Drug testing for Society auditors

gliondar

At one stage I was a member of the finance committee.

As I quote myself:

the majority of decisions made in those meetings are fair.

But to think the system is rosy and perfectly thought-out is very naive.

At one stage I was going to get a petition of auditors to demand changes but my course is demanding and I just don't have the time. I hope the powers that be are reading this and recognise the need for change.

Does the memory of UCD remember back as far as three years ago when there was a walk out and protest against the Finance Committee 2004 elections? The reason things stay the same in the college is because by the time people realise things have to change they are graduating and don't care anymore. That's why things get worse and not better.

I realise both of us want the best for UCD. Given the amount of negativity many people have towards societies it is clear that something is going extremely wrong. If you will not agree with me that many things within the UCD society structure must change before the situation gets better then our differences are irreconcilable and there is no point furthering this discussion.

Stabshauptmann

gliondar wrote:

At one stage I was a member of the finance committee.

As I quote myself: ["Most of the decisions are fair"]

But to think the system is rosy and perfectly thought-out is very naive.

At one stage I was going to get a petition of auditors to demand changes but my course is demanding and I just don't have the time. I hope the powers that be are reading this and recognise the need for change.

There was an issue I wanted to contact all the auditors about, it took me 5 mins to get all their email addresses and email them.

But tbh, when I have encountered problems with the system, and there have been a few, talking to Butler solved many of them. Some times he wouldnt budge, some times he did.

Does the memory of UCD remember back as far as three years ago when there was a walk out and protest against the Finance Committee 2004 elections? The reason things stay the same in the college is because by the time people realise things have to change they are graduating and don't care anymore. That's why things get worse and not better.

The root of the problem is the hack clique. The same procedure for elections happens every year, and Butler and Gregg O Neill presume everybody knows this, and a certain number of ppl do. (Certain auditors know a great deal about how the grants system work too, while others know virtually nothing.) The notice given is very limited, only a certain type of person receives it in reasonable time.

The problem is that enough ppl can handle the system for it to be deemed working. Changing the system is one way to solve it for the rest of us, the out going auditor training the incoming one is another, easier way to solve it.

I realise both of us want the best for UCD. Given the amount of negativity many people have towards societies it is clear that something is going extremely wrong.

I personally have never experienced this negativity.

If you will not agree with me that many things within the UCD society structure must change before the situation gets better then our differences are irreconcilable and there is no point furthering this discussion.

There are things worth changing definitely, I agree that things are not perfect, but I dont agree with your overall assessment of the situation.

Gregg

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

The root of the problem is the hack clique. The same procedure for elections happens every year, and Butler and Gregg O Neill presume everybody knows this, and a certain number of ppl do. (Certain auditors know a great deal about how the grants system work too, while others know virtually nothing.) The notice given is very limited, only a certain type of person receives it in reasonable time.

Just so we're clear, the "certain type of person" is the auditor of every society who gave a working email address when they registered with Liz in the Forum.

If people don't know how the grant system works, then they should either pay attention during the training day or ask someone.

Stabshauptmann

Gregg wrote:

Just so we're clear, the "certain type of person" is the auditor of every society who gave a working email address when they registered with Liz in the Forum.

The notice I was talking to is the sheet that appears in the forum office, many of the auditors dont go to the office very regularly.

Another shock horror surprise is that not many auditors check their email, let alone society email regularly. Ideally one would forward to the other but I dont think many auditors are that techno savvy . Evidence enough is the poor use of email and texts to advertise events.

Lets take the most recent notice, forum general assembly on wednesday, no I dont think 2 days notice is enough. Though there has been worse hasnt there? For a finance committee meeting on a Monday you sent out notice friday evening. Zero working days notice. Fair play.
I brought up at a meeting that you have our phone numbers and that text is a better way to contact us. Any particular reason not to take that suggestion on board?

If people don't know how the grant system works, then they should either pay attention during the training day or ask someone.

As Ive said to you before (Im DutchSoc auditor btw), you expect a much higher degree of knowledge an experience than many of the auditors posses. People should not be expected to just *know* things.

I personally think auditor training lacked any substance, and as Ive said to you and Richard Butler, there are some things ye not only didnt make clear but gave the opposite impression.

• What the positions available were and their roles were not made clear at auditor training. I can name 20 auditors who didnt know there were constituencies.
• I asked you and Richard for a list of the societies by constituency but never got it.
• When the elections were going to be held was not made clear
• The procedure for holding elections was not made clear

At the training day not only did ye not make the grant application process clear but you gave a wrongful impression about the procedure for special grants.


And as for your second suggestion of asking.

1. If I dont know of the existence of something, Im not likely to ask questions about it.
   
2. You have not replied to a single email Ive sent you this year. Surely if Ive any questions as an auditor your the person Id ask.

Just an example of how weak the training was. One question was what do you do as auditor if someone on the committee is disrupting meetings and one girl said throw them off the committee. The person giving the training just nodded and moved on.

The public speaking section didnt improve anyones public speaking; it consisted of 5 ppl cmoing to the front and speaking for 1 min each. It just showed who could already speak, and who thought they could, it didnt teach anything.



The whole way through this thread Ive defended the working of the finance committee as fair, I dont think there is any bias or a dictatorship. But if there were things that could really be improved its communication and auditor training.

gliondar

The issues with regards communication and auditor training are precisely the things I'm talking about. The fact that only a certain group of people are informed exactly what the various positions mean and how the system works is bias. Your average auditor learns the hard way by finding out about things late. As you said

The problem is that enough ppl can handle the system for it to be deemed working.

I would add to that by saying that the large societies are looked after by the current system. The system is not meritocratic. Certain large societies that do nothing are greatly rewarded for simply existing whilst small interest group societies have to justify every penny of the meager sum they request. Its dog eat dog. I am not saying that there is a concentrated effort to be unfair to small societies, but it does not reward them equally. The system should be as accommodating as possible to people who want to get involved, not make it hell.

I personally have never experienced this negativity.

This thread was originally about society auditors doing drugs and ripping off students. This is a negative image. Or how about these threads:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=52457616&highlight=society#post52457616

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=52889741&highlight=society#post52889741

Actually, nearly all the threads on boards are giving out about societies and their events (or lack there-of).

There was an issue I wanted to contact all the auditors about, it took me 5 mins to get all their email addresses and email them.

Well, maybe things have changed, but back in the day the society auditor details were undisclosed and you had to go to Gregg or Butler to get them which you may or may not want to do.

I can see we share a lot of the same disgruntlements about the current system though which is good. I'm glad you find the lack of communication unacceptable Kaptain Redeye. Maybe both of us are a little off the mark but I'd say the situation lies somewhere in the middle.

This may deserve a home in a new thread, but anyway, here's another idea that I feel would do wonders for UCD's societies (but I imagine at first this will be shocking to many people.)
Abolish the infamous Freshers' Pack.
Societies should not be allowed distribute food at their stalls. This I feel would greatly benefit all societies because their members would have joined for the genuine interest of becoming part of the society. The vicious competitive edge that favours the big budget societies would level and the atmosphere in societyland would certainly improve! Every society should provide an information pack/leaflets/magazine describing what it does and make more use of their members details. Many auditors spend their entire summer organising sponsored free-food for their Freshers' Pack. Many auditors agree with me that it is an utter waste of time and allows some auditors to sit back for the rest of the year once the member targets are hit. Many do not spend any effort actually planning what they are going to do after Freshers' Week. This notion that the bigger your society is the better it is is nonsense. A fraction of the members of large societies actually want to be involved or even attend any of their events.

This is a rough thought, but please contribute!

Stabshauptmann

Well Id never accept boards as an accurate microcosm of UCD. And anyway, I think there was good balance in those two threads.

Different people want to get different things out of a society, and really freshers have no idea what society is good and what isnt.
Numbers help sponsorship, so there are societies out there who invest a lot of effort in it.

On the point of rewards, one of UCD's largest societies got approx €2.50 per member and one of the smaller ones got closer to €20 a member. Grants really, really arent as closly linked to membership as ppl think (this year anyway, you were on the committee one year so what ever happened happened).

elmyra

gliondar wrote:

This may deserve a home in a new thread, but anyway, here's another idea that I feel would do wonders for UCD's societies (but I imagine at first this will be shocking to many people.)
Abolish the infamous Freshers' Pack.
Societies should not be allowed distribute food at their stalls. This I feel would greatly benefit all societies because their members would have joined for the genuine interest of becoming part of the society. The vicious competitive edge that favours the big budget societies would level and the atmosphere in societyland would certainly improve! Every society should provide an information pack/leaflets/magazine describing what it does and make more use of their members details. Many auditors spend their entire summer organising sponsored free-food for their Freshers' Pack. Many auditors agree with me that it is an utter waste of time and allows some auditors to sit back for the rest of the year once the member targets are hit. Many do not spend any effort actually planning what they are going to do after Freshers' Week. This notion that the bigger your society is the better it is is nonsense. A fraction of the members of large societies actually want to be involved or even attend any of their events.

This is a rough thought, but please contribute!

Ok, I take great exception this in particular.

Firstly, when freshers come into college they don't, for the most part, know a damn thing about societies. Getting them to the freshers tent is an exercise in enticement and people aren't enticed by reems of literature because they got enough of that when they come into college and they don't read it!! Getting rid of the fresher's pack as it exists wouldn't serve anyone's best interests because the fact is, the freshers go to the tent for the free stuff- I did, I'm sure you did it- it's just true. While this serves the large societies it also serves the small societies because while you're wandering around looking for who has the pizza or who has free coke then you happen upon little societies that you might have an interest in based on their activities, aside from what they can give you.

Getting rid of the fresher's pack doesn't level the playing field, it just creates a pitch that's all refs and no players and leaves a freshers tent with the different societies sitting at their stalls staring at each other becuase none of the freshers have bothered to come get their literature. The larger societies serve the smaller ones by enticing people to the tent.

Aside from that, fresher's week sponsorship isn't just an exercise in getting free stuff for members, it also forges sponsorship links for the events societies run throughout the year. Regardless of what you think about large societies having that sponsorship and that free stuff- there's no reason why they shouldn't gain popularity among their members for it. I'm quite a fan of people who give me pizza and tayto and slushies and the like! There's nothing wrong with that.

I would go so far as to suggest that a summer in the forum office trying to get people to give you free stuff is probably harder than organising events throughout the year- and it's also a fallicy to say that those auditors who have big societies do a good freshers week and nothing else. It's not an either/or situation. The large societies as I see it are LawSoc, C&E, B&L and L&H. Lawsoc have run literally tons of events this year from debates to nightclub events. I've also seen a big presence from C&E and B&L on the concourse in terms of ents events. The L&H have fulfilled their remit in terms of debates, special guests. If people don't take advantage of what societies offer, that's their own problem.

Maybe the thing that needs to be addressed is that the free stuff doesn't create a loyalty. It's often smaller societies who have faithful members and a core group who will return to events again and again. That is their strength which they've probably gained from having the time to talk to individuals as they're coming by the table at a slower pace. Bigger societies have to address how to better connect with their members, but the answer isn't to dramatically reduce membership by cutting out fresher's packs.

Nobody is forced to give up their summer to sponsorship proposals and organising fresher's week. It takes a lot of effort to get people to give you something for nothing, it's just as much of a hardship to do it as to deal with not having free stuff because you have to ensure that you keep up your end in terms of your duties to your sponsor. Packing 4,000 fresher's packs on a gorgeous Saturday in the student centre when you should be out in the sun isn't that enjoyable. Organising people to man a stand that will service that many people is tough. If you are willing to do that then more power to you, you shouldn't be shot down because some other societies haven't yet grown that far or realised that a summer in the forum might do them good.

Stabshauptmann

Nail Id like you to meet Mr Hammer.

Bang on elmyra.