|
|
Post by York SF&F Society on Oct 29, 2007 6:51:53 GMT -5
Can I please remind everyone that eating and drinking in university rooms is forbidden. I have just received the following email from rooms bookings complaining about the state W/035E was left in over the weekend, and informing us that the porters are considering banning us from using Wentworth college. The society will not be booking any other rooms for magic tournaments this term, and if this cannot be resolved in a satisfactory manner Friday night magic will have to run elsewhere from now on. I'm disappointed that after such a successful convention, a few people have managed to ruin things for the rest of us.
Katherine
---------------------------------------------------
We have received an email from one of the Senior Porters regarding rubbish
which has been left in W/035E over the weekend:
"The previous occupants (not necessarily the culprits) were the Science
Fiction & Film Society. Would you please forward on this text to their
committee members and seek feedback direct to Glynn Fieldhouse and the
College Porters as whether they have any knowledge of said abuse.
Naturally we are anxious to prevent further abuse to centrally timetabled
rooms so any information they can give as to the state of the room before
they entered would be invaluable. Once the abuser(s) is found we may wish to
request the teaching committee to decline further requests for booking of
such rooms.
As Timetabling is aware all centrally timetabled rooms specifically state
that drinking and eating are not permissible and that furniture removed,
added, or re-arranged during room use should be returned to standard
layout."
We would be very grateful if you could look into this as requested above and
also ensure that your members understand the booking conditions. If a room
you have booked is found in a poor state beforehand then this should be
reported immediately to the porter on duty.
|
|
chrysalid
Peasant without a Stick
P&P not included
Posts: 6
|
Post by chrysalid on Oct 29, 2007 9:35:27 GMT -5
Which weekend is this refering to? Is it the convention weekend?
|
|
|
|
Post by psammead on Oct 29, 2007 10:28:01 GMT -5
No, the magic tournament yesterday, I believe.
|
|
sethis
Peasant with a Stick
The guy who just headshot you.
Posts: 11
|
Post by sethis on Oct 31, 2007 5:08:13 GMT -5
I replied to the email, but no idea if anyone got it. Basically:
Banning Magic from Wentworth is a bad idea. I believe it is an over-reaction that upsets about 50% of the society on the actions of a dozen people (half of whom do not belong to it) and a warning to those involved is more in order.
First: "The previous occupants (not necessarily the culprits)" means that it might not have been us that made the mess. Flimsy, perhaps, but I wasn't there so I don't know what went on.
Second: That event was organized and run by non-society people. Also, only about half the people in attendance were society members!! Therefore I don't see how punishing the entire section of the society that plays Magic is productive, especially those who weren't there. All this does is create anger generated *not* towards the Magic players, but towards the committee for having such an unjust punishment. Punishing a majority for the actions of a minority is NOT an effective system.
Third: My proposed course of action is to find out who WAS there, and to get an explanation of what happened. I've already spoken to some of the other players who weren't there, but they've given me the names of people who were. I will then talk to these people and give them a serious warning about the consequences of defacing the rooms. If necessary, we can ban them from a certain number of events (for example).
Fourth: What has been done to resolve this? Has an email been sent to the porters? The room-booking people? I replied to this email the day it was sent, but only now remembered it might also have been put up on here. If I need to contact the porters or booking people then I can do that.
Last, I'm a bit irritated that I wasn't even consulted on how this was to be handled, considering I'm supposed to be the Rep of the Magic players.
|
|
|
|
Post by psammead on Oct 31, 2007 6:42:11 GMT -5
Magic has not been banned from Wentworth. The email was cc-ed to rooms bookings & in order to demonstrate to them and the porters that we *are* taking this seriously I have said we won't be booking any more rooms for *tournaments* for the remainder of term. I think this is fair. Assuming the porters do not forbid us from using Wentworth (what I would view as this being resolved in a satisfactory manner), Friday night magic will be continuing there as normal. If they do forbid us, obviously nobody (including the magic players) will be able to use it.
I have sent out an initial email to rooms bookings apologising and saying that I'll talk to those responsible to find out what did happen. I have also contacted Bob (the organiser) about this and asked him to draft a short apology I can pass on to the porters. Once I've received this from him I'll be emailing them to pass this on and explain that it was a small number of our members and so forth.
Apologies for not consulting you about it (I haven't seen your email response by the way - what address did you send it to?), but I thought in order to impress upon the uni that we are taking this seriously, the initial response needed to be sent asap.
|
|
glorim
Peasant without a Stick
Posts: 2
|
Post by glorim on Oct 31, 2007 10:18:08 GMT -5
Ian here (i stand in for Bob when he's being lazy/sick/dead on the FNM/tournaments side)
Ok, the pieces of the puzzle that I've collated so far:
1) FNM, 26/10/07: Whilst waiting to start, we were found by the porters and asked if we were with SF+F. When we said yes, they "reminded" us that food and drink was banned in wentworth, due to some mess that had been found the week previous, at the convention. Note, that we wern't the only ones at the convention, and this formal warning is probably a continuation, rather than first contact.
I would also like to point out that on 26/10, I myself reminded people rather loudly that food/drink was banned in W/035E, and asked people to get the room in order when i left early.
2) The tournament: In all honesty, I wasn't there, I don't know what it was like. The crux of it was this: We wern't the only ones there, the tournament was for the north of England. Reports are that we had 16 participants (5 more than Bradford's normally more successful tournament), but i don't know how many were ours. I'm guessing 4 or 5. As for what happened at the tournament, I have no idea, but Bob or one of the others should be able to illuminate; try and catch them at the social.
My summisation is that it wasn't stated loudly enough on the day that food and drink were banned in wentworth. The argument here is circular, but i believe will come down to saying that the tournament organiser (Bob, in this case) should have stated it explicitly. You'll have to talk to him to see if he did or not.
------------------------------------------------
I think thats the extent of my knowledge, the most notable chunk of which is in section 1. As far as I'm aware, this is NOT a new issue, just one the porters have tried to resolve discreetly and have finally decided to formally act on it.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that your considering to outright ban the York magic community from booking rooms doesn't seem to have passed the rest of the committee, let alone our Magic representative. I hope we'll be able to have some meaningful negotiation into the matter before you come to some sort of decision by yourself.
I'll float around here for a bit if you want me to waffle some more, or you can catch me at the social.
Thanks,
Ian
|
|
|
|
Post by psammead on Oct 31, 2007 10:45:21 GMT -5
Magic has not been banned from Wentworth. The email was cc-ed to rooms bookings & in order to demonstrate to them and the porters that we *are* taking this seriously I have said we won't be booking any more rooms for *tournaments* for the remainder of term. I think this is fair. Assuming the porters do not forbid us from using Wentworth (what I would view as this being resolved in a satisfactory manner), Friday night magic will be continuing there as normal. If they do forbid us, obviously nobody (including the magic players) will be able to use it. Thankyou for the information about what happened on the day, Ian. Bob hadn't mentioned this to me yet, and it's useful to know that this is a continuing issue. I'd like to make a couple of clarifications however. 1) Nowhere has it been said that anyone is considering "outright banning the York magic community from booking rooms". As stated explicitly directly above your post Magic has NOT been banned in totality and will not be. Friday Night Magic will continue as normal, but may have to move colleges if we are banned from booking rooms in Wentworth. 2) We have said that we will not book rooms for external magic events until next term. 3) We are at the mercy of the porters and central room bookings. They can ban the entire society from booking rooms, anywhere, ever. So we have to play nice with them, and could not afford to act slowly on this one. 4) I'm currently talking to the person who requested the room booking in order to establish what has taken place. The committee will be meeting on Thursday at the social to discuss this matter and make our final decision on what to do. If you have any concerns please feel free to raise them with us there. |
|
sethis
Peasant with a Stick
The guy who just headshot you.
Posts: 11
|
Post by sethis on Oct 31, 2007 13:12:14 GMT -5
OK, that this is a continuation of a previous complaint is news to me, and explains why there has been an official response for what I thought was a first offence.
Next question: What constitutes "external" events? Events where people come who aren't members of the society? FNM habitually has people from outside the soc. Pre-releases and day events? If we ban those then I can see both our current membership and hopes of attracting new members falling rapidly. The next nearest place to access tournaments is Bradford, and not everyone has the money or time to travel there whenever a tournament is scheduled. Some clarification as to what this means would be helpful. From what's been said so far, I assume it's "Any Magic event that is not FNM" but confirmation would be useful.
"3) We are at the mercy of the porters and central room bookings. They can ban the entire society from booking rooms, anywhere, ever. So we have to play nice with them, and could not afford to act slowly on this one."
The fact that they hold administrative power should not prevent due process from occurring with regards to the structure of the society and/or the committee. I am aware that there was/is a need for a quick resolution, but it also needs to be the *correct* resolution. If you need to get my attention in a hurry, then I'm sure you know someone with my mobile number. Failing that, I check my emails about every 4-5 hours. The fact is that we have a Magic committee representative for *exactly* scenarios like this one. If there is an issue/problem arising from or relating to the Magic players of the society then it needs to go through the representative. Otherwise there is no point having one. If it turns out that banning "External Magic Events" was the wrong decision, we will look even *more* stupid because we would have to attempt to take back the decision, and contacting the booking center requesting that we be "unbanned".
I suggest we wait for Bob or someone else who was there to explain exactly what went on at that tournament, and how the rooms came to be left in such a state that an official complaint even arose. Also, seeing as how the beginning of this issue seems to stem from mess left at the convention, a general email being sent to every member of the society that the rooms MUST be left in good condition might be in order.
|
|
glorim
Peasant without a Stick
Posts: 2
|
Post by glorim on Nov 1, 2007 5:13:54 GMT -5
Either Bob or someone else who was there should be at the social tonight; i'd be extremely surprised if no one was there who was attendant on sunday. We should be able to get the complete picture then.
|
|
sethis
Peasant with a Stick
The guy who just headshot you.
Posts: 11
|
Post by sethis on Nov 6, 2007 9:17:26 GMT -5
OK, as there has been no perceptible response from Bob, I am now going to draft an apology statement to the porters and send it to Katherine in a PM (I can't get the email to work). Although it is now almost 3 weeks since the event, and I have no idea if it's actually going to accomplish anything.
|
|
