The Minutes from the Previous Meeting Were Accepted As Correct

Linacre Common Room
Agenda for General Meeting to be held on Wednesday 28thJanuary 2015 at 7:30pm

Minutes of previous Common Room Meeting

The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted as correct.

Common Room Update
Social Sec
The Hugh’s Hall exchange will take place on the 27th of February. Ticket costs are still being finalized but are dependent on the number going. The plan is to leave Linacre at 10am, arrive at Hugh’s Hall midday. There will then be a tour, a chance to get changed before dinner, followed by drinks. Publicity will be sending out the sign-up sheet at a later date.
The event for Chinese new year will happen day after the actual new year. There will be dinner downstairs in the dining hall – £12 for non-Linacre.
There will be a BOP at the end of week four and a Ceilidh on the 7th
Sports
No current updates
Welfare
No current updates
Green
The Linacre website has been updated and the environment website is currently being fixed – go there for a comprehensive list of ongoing environmental stuff, lectures, green tips, college sustainability policy, etc. It is a different site from the college sustainability page.
Linacre Lines and Fellows Representative
Not out yet – very nearly done though and looking good.
Charities Representative
The Charity wine and cheese night will take place on Friday 13thFebruary. There will be four wines of the same grape, each from a different region. Tickets will be £15. If interested, please email Dominique on the charities email account.
Art Committee update
The Art Society is back up and running! Find them through the Facebookgroup.
The fellow in charge of the college’s art collection wants to know if the common room would like to use some of the pieces for the wall in the CR. This will be at no cost – the college currently has 120+ art pieces which need to see some daylight. The art coordinator is also looking for artists who wish to exhibit on the walls.
Linacre Ball Committee update
The Ball will take place on June 13th – the theme is a secret which will be announced MondayFebruary 9thwith a special bar night, ticket sales will open the next day.
Ethical Investment Committee
Dansie has organized a meeting for Friday 5pm in the CTI room. He has spoken to Nick Brown and the strategy liaison committee about goals etc; if you want to know more go to meeting. Looking at £100k to invest in ethical and local businesses which support sustainability.

…

Hustings for Newsletter Editor, Secretary, Treasurer, and President CR Exec positions

Newletter Editor:

NatasjaShermis

I’m NatasjaShermis – the position I’m running for is CR Newsletter Editor and Fellows Engagement Officer.

I’ve been lucky enough to see three different editors do an amazing job running Linacre Lines and bring their own personalities and experience to the writing community at Linacre. One thing that has been really apparent to me in this time is how valuable an asset the publication is to the wider community of students here – not only as a creative outlet but also as a physical manifestation of something that is created by the Common Room and is available for us to enjoy collectively.

The publication itself is open and inclusive, with fairly relaxed regulations about the kind of material it accepts and publishes. As your editor, I wouldn’t look to criticize or change any submissions (within reason!), I’d love to see anything and everything you have to say! That can be something visual, like a photograph or drawing, or a written text, and your writing could be a creative piece like a short story or a poem, a journalistic piece, a Limerick, a short description of your research or field, or a recipe from home.

One thing I would like to do would be to offer a creative writing workshop a bit later this term, where we could discuss the publication in more detail and explore different approaches to non-academic writing.

As your Fellows Engagement Officer, my job would entail encouraging and helping facilitate interaction between the students and fellows at Linacre. Linacre doesn’t seek to segregate its fellows from its students as many of the other Oxford Colleges do, by having, for instance, separate Common Rooms. To the end, Linacre has held subject lunches and subject mixers in the past, where students and fellows have been encouraged to meet in an informal setting. It need not be limited to that, however – all ideas are welcome, and I will do my best to make sure that they can happen.

Thank you!

How long are you here for?

Only here as a student for 2 more terms, but happy to work with next lot of people and still do 3 issues.

Would you change the Lines layout to reduce time to produce – maybe expand role?

A good way would be to get section editors involved eg. Environment or art etc, have a bigger group of people delegate a little responsibility.

CR Secretary:

DimitriosSarmas

My name is DimitriosSarmas and I am running for Secretary.

I am a 2nd year Dphil Student in Law and a member of the Linacre football team.

The Secretary does not only have the mundane role of writing the minutes in CR Meetings and placing posters on every single wall around Linacre!

He is also a mediator between the Executive Committee and the Common Room Members. He has to enhance transparency as well as ensure proper and timely communication between the two groups. If elected, I will work diligently towards this path.

In my opinion, the first step that needs to be taken is to make the By-Laws widely known. This is why I have left near the CR Noticeboard copies with answers to three simple but fundamental questions concerning the involvement of CR members to the affairs of the College.

Secondly, I would like to propose that we add a Section in the By-Laws providing for an explicit right to petition. This would stress the significance of the right of CR Members to be informed of anything they want to find out about the Common Room.

Finally, it would be helpful to have the results of the elections fully disclosed so that we all know how many people participated, how many people voted for R.O.N and how many people voted for each candidate.

Thank you!

SymonForen

Hi, my name is SymonForen. Unlike the other candidates for this position, I am not trained in the legal arts nor have I experienced 11 years on the boards of various undergraduate societies and clubs. I do, however, come to the table with an unmatched zeal for secretarial duties, and, I try to be a very approachable and helpful guy. I completed my Master's degree last year at Linacre and having acquired a strong sense of community at this college, I re-applied here for my Dphil (Oriental Studies - Early Modern Latin translations of Medieval Hebrew texts) with the hopes of having a fun and productive time. I am employed at this college as a porter and I regularly demonstrate responsibility in this role. When the current CR secretary, Hannah Mosley, was doing her field-work this year, she asked me to take over her secretarial duties and I did, realising that I enjoyed them and I was happy to be an official part of the CR. So I have on-the-job experience! I hope to bring humour and responsible fun to the CR meetings. Thanks for your consideration. :)

Glenn Jones

I am running for the position of secretary as I feel I have a lot to bring to the Linacre CR exec, at my undergrad university I was on the physics society committee for 4 years andthe representative to the students' union council for physics students for 2 years, both these roles required me to communicate to the physics department what it was that I was doing for them and why, and I'd like to bring some of this experience to Linacre since I have had a great time here since joining last year. On top of that I am a friendly, approachable person who enjoys working as a part of a team. I can also read and write good.

Vote for Glenn!

Symon – can we have an example of your humour please?

Read the last set of minutes

Dimitri – transparency over results of votes: what were you thinking of?

The figures for the results to be made public

-Right to petition, is it not already allowed?

Would make it an explicit right to stress the importance of the bylaws.

Glenn - Would you keep to the timeline – according to the by-laws, minutes have to be posted 5 days before the next common room meeting?

Would definitely try to be timely.

To the chair: In two words, how do you guys feel about having to help at BOPs?

Symon – ask Oscar

Dimitri – done that

Glenn – highly enthusiastic.

CR Treasurer:

Taryn McKenzie-Mohr

Hi all! My name is Taryn and I am a first year MPhil in Politics from Toronto. I am running for the position of Treasurer because I feel it would be a great opportunity to become further engaged in the Linacre community. I believe I possess a variety of experiences that have equipped me with the skills and knowledge necessary to carry out the responsibilities of this role: As an undergraduate student, I sat on my college's Environmental Protection Committee for four years and was an executive member of the University of Toronto's Association of Political Science Students for two years (first as Communications Director and then as Vice President). I was also involved in running Frosh Week and contributed to Academic Orientation for incoming students. These positions provided me with insight into the inner workings of an academic college as well as experience coordinating with diverse student groups and senior administrative staff

Will you be a strict treasurer or will you be lax and give everyone money?Taryn said she has reviewed the by-laws, and discussed with Adam, including duties and involvement in other stuff. Discussed having to use own discretion to sort budgets. Would mitigate situations by following up closely with people – meeting and working with teams to make sure things are going to schedule/budget

What will you do with the current surplus?

Personally, thinks that some of the surplus could go towards programs and other students in the college but at the same time said it is nice to have a little security to fall back on.

What is your favorite song with the word money in it? I don’t know how to transcribe that – she sang it.

CR President:

Kiron Neale

I firstly want to thank those who nominated me.

I'm not the sort of guy to rush in leadership positions. However what I want to do, is to say why I decided to place my signature next to the nomination. For those of you who know me, I'm considered a meme-ologist. If you go onto my Facebook page, you'll see memes upon memes. But in between that you'll see posts about my dad passing away last November. When I visited home over the break, I was asked an interesting question as to to where do I think I got more support, at home or at Oxford. Surprisingly, the answer was Oxford. Yes we're students and we get administrative services from the college. But it's much more than that. I think of it as a home. So much so that the memories we make here will be with us long after we graduate and leave. An example is that I will always remember the library. In fact I will always remember the square carpet space I was standing on because that was where I was standing when I found out my dad passed away. This is a memory I will always have with me long after leaving Linacre. This means Linacre will always be with me. If I can help make the common room a place where we can make memories even if it is to make someone smile just for a day then it's a positive.

Beyond this I'm quite active in student life. I play football for the college as well as run for the University so I get down with the boys (uhhhhyeaaaa). But also I have my connections to the artistic side. For those of you who don't know, and will find out tomorrow night at the Mixed Danced event, I dance- like hip hop break-dancing. I also paint so I have my creative roots as well. I think this makes me somewhat accessible in that I'm involved in a lot of different things which can keep be connected to the on-the-ground college events.

Thank you.

Can you describe the Linacre carpet in one word? What do you have to say about the health and safety of some students that wear slippers outdoors during winter?

Dayuuuuum! From my industrial experience in methanol and ammonia plants I can say that the risk involved with my wear slippers outdoors is low.

Given that you are involved in so many activities, can you find time for the demands of the Presidency?

I can because by in large my day is not too filled. The football league only has three more games left and my track and field training is not as regular as I would like because of the weather (I'm a tropical person) in which case track meets are during the weekends.

Will you write for Linacre lines?

I wouldn't mind contributing in some way.

What, if anything, would you change about the common room as President?

I would shift the focus of what is the current philosophy of what makes the common room what it is. We have a vibrant common room made so by the students themselves but the physical common room doesn't do our vibrancy any justice. I think I would try to tackle the infrastructure in the common room. (Art Society supported this idea)

How would you deal with anydelinquencyin the executive? For example if someone's work is slipping? Would you address it through the executive or the main common room?

I would speak to the individual personally to see if there was perhaps a personal issue driving it. It's an innocent until proven guilty sort of thing. I won't make any judgements before speaking to them. The executive will be the next port of call if it's a blatant shortcoming on the individual's part and if need be then beyond to the common room.

How long will I be here for?

I started the DPhil last October and expect to graduate in 2017.

…

Motion to donate funds to Doctors for Madagascar

Request for funding from the CR budget to cover venues and food for concerts that raise money toward Doctors for Madagascar.

Adam raised the motion to amend the amount for donation to be a total of up £350

For 19

Against 5

Abstain 4

Motion passes.

The point was raised that CR funds are for Linacre students, many felt this was maybe something for other funds to be used for, rather than set a precedent for CR funds going to outside recipients.

For 13

Against 11

Abstain 7

Motion passes