including sexual consent workshops as co-ordinated by KCL Intersectional Feminist Society (iFemSoc) and KCL Sexpression
3. For KCLSU to support the iFemSoc campaign to tackle lad culture at King’s
4. For KCLSU to dedicate marketing resources and funding to iFemSoc’s Lad Culture Campaign
5. For KCLSU to sign up to the Good Night Out Campaign. If the Union has done so already, for it to actively support the Campaign (via training of staff and security) once the promotional material has arrived.
6. KCLSU should support the NUS Lad Culture campaign by completing the lad culture audit as requested from NUS and becoming a pilot union for their work should the opportunity arise
Date this policy should lapse (maximum 2 years): / 29/01/17
Introduce a Working Class Officer and Working Class Association
Student Number: / N/A, 1214321,
Zone: / Welfare and Community
This Union notes:
1. There is currently no Working Class representation at KCLSU and no Working Class Association.
2. There is a Working Class History Month, which is one of the KCLSU liberation history months.
3. 37% of all people aged 16-63 in the UK are classified as having routine/manual occupations, but only 24.2% of full-time first degree entrants in 2008/09 at King’s College London were from routine/manual occupation backgrounds.[16]
4. In 2011/12, only 4.2% of full time first degree entrants were from low participation neighbourhoods at King’s College London, despite students from low participation neighbourhoods making up 20% of all university students in the UK[17]
5. On average, each Russell Group university admits just 64 of the poorest young people per year, as measured by those receiving free school meals.[18]