Alternative to the CSC

I agree.

P.S:

You both should be working harder. Never going to get Schols while you mess about on the internet.

bruff wrote: »

I agree.

P.S:

You both should be working harder. Never going to get Schols while you mess about on the internet.

Me and Shay? Yeah, we're really agonising about it.

Herbal Deity wrote: »

wtf?

What an ill thought out load of shíte.

Some people think sarcasm reads well on the Internet, including the author. They are wrong. To avoid being labelled a hypocrite, my first comment was sarcastic (I nearly have two degrees from U of Dublin).

The original argument is far too stupid for me to comment on. I will note that the Phil would probably not do quite as well under the proposed system. Just throwing that out there.

However, in response to Shay, I will say that smaller societies tend to get significantly more funding per member than the larger ones so I'm not sure where that argument comes from. They also tend to use the office facilities an awful lot more. We've also spent the last few weeks (and will spend the next few) asking all societies what more we can do for them and the response has generally been that societies are more than happy with the support they receive, particularly the smaller ones. If there's a specific example of a small society who feel messed around, they should definitely make their concerns known or else how can we fix it?

Also, I can uderstand if people think the scarf thing was a little silly but it definitely wasn't discriminatory towards any size of society. One representative from each society was able to claim on on Monday evening. There's a bit of a lie going around that they were for people from large societies but that's just usual silliness. If your concern about the scarves is the financial side of it, then be assured that they were all covered by an old sponsorship arrangement which the CSC has in place and not from students' money. All of Fourth Week was funded through this.

I should note that this isn't just my usual disagreeing with Shay about the functions of different college organisations. I'm the chair of the CSC and would be very concerned if it was believed that we were corrupt in our treatment of societies or the use of our finances. It's concern rather than general argumentativeness.

Finally, we should note that the CSC has a much wider role than just throwing money at societies. We're there to advocate for societies in college, to encourage society involvement and to support societies through services, among other things. Any argument about the CSC which focuses primarily on which society gets how much money is misunderstanding a huge amount of the costing structure.

I'm disappointed that any objections or criticisms of the piece in question could not have been directed at me by commenting on the blog - and indeed have already answered some objections there already. For what it's worth:

Shay:

If students join the society that offers them free stuff during Freshers' Week, is that a particularly bad thing? Most people don't return to most of the societies that they join during Freshers' Week anyway. I think that free stuff holds an attraction because it is certain. Maybe this would just force societies to more competitively and aggressively convince their prospective members that they should join their society even (say) in the absence of free stuff? If it's so abundantly clear to you that free stuff is the foolish choice during Freshers' Week, other people must realise this too.

Also: You're basing your argument on the current behaviour of FRESHERS. Under the CSC dollar system, more than three times as much funding would be going into the hands of non-freshers (like you) with experience and knowledge of societies.

Ed:

1. Abolish the central planning aspects of CSC. Instead, let college decide what a reasonable amount to spend per person on college societies is. Then distribute it.
2. One reason why rent-seeking hasn't been stamped out during Freshers' Week is that societies have an alternative source of funding. The societies that don't pander with free stuff don't worry too much, because CSC will fund them regardless. The CSC dollar system has less rent-seeking since...
3. Everyone will be given CSC dollars, not just freshers. If non-freshers don't spend their CSC dollars, that's really foolish of them isn't it? If you're giving non-freshers free money to distribute to societies at the start of the year, I anticipate that membership amongst that cohort will increase and membership of societies will begin to reflect true value to students and not just gullible freshers. The OPPOSITE of what you posit.
4. Goodbye Players, Goodbye Trinity FM. Hello Societies that students actually participate in, and derive value from. What right have you to force students to subsidise players, when they would rather give their money to (say) Paintballing or something? I anticipate that Players would secure independent funding from the Drama Department, or from other sources. But they would have to justify it. It wouldn't come as a matter of course, as happens under the status quo.
5. People rationally don't inform themselves about society activity. You're right. Why? Because they will be involved in the societies they want to be involved with. Why shouldn't all members of the (say) Ultimate Frizbee club not be able to take all their funding from CSC and DUCAC and give it straight to the sport they're passionate about? I don't care if CSC is more informed than me. I know what I want. My system is more democratic, and you can't argue against that.
6. There can be a functioning market. Societies provide services for their members, in exchange for a fee (composed of CSC dollars and euros). To argue otherwise is facile.

Herbal Deity:

I concede to your superior ability to form, articulate, and present argument.

Danger Bob:

I have no problem with the possibility that the Phil would get less money. To be honest, the Phil has more money than most other societies and clubs in college can dream of. Does it provide a decent service to members of college in return for that money? I think so, but don't know what most people think. Perhaps everyone in college would give a few CSC dollars to the Phil each year, or perhaps they wouldn't. They should be free to choose.

The Phil is also a society that raises the profile of the entire university. Maybe a Phil receiving less funding in CSC dollars may get funding from other college sources (perhaps a grant from the Economics Department when they bring a famous Economist to the college?). Who knows.

Finally, in terms of equality of funding. Let's imagine that I am a debater who dabbles in journalism, and plays rugby. Thus, I am supported by some of the most well-financed institutions in college. I get much more CSC money spent on me than (say) my friend who is completely obsessed with Ultimate Frizbee. Why shouldn't we get an equal say in how college funding is spent, and why shouldn't we get the same share of college funding spent on our respective activities? You can't answer that question.

Unfortunately, the perception to outsiders is that the CSC system is elitist, closed, unaccountable, untransparent, and corrupt. Why not have public elections like the Students' Union? Why not make accounts of CSC public? Why not allow anybody stand for CSC Executive and make it equitable? It's a closed shop, plain and simple.

In the absence of CSC in its current form, communal services could be preserved. As for "encouraging society involvement", we all know that this is a stupid waste of time as was the whole Week 4 fiasco. What a waste of my money..

If my argument above was so stupid, I am disappointed that you are unable to defend the existence and integrity of CSC in the presence of such stupidity.

OP, the reason why I'm not interested in responding is that there's just so much wrong with your argument on your blog. As Ed has clearly pointed out, you have no idea about the organisation that you're seeking to 'improve'. For example, there ARE open elections in the CSC which anyone can run for. ANY student can run for ANY position on the executive or any officership.

One major issue which is being missed is that the CSC does not get money to spend on students. The CSC gets money to spend on society activities. As such, we don't work for students, we work for societies, hence why the CSC electorate is made up of the societies and not the general student body. Using your SU analogy, in order to run the Students' Union, you need the support of the students, so in order to run the CSC (which is akin to a societies union), you need the support of the societies.

As an aside, I dislike the insinuation that the CSC is corrupt without any facts to back this up. Before I was involved in the CSC, I always heard that it was so corrupt but while I've been involved I've been unable to see exactly where this suggestion comes from. We're an open body which provides services and which funds societies based on their levels of activity and based on a Grants Policy Document which is approved by the societies themselves. It's pretty simple really. There's not actually that much room to be corrupt, even if we wanted to be.

But, back to the original points made. My biggest issue with the blog post is that you've published something in the guise of some form of economic analysis of a situation when you haven't even bothered to research the organisation that you claim to be analysing. It's a bit of an insult to economics to try pass this off as anything but random musings. I don't understand why anyone would choose to publish such an article with so little actual information and then defend it so staunchly. I also hear you plan to have it printed in the college media.

Anyway, I hear that a chimp's written a very interesting article on quantum physics somewhere. Maybe it'll be better researched than this.