Plan for SRC Affiliation Problem; Committee Meeting Minutes

9/27/2014

What has happened?

As many of our members are aware, GUGS was refused SRC affiliation this year, thanks to our membership numbers being unacceptably weighted towards non-student members. This has not only meant that we were refused a Fresher's Faire stall, but also that we need to demonstrate to the QMU that we are willing to bring the ratio of our members back into the 80%/20% students/non-students ratio that they specify. To achieve this, the committee has agreed to follow a plan proposed by James Thornbury.

The Plan

When memberships are handed out, GUGS will only grant membership to currently matriculated Glasgow University students. Thus the society will become 100% student-membership. At the same time, a new society is to be formed, one composed exclusively of non-student members, entitled Glasgow Gamers Association. GGA will exist for the stated purpose of fundraising for GUGS, which it will do in the main by progressing membership dues from its own members to the main GUGS fund. In return, GGA members will attend GUGS events and games, abiding by the rules and decisions of the GUGS committee. They will be guests of GUGS, which in practice means that GUGS members will have to sign them into the QMU (which is something that was commonplace at GUGS not very long ago), but otherwise isn't envisaged as actually changing the day-to-day running of games at GUGS in any way.

This new society will elect its own executive committee, have its own constitution, and hold its own AGMs and EGMs as normal. It is currently envisaged that it will do these things at the same time that GUGS does the same, requiring space timetabled at the AGM for their elections.

What does this Achieve?

In short, it allows GUGS to continue to exist as a student society, while permanently removing the membership quota issue. (Other solutions mainly involve us enforcing the SRC membership quota limit ourselves, which will result in current members not being allowed to attend GUGS in the future.) This solution also ensures that non-student members have say over their own society, even if that society is explicitly subservient to the main society.

When will this take place?

In terms of membership, only students are going to be allowed to join GUGS at this time. Non-student members will simply have to be signed into the building for the meantime. GGA itself will come into being during the next GUGS AGM, at which point the prospective members of this society will be solicited to run for its executive positions.

Where is the Constitution for this new Society?

James Thornbury has provided a draft constitution, based upon the SRC's guidelines to societies, which can be found here. This will need to be ratified at the AGM, along with the very existence of the society, but in the meantime comments and suggestions should be directed to him (@jamesthornbury on Twitter).

Didn't you mention Committee Minutes?

You can find the minutes for today's committee meeting here, with discussion both of the above issue, our attempts to increase our student numbers, and Magic the Gathering.

14 Comments

Mike Cugley

9/27/2014 03:15:34 am

Can we be the Glasgow Gamers Group just so we can be G3? Possibly the Gamers Auxiliarry Gaming Association?

9/27/2014 03:16:29 am

Ugh, I mean the Glasgow Auxiliary Gaming Association. Obviously.

Charles Mitchell

9/27/2014 03:17:07 am

Sadly G3 is already taken, and I'm pretty sure that we can't afford a turf war right now.

Mr Brian Dawkins

9/27/2014 05:33:52 am

How about Glasgow Universal Gaming Society? :rolleyes:

9/27/2014 05:29:19 am

This is just an opinion. Feel free to disregard. Flamers will be met with a punch to the nuts and/or equivalent. I think the idea of creation of a new society is a terrible one. In time, this will just a be a rift between people who used to be "a part" of GUGS and will develop its own agenda. Why not meet the SRC requirements by going along with their actual guidelines. If you have X many student Members, then you can have a limited number of Associates based on that membership. Others would not be Associates or Members. They would in fact be guests of students hanging out in the QMU - which as far as I recall is a place for students and their guests. With little to no voting rights anyway (and yes, you could totally take these away), I doubt that many non-GU-student attendees would give a poop one way or the other. Have the non-GU-attendees asked for their own association? Is there any significant demand for this at all? I am all for everyone that goes along to GUGS helping fundraise and do bits and pieces for the place that they attend, make friends and have fun, maybe even do some gaming. I just earnestly believe that the creation of another pseudo-entity with yet another layer of committee would end badly. There are already many other Glasgow-based non-GUGS clubs people coudl go to. We go to GUGS because we have a history or an association or a desire to game within the welcoming confines of the Queen Margaret Union and its surrounds. We dont need dis shizz.

9/27/2014 06:15:47 am

Thanks for the comment Brian. I would say that this way we manage to achieve the same effect, but also give the non-students a formal outlet for their voice, and a way for us to keep track of the membership without cluttering up the GUGS main body. After all, both ways would look the same on a day-to-day basis; but the approach outlined in the post would formalise how that interaction actually worked.

As to whether it could create weird tensions that later lead to the subordinate group splitting off: yes, it absolutely could. I understand that this has happened before, with some oldies camping out in the Hetherington (which I still miss, by the way) instead of coming to the QMU on Tuesday evenings. As a historian, that sounds suspiciously like the kind of stress-relieving process that led to Ancient Greek city-states sending out colonies. This solution could spark that again in the future. But considering that it has already happened in the past, it doesn't seem like we will be able to stop such a thing happening, and perhaps we would be wrong to - eventually people will always want to move on to fresher pastures, right? Our concern right now has to be to ensure that we don't bugger the GUGS society for future students, and do so in a method that give the greatest benefit to both students and non-students.

Phil Brown

9/27/2014 07:50:17 am

I would say that both the proposal and Brian's concerns have merit and, as a stopgap, the society should possibly look to break into students and non - students. However... GUGS must seek SRC dispensation in my opinion. GUGS is a society that relies on alumni and non - students for its supply of extra GMs. I don't say this to detract from the great work of student GMs, it is.just a fact of RPG play. Many freshers are new to gaming and it takes time and experience to move from player to GM (perhaps even more time than doing a degree!) and so to put a blanket requirement on societies that doesn't include lee way for those that NEED proficient members seems short sighted in my opinion.

9/27/2014 08:49:10 pm

Ray can speak more about this, but apparently the SRC are not in a mood for compromising. They don't like us very much, and they hold all the power in this situation. :(

Heather Valentine

9/27/2014 07:46:51 pm

Several vital non-executive positions (namely rpg & non-rpg convener) are often filled by non-students - will there be a democratic way to vote a member of the GGA into an auxiliary officer position if no students stand for it? (Obviously students would be preferable, but if a student doesn't run it feels preferable to have it voted on by a membership than to have either no person or someone assigned that's just one of the committee's mates)

9/27/2014 08:51:34 pm

We discussed this issue at the Committee Meeting. The problem is that most likely we can't have any non-student members of the committee going forward, not if we want to avoid more SRC oversight. That might require positions lying fallow, and a non-student member being deputised to fulfil the task by the president. Otherwise I am not sure how we resolve this issue, as kind of the whole point of the new society is to keep the two societies constitutionally separate. This is something that we'll need to see in the runup to the AGM I suspect.

9/27/2014 11:58:07 pm

Yeah, I think they do need to be separate, and I imagine it'll just be a teething problem, but it seems like the only potential issue with the separation

Niamh

9/28/2014 08:38:44 am

We curretly have stuff in place in the constitution which means that non-student committee members aren't ~really~ committee members. We can also have up to 20% of our membership non-students. So one solution to the issue of empty spots could be that any non-students who want to run for a spot on the gugs committee can join the student version of the society just before elections (it seems unlikely that enough non-students will be running for the non-exec positions that it would tip the proportions). That way we aren't doing anything that isn't already in the constitution and we aren't doing anything the SRC can hound us about, but we also have a better chance of getting the committee filled. Would that work?

Alan

9/27/2014 09:47:33 pm

why doesn't the SRC like us?

9/28/2014 01:51:34 am

I very much doubt that "they dont like us" but can understand their concern about a society that isnt fulfilling its affiliation criteria. The SRC are trying to make sure all student societies which they give support and free facility use to are run by students for students. Guests are not _bad_, but they are incidental. (and yes the uni also fund the QMU so...) They are are doing what they are supposed to - be accountable for the funds given to them by Glasgow Uni Co. The creation of another society who are not in fact allowed into the QMU without being a student or guest of a student sounds proposterous. Where would they then call home? Some other place? The Hetherington shard was not the only GUGS split-off group - I know of at least 3 more since then. These people still game, albeit in their self-contained groups, and have no further contact with GUGS. The reason - "feeling too old for the maturity level of the average society member" or "my needs are not being met and nobody is addressing the shizz I want addressed," and simply "it's too goddarn loud in there." The creation of a new entity is - literally - divisive, and will only be to the detriment of the student society as more and more experienced ex-attendees simply drift off into another phase of gamerosity. You could give representation to non-Members by creating a post similar to that used in both the QMU and GUU - the FSM or Former Student Member, if representation was felt to be needed in that way. Or you can have Honorary positions who sit in meetings in advisorial roles but who do not have a vote. Do society positions need to be filled? Not if other committee members agree to take on their responsibility. As far as the SRC goes, the absolute requirement is for 3 executive officers - other people are there to take up the slack of shizzle that needs done. I suggest you arrange a meeting between the SRC Clubs & Socs VP and the GUGS committee and establish the best way forward and what they actually want from you. That person is paid to do stuff like that, and are there to facilitate the clubs and societies. Use them.