09|12 SRC Shut Due to Lack of Heating

Ice covering all surfaces, bread in short supply and your humble SRC building closed- welcome to the big freeze of Glasgow 2010.

The University’s deliveries of fuel for heating have been disrupted by the arctic weather, and subsequently the SRC don’t have enough oil to fire up the boiler and keep staff warm, so we’ve had to shut for the day. We hope to re-open our brilliant services like the bookshop and advice centre tomorrow- we’ll keep you up to date. In other news minibuses remain off service till tonight.

UPDATE: 13/12/10 – We’re OPEN thanks to a barb of heating wafting around inside the john mac, so if you’re wanting to use the Advice Centre or Bookshop, you can. Outside is still arctic, the University is covered in Hoar frost and people are skiting round like Bambi on ice.

06|12 Student Protests in Run-Up to Westminster Vote

The government has now, at the last minute, announced that Thursday will be the day of the vote in the House of Commons that aims to triple tuition fees in England to £9,000 a year and cut University funding. It is very important that students from Glasgow show now that we want education to be available to all, not just a wealthy few. The SRC are taking the voices of as many students as possible to two demonstrations in the lead up to this Thursday’s vote.

Wednesday will see local action in Glasgow, with a protest assembling at noon at the main gate to march against the proposed cuts and increased fees whilst students all around the country do the same. The route and time of the protest are being carefully managed so that it does not disrupt the exams and revision of other students, we realise this is an incredibly busy and stressful time of the year for students and the SRC do not support any action which would be disruptive of your education.

Thursday is a day of national action. A demonstration has been called at noon meeting at the Royal Concert Hall steps at the top of Buchanan Street. At 3:30pm buses will leave from the square to Edinburgh where we’ll take part in a peaceful candle lit vigil protest outside Holyrood whilst Westminster sits to decide the fate of education for a generation to come. Buses will return late on Thursday evening. Bring candles and placards, the SRC may or may not also have a fantastic mystery prize to award to the best placard.

These will be the last big protests before the education bill passes through the House of Commons to try and become law. Should it pass, our government will slash university teaching budgets by 80% and stop funding for arts and social sciences courses completely.

Return bus tickets at a meagre £5 thanks to subsidising from both SRC and UCU and are available NOW from the SRC Reception Desk which is upstairs in the John MacIntyre Building, right next to the main gate.

30|11 SRC Minibus Service Snow Update

With the whole UK having been plunged into a premature cold snap, Glasgow is also feeling the frost. The SRC’s popular minibus service is being affected by the glut of snow and ice covering parts of the city’s roads.

UPDATE 13/12/10:
- All services now back on, slight delays to the timetable should be expected due to persisting ice on the roads.

Keep up with any updates to the service over at the minibus service information page.

25|10 Nightline – We’re all ears

Whether you’ve forgotten where your exam is in the morning or you just want to sound off because you’re fed up or worried, Nightline is here to help.

Nightline is a confidential, non-judgemental information and listening service run by the SRC. There are times when being at University can be a stressful business, and the service provides a friendly ear to talk to and a quick and discreet source of information. Any student can call Nightline between the hours of 7 pm – 7 am every night of the week during term time. Questions can also be sent by email to asknightline@src.gla.ac.uk.

As well as the opportunity to talk to someone in confidence, the service provides information such as exam time-tables, phone numbers for taxis, clinics and details on other campus support services and specialist helplines.

Also, Nightline is always looking for volunteers, so if you feel you can do one shift per fortnight please email volunteer@src.gla.ac.uk.

24|10 National Day of Action Protest

The Glasgow University Student Representative Council and the Anti Cuts Action Network are calling a protest on the 24th of November as part of a National Day of Action which will see students across the country congregate on their campuses to lobby Westminster, Holyrood and University managements.

The country is facing the largest spending cuts since 1919, cuts that will constrict the daily lives and ambitions of individuals across this country – not least those of current & future students. The coalition government is simultaneously attempting to shift the way Universities are funded away from the state and towards the individual. They firmly believe higher education should be anything but free. If there’s a time to protest it is now.

Cuts to the higher education sector in Scotland would seriously affect the student experience here at the University of Glasgow. Our chance to speak out alongside every other campus across the country will come on Wednesday the 24th November- the day MPs in Westminster will be voting on increasing tuition fees to £9000 whilst also cutting Government funding of Universities and Colleges in England and Wales. MSPs in Hollyrood meanwhile will be sitting to draft and debate legislation on the state of Higher Education funding in Scotland following last Tuesday’s Budget, which presented to the Scottish Parliament a proposed cut to capital funding for colleges and universities from £209m to just £91m.

Protect your course, protect your lecturers and protect your future, join us at 12pm outside the Main Gate on Wednesday the 24th, to make it clear that students of this University care how those in charge affect our education.

SRC & ACAN

Facebook Event link

15|11 Health Week 2010 :: 15-19th November

The SRC have organised Health Week, a whole load of activities and support to turn any winter frowns around and help ease any worries- a rosy five day ‘week’ of activities to help you keep health and happy in these new cold climbs. Get a massage or take a laughter class and feel good- because you’re a dear, really, you are.

All the events of the week having been typed nicely into this Google Calender over here- have a browse and subcribe to it to keep up to date on yer phone.

There’s a nice wee booklet going round with some descriptions of the week’s events, that you can view or download your own pdf copy over at Scribd.

Have a look at all the activities and try something new and exciting. Fencing? Zumba? There’s a lot of possibilities.

08|10 Protest March this Wednesday against Higher Education Cuts & Fees

Fellow Students,

As you are hopefully aware, there has recently been a large amount of debate around the future of Higher Education funding in Britain. The Browne Report was commissioned in November 2009 to examine the different ways by which our universities could be funded. Its findings were reported back in October 2010, and are, in the opinion of the SRC, preposterous. Following the Browne Review, and alongside their brutal Comprehensive Spending Review, the coalition government in Westminster have come out proposing a drastic increase in tuition fees for students to £9,000 whilst at the same time deeply cutting funding for Universities- abolishing government funding for arts courses entirely for example. The Scottish Government legislates on Scottish Higher Education separately from Westminster, but measures adopted south of the border will be keenly felt in their repercussions here up north. If the Scottish government sits by whilst the way English Universities are funded changes there are chances of a rush by English students to take advantage of the ‘cheaper’ fees here, or a flood of important academics and teaching staff moving to English Universities now able to pay higher wages in certain fields. Education funding may indeed need improved, but the solution for that shouldn’t come from the pockets of already debt-laden students.

The SRC have organised a bus to London this Wednesday 10th November to take part in a national demonstration to oppose these increased fees for students and cuts to goverment funding. This is the first national demonstration against these planned cuts, backed by both University students and staff alike with upwards of 20,000 people due to take part. This situation we now find ourselves facing is both unprecedented and unacceptable, and as students it’s time to stand up and say so.

The bus will leave at midnight on Tuesday the 9th from outside the John MacIntyre Building, then drive to London and drop us off to protest. We’ll be collected late afternoon and brought back to Glasgow for around midnight again. Tickets for the bus to come down and attend the protest are £10 and available today and tomorrow from the SRC Reception, which is upstairs in the John MacIntyre Building.

Thank you for your time. I hope you can join us on Wednesday, or if you can’t make it, lend us your support on our facebook page.

Regards,

Tommy Gore
President of SRC

01|11 SRC Grow Mo’s for Movember

Roll up roll up gentlemen, for here is the month formerly known as November.

For several years now, brave and selfless gentlemen have dedicated their faces to Movember – the month long charity event which rasies funds and awareness for Men’s health issues. This year, Movember’s fourth, will see a force of men stronger and more valiant than ever, stand side by side and united in their commitment to supporting men’s health through the growth of a ‘Mo.

Here at the very old, and fairly esteemed, University of Glasgow sit four student bodies. The sports chaps, the old-chap’s chaps, the old-women’s chaps, and the nice chaps [sic]. Each of these noteworthy establishments are presided over by a president, and in 2010 (handily), these luminary figures are all ‘Mo growing able men. SRC have arranged that a competition be run between these tradtionally competative bodies to see who will be able to grow the largest ‘Mo, the most stylish, and the most outrageous, and in the process raise the most funds for the prostate cancer charity.

You can keep up with progress over on our SRC facebook page and get donating at the SRC Movember page. Happy Movember!

21|10 Class Rep Training Sign-Up Open

The SRC run training sessions for Class Reps to enable them to handle common issues raised by other students, and so that they can feel confident meeting staff and talking through any problems with the course on a reasonable level. The training is important and completing it means your role as a class rep appears on your academic transcript as a nice wee flourish.

Sign-up for Class Rep training is open now and is all done online via this handy sign-up form. Training sessions last for two and a half hours and have proven very useful to students in the past. You only need to attend once and there’s over 20 sessions scheduled over three weeks to choose from.

More info about becoming a Class Rep can be found under our about Class Reps section, and if you’ve got any further questions classrep@src.gla.ac.uk will be able to help.

20|10 Autumn Election Results 2010

Voting is over, and the Autumn Election results are in. A full breakdown of the results for contested seats can be viewed over on Scribd. In the Autumn Elections the following people were elected to sit on the Students’ Representative Council:

Part-time students‘ Officer
- Philip Wilson

Postgraduate Convenor
– Ana Cohen

Medicine Convenor
– Morvern Dockery

General Representatives
- Chris Forster
- Kenneth Law
- Suzanne Milne
- Jamie Henfrey
- Brendan McCaffrey

General Representatives: First Year
- Gintare Masiulyte
- Natalia Tomaszek

General Representatives: Postgraduate
- Alan Tinning
- Michael Comerford