Guest Night Late Opening

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Author: Tom Ogg

Started: February 3, 2007, 11:01:09 pm

Target: Gwilym Hughes, Bursar; Steve Nickell, Warden; Ray Fitzpatrick, Dean; Nuffield College, Oxford

Category: Education

Supporters:

Goal:

100,000

Goal Progress:

Status

Closed

The undersigned believe that the bar in Nuffield College, Oxford, should be granted late opening (until 2am) on the nights of the Exchange Dinner on 16 February 2007 and the Guest Night on 20 February 2007.

On (1):
The Bursary confirmed to the JCR Social Secretary that “it is the fact that there will be lots of members of other colleges in Nuffield that has led him [the Bursar] to take the decision to close the bar at midnight.” We do not believe that this is a legitimate reason to deny late opening of Nuffield Bar on the night of the exchange dinner.

The Exchange Dinners allow a set number of students to dine at each other’s colleges, as a means of socialising and meeting other graduate students. All colleges bar Nuffield participate in exchange dinners, and have parties in their common rooms afterwards until a late hour. We believe that Nuffield should not be an exception to this norm of allowing graduate students appropriate opportunity for social activities.

We believe there is no serious security risk from having the guests at our Exchange Dinner evening, who are graduate members of Worcester and Corpus Christi College, and whose names the social secretary will have on a list, in the bar until a late hour.

Finally, we note that there will be a porter on duty on the evening of the guest night, and that his presence was demanded by the bursary for security reasons when the bar is open late. We believe this should be more than sufficient to allay security concerns on the night of the exchange dinner.

On (2):
The Bursary responded to the JCR Social Secretary's request to have late opening on the evening of the night of the guest night with the response: “Late night (2am) on Friday 26 January. Approved. That brings the number of late nights approved to 6. I am not willing to increase this number so decline to approve your request for 20 February.”

We note that Nuffield has no policy regarding a limit upon the number of nights which the bar may have late opening hours (that JCR officials are aware of), and that no numerical upper limit of late-openings has ever before been mentioned or suggested to a JCR official, during the drawing up of the arrangement with the JCR over the last few years or after this. We note that last term, the Bar opened late a total of eight times, and that there has never been a security problem in the bar caused by students in JCR Committee living memory.

We oppose the imposition of a limit on the number of late opening of the Nuffield Bar. We object to its arbitrary imposition without any consultation or warning. We believe that this decision negatively affects the ability of the social secretaries to undertake their role in college, and unnecessarily engenders conflicts which detract from those students' ability to undertake their academic study.

We and request an explanation for why the Bursar believes such a limit is necessary, and why such a limit should be deemed necessary now, and why this limit should be set a six nights a term.