Incase you didn't realise, the Guild is having a referendum thing, and if it fails then the guild could be no more, which means societies like ours could have trouble surviving.

For the vote thing to count, a certain percentage of students have to vote, so get involved - it take maybe 5 minutes, if that.

Head on over to http://www.guildofstudents.com and login - you need your uni ID number and a password. If you don't know it, click the forgotten button and it will email it to you.

If you want the full blurb its all on that site.

Vote!

If you do it at the guild (they've got voting "stations" outside spar) they'll give you cake for your trouble! It'd also be pretty rubbish if the guild stopped giving societies grant money so voting's definitly worth it anyway.

Yep it doesn't matter much if you vote yes or no, as long as you vote!

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MILF-Hunter

No thanks. If I voted it'd be more likely the referendum will reach quorum. If it was just the minimum changes necessary to keep the constitution in line with current laws then I'd be happy to vote. But instead of that they've made some substantial changes to the constitution that are completely unrelated to any legal requirements. In particular they've greatly increased (to 50% on the Trustee Board) non-elected non-student non-accountable posts on executive committees. And they're saying "either accept these changes or lose the guild" which is blackmail at best. So f**k em.

That does sound a little like cutting off your nose to spite your face luke. I was certainly sceptical at first, but after I spoke to one of the people on the voting station it sounded like they were doing what was needed to get charitable status. I don't understand all the jargon, but if it helps them survive I think we should all vote. They are a pain at best, and I'm certainly not saying I agree with all the changes, but as Starley says, we need them!

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I'm Andy. I'll eat anything.

What about going back to the AU, i hear its much cheaper now

No it's not, you can still vote NO to the changes to save the guild, all they need is a 10% turnout for voting either way. If less than 10% of the student population vote then we lose the guild.

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MILF-Hunter

They wouldnt give us thousands of pounds a year in grant money though.

The referendum still isnt quorate, so if you havent voted you definitley should - if you really dont want it to pass then voting no would make sense. The trustees thing is a change in addition to the legal requirement, aimed at giving more stability and expertise to the guild structure - they would still be student appointed so its not like the guild is somehow not run by students anymore.

I still don't get this whole 'Guild' thing. I think I'm just too American.

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"If you're offended, don't be" -Andy Kirkpatrick

No, that's wrong. The situation is the same if the referendum is rejected or not quorate, in both situations the constitution would not be changed to meet new legal requirements. The reason they want people who think no to vote no is that the problem is not achieving a majority, but achieving quorum.

In the case of the referendum failing, the guild certainly will not disappear. There are many ways around the problem. One is to hold another referendum relatively quickly and have that passed, and I would have voted and voted yes if it'd just been the minimum requirements necessary to comply with the law, not changes necessary for the law and a severe reduction in student power over the Guild. The Guild would not disappear overnight if if can't comply in time, I was once a member of a society that realised that our constitution was not legal, and the result was that we were told to sort it out in reasonable time. We were not instantly destroyed.

If the Guild were 'destroyed,' which I don't believe for a second, then what would happen is that a new body would be formed, call it the Guild, with exactly the constitution that hadn't been passed, and the assets of the old Guild would be passed over (the passage in the current constitution on "Winding Up" is serves that purpose -- have a read of it). There are many many bureaucratic ways to change the constitution without a successful referendum. They're embarrassingly undemocratic, but not much more undemocratic than a referendum in which almost noone voting has read the constitution being voted on.

This is as I understand it, and I'd be delighted if people could correct me on anything I've got wrong, as I'd rather be as informed as possible before I make my decision.

- The referendum is to make changes to the constitution in order to make the guild compliant with new charity law, without which it will lose it's charitable status

- One of the changes is to change the board of trustees to being 50% uni ran (more or less) which was one of the requirements of the charity law (?)

- The university, by law, has to provide us with a Students Union therefore, no matter what the outcome, we WONT lose the Guild.

- In the event of it not being passed and the Uni taking full control of the guild, student societies and all that jazz won't be massively affected, the guild would just lose it's independance, and the only effect anyone would notice is the guild would no longer do things like lobby the university about things.

- In the event of it being passed again most of the student body won't notice any change, the guild will be governed half by the uni so not remain as independant, the 'vote yes' committee will have a big 'yay, we're so great, we saved the guild, it's all thanks to us, kiss our feet' thing going on.


I also have a couple of questions

- In the event of the referendum not reaching quorum would this be the same as a no vote, or would they rethink the changes and put a new edited constitution to the vote which doesn't make so many changes people are arguing is unnessersary.

- Is redoing the board of trustees actually nessersary? This is what I've been lead to believe by the 'vote yes' committees speals. Having tried to look up about the law I came across this explanation

"Students' unions are regarded as charities, because they advance the educational purposes of the parent institution. Under the old law, students' unions were accepted as exempt charities by virtue of being administered on behalf of the college and being established for a special purpose of the college, namely student welfare.

The Act expressly removes exempt charity status from students' unions. Therefore, if they have an income of more than £100,000 per year (and note the emphasis on "income", not "turnover") they will be required to register with the Charity Commission. However, unions are not likely to have to register before 2008."

As I understand it, in order to register as a charity all the Guild has to do is prove that it is of public benefit... so what does this have to do with re organising the trustees?

No it's not wrong, if the referendum is rejected then the guild becomes a company but still exists how it is, if it is yes then it can keep its charitable status. If it is Sub quorum then the uni will take it over, it will be a bar in university centre or some shit like that, the building will be shut down cos it's too expensive to run and a lot of the money that goes to societies won't be available.

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MILF-Hunter

The change with the trustees (which is the one people seem to object to) is that 50% wont be students, not that 50% will be university appointed. Guild council will still have the power to appoint/remove trustees so students will still have control over the makeup of the board, just with the benefit of more stability and greater expertise being on the board of trustees - which sounds like a good idea to me

Yeh there is no reason to vote no unless you love ridiculous bureacracy.

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MILF-Hunter

It is not necessary under the law. You can read that in the subtext of the information the guild sent round, which said something along the lines of "we're making changes to keep compliant with the law and making a few other changes to the hideous old constitution to improve the running of the Guild."

And being a grouchy old man their lumping together of necessary changes and highly debatable functional changes into one thing, and so pretty much blackmailing people who disagree with the functional changes, really pisses me off.

I stand to be corrected, but that still strikes me as absolute nonsense. Referendums (with one question) have two possible outcomes. They can be accepted or they can be rejected. To be accepted it must be quorate and achieve the needed Yes majority. The means by which a referendum fails does not affect the outcome, because the No option - reject the proposed change - is the same as a failure in quorate - the change is not accepted. You can't a referendum where both options are a change, that'd allow absurd rigging. "If you vote Yes our change happens, if you vote No a slightly modified version happens and there is no real No option..."

And do you really think the university would be able to close the Guild and Joe's? Can you imagine the student reaction...?! They're not completely mad.