Free tea

Today of course was the UGM. And if I thought the turn-out was bad last week, that was because I hadn't seen this week yet. It was a little surprising, actually, especially having low numbers two weeks running. True, there weren't any hugely controversial motions (or at least, there weren't any that proved to be controversial- there were some you might have expected to be), but there was a by-election for C&S (since this term's UGM Chair had to resign from C&S in order to be allowed to become UGM Chair), and the President of ULU came to speak to us (though in fact that could have been one of the reasons why not many people came- I'm personally very much in favour of ULU, but many see it as irrelevant and our membership of it as non-beneficial (not true- for example ULU has been campaigning to get Transport for London to give us discounted day travelcards and single fares- but I'm not going to go into all the stuff they've done here)).

Speaker for the Newsround motion

As far as I'm concerned, the ways of the UGM are unfathomable. Today we passed* motions to support Exeter University Guild of Students (who are having problems with Exeter Christian Union), to recommend the Union General Secretary as a Newsround presenter, against political killings in the Philippines, to invite Sutherland to come and speak at the UGM and to stop the use of torture in the War on Terror (I should point out here that I'm pretty much listing the titles of the motions- the UGM does not of course have the power to, for example, shut down Guantanamo Bay by passing a motion, so what ones like the last one actually did were to mandate the Union to write to various people, in this case George Bush, asking them to do things- possibly more a gesture than an action that is actually expected to change things, but I suppose if enough organisations do it...). A motion to honour the West Wing fell. Now, I would have predicted that the Newsround motion would have fallen, the West Wing motion would have passed, and the others, with the possible exception of the Sutherland one, would have generated a lot of debate, with speakers for and against and close votes, with maybe the Exeter University one the most likely of the lot to fall and the Sutherland to pass, but really any of them could have gone either way. Actually, most of them had no speech against, and which were the ones where the vote was closest? The West Wing one had to be counted several times (partly due to the vice-Chair, standing in for the Chair who was ill, getting a bit confused), and the Newsround one was pretty evenly split. The others mostly passed easily.

Though I actually voted for the West Wing one and against the Newsround one, I wasn't that bothered about the West Wing one not passing. It basically involved the Union asking the school to award Martin Sheen an honourary degree, make more of the fact that the fictional President Bartlet was an LSE alumnus, and to organise an event to which Martin Sheen would be invited. But I was rather concerned that the Newsround one passed. Here's what it said:

Motion to Stop Jimmy Bumming Around

Union notes:
1. Jimmy Tam
2. Newsround
3. Codes of practice
4. UGM
5. LooSE TV

Union believes:
1 Jimmy loves Newsround.
2 Jimmy's looking more ethnic this term.
3 Newsround needs diversity.
4 Jimmy would be ace on Newsround.
5. Newsround makes news easy for young people Fact.
6 The Peter Sutherland protest was f***ing stupid
7 The Tuns is f***ing brilliant
8 The library's for girls
9 The gym's for winners
10 Only 13 people care about student politics
11 A panic attack is a period of intense, often temporarily disabling, sense of extreme fear or psychological distress, typically of abrupt onset
12 Shayaan's glasses were ugly, weak and in need of change
13 The student union has become far too over sensitive the past couple of years. They should all pick the sand out of their vaginas.

Union resolves:
1 To mandate General Secretary Jimmy Tam to wear a suit to the next three UGMs
2 To mandate General Secretary Jimmy Tam to refer to the UGM as kiddies and give his report in the style of a newsround presenter
3 To ask LooSE TV to compile a DVD presenting Jimmy as a suitable employee
4 To mandate communications office Ali Dewji to send this DVD to Newsround along with the following letter:

Dear gentle friends,

I am writing as I believe my friend and close colleague would be suitable as a presenter on your fine program. As communications officer, I know a thing or two about communicating and what it takes to be a good communicator in a communicating position. One of my favourite communicatees is Jimmy and I believe he communicates well.

I promise I will in no way encroach onto his chosen profession.

Many thanks,

Ali Dewji,
(LSE Communicator)
References available on request.

There was an amendment proposed by the Treasurer which would remove Believes points 6, 8, and 10-13 (variously on grounds of offensiveness or irrelevance), but though it was close it didn't pass. And the motion did. I am vaguely troubled by the idea that it is now official Union belief that the library's for girls and more worryingly that only 13 people care about student politics, though I imagine it won't mean anything in practice, but what I'm really bothered by is that the Communications Officer will now have to send that letter. I'm also bothered what it says about me that what's bothering me even more is that it surely should be 'One of my favourite communicators is Jimmy' as 'communicatees' means 'people to communicate things to', and that there may be a bit of a problem with logic here: the Communications Officer has to send off a DVD of the General Secretary made by LooSE TV, but LooSE TV can not be mandated and have only been asked to make the DVD- what if they said no? The Communications Officer would then be mandated to do something impossible. On the positive side, this might save him from actually having to send that
letter. On the negative side, as a mathematician this causes me great discomfort and psychological trauma.


There was quite an interesting event this afternoon at 4: free tea in Parish Hall, as part of the week the Union's having that I've forgotton the name of but which is all about relaxing and dealing with stress (I think it's run by the Education and Welfare Officer). It wasn't just for students but for staff as well (as in administrative staff, not academic staff), and it was good for so many reasons. It was nice to be able to see people like the anti-Sutherland lot and others in a non-meeting situation, ie in a context where there was no agenda and we could just chat, and it was nice to socialise with the staff. I couldn't resist asking them how they felt about Sutherland though**, or at least how the staff would feel about having a referendum (since our current motion mandates student representatives to ask for a referendum of staff, students and academics, and if the School says no, though the SU can only do a referendum of students it asks for those organising it to encourage staff to arrange a parallel ballot (and academics)). Apparently they're not that fussed either way about Sutherland but would probably be interested in having a referendum if we had one- the lady I was talking to said they are quite political.


Oh, and I found out today that one (or more) of the photos I submitted back in the autumn term to LSE Perspectives has been chosen to hang in a classroom. Apparently there were 400 entries and 100 chosen for classrooms (including 27 chosen for an exhibition somewhere prominent that I forget, and three winners chosen from them who win some money and get displayed even more prominently; I didn't make the 27 but still). This sounds like my photos were in the top 25% quality-wise, but I suspect that in fact this was not the case: there wasn't really a limit to how many photos you could send and I for example sent 11, so it's quite possible that they actually picked at least one of everyone's but didn't want too many from the same person. Regardless of what it says about my photos, though, it's an honour to think that one (or more) of them will be hanging in an LSE classroom- I'm really curious as to which one they picked. Bet it was one of my Portugal ones. And even if they aren't in the top 25%, at least they made the grade- I'm up to the standard of everyone else competing. Which is nice because I think some of my photos are quite nice but I'm generally not sure that I'm not looking at them with too fond an eye. I also got another sort of compliment for a photo of mine today- at the People and Planet meeting a boy mentioned that he was doing an article on recycling at LSE and needed some pictures (as well as people to find out dodgy stuff that goes on), and before I could even volunteer the newest member of C&S (she won today's by-election***) said that I'd taken a nice photo of some rubbish (the one I put up here a couple of weeks ago). I wondered how she knew that, and it turned out she'd seen it on the Beaver editor's computer. I'm not setting too much store by it, because I actually get the impression (I could be wrong) that she goes through life buttering people up in case they can be usefull to her, without really knowing she's doing it- for example last term when I got the free CRUSH tickets, it was read out at the UGM that I missed and when I saw her at next week's UGM she was friendlier to me than normal and suggested that if I hadn't used the tickets yet I might like to go with her.**** It was the same girl who suggested that I be the one to do another Sutherland leaflet at the last meeting, saying I did really good leaflets last time. Which I would be pleased and flattered by coming from eg EMCC, CMCC or the Residences Officer, among others, but from her I do take it with a pinch of salt. But I would like to stress that I could have got her all wrong. It's possible that she genuinely means these compliments and just has a funny way of saying them that makes her sound like she has an ulterior motive, and that she wasn't cosying up to me to get the CRUSH tickets, but was happy to have the CRUSH tickets as an excuse to talk to me and a chance to do something with me and get to know me better. Though I don't think she's the type of person who really needs an excuse...

Incidentally, I still haven't used those tickets, but today R and I arranged to go to Valentine's/ RAG CRUSH, and probably one other, the two of us using the tickets to go twice rather than going once in a group of four. The other girl hasn't mentioned it again since and I'm not planning on inviting her.

*Actually I'm not 100% confident of my memory and may be wrong about the outcome of one or two of these motions

**I'm not obsessed, honest! I'm quite capable of holding a conversation without bringing him up once. Ok, so I haven't yet mastered the skill of having a conversation without hoping to find a relevant spot to stick him in...

***I voted for her, but only because the alternative was worse, and because she was the Green Party candidate

****Actually it was quite embarrassing because for some reason I was feeling in quite a flippant mood and I told her, mostly joking, that she could come with me if she brought a boy to use one of the remaining two tickets, to set me up with (I asked R, who was also there, to use the other one); she agreed (also I assumed in the same joking spirit though it's hard to tell with her) and after a bit of conversation she said '[the boy who's currently writing the article about recycling]'s a boy, how about him?' in such a way that it was pretty much equally directed to him as to me, and he looked up and said 'What?' or something and I was so surprised, partly because I thought he was going out with someone (it turned out later he definitely was) but mostly because I didn't expect to have to accept or reject someone to their face, even if she did take it seriously (and it still wasn't that clear that she did), and even if they didn't exactly know what we were talking about, that I blustered and said something along the lines of 'Er, well, I don't know'- a pretty clear no. Not that that wasn't the answer I wanted to give (he was perfectly fine, just not my type and as I said I was pretty convinced he was already taken), I just didn't want to be giving it directly to his face especially when he hadn't offered. Actually it's worried me when I've seen him ever since how much he'd actually heard of our conversation. I'm really hoping not enough to realise that that was a rejection, but sadly I think that could be wishful thinking.