Executive Inaction

Sir,—We wish to protest about certain examples of executive mishandling of student affairs.

(1) One of the most annoying is the common room situation. The purpose of the common rooms is to provide room which students may use for recreation. During the day when students are busy attending lectures, all the common rooms are free. But frequently at night, when students have some opportunity for leisure, there are no common rooms vacant for us as common rooms.

Furthermore, when students are evicted from them (usually about 7.00 p.m.) and wish to remain in the S.U.B. they are not allowed to use any other room, e.g., a disused committee room. We have waited a long time for this building, and at last it is completed and we have a night caretaker. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect at least one room to be available for recreational use.

(2) A question arising from this is—why shouldn't the commitee rooms be left open for use by individual students? They could still be used by committees and clubs who wished to book them, but meanwhile could be serving a useful function instead of being locked most of the time. Also, why shouldn't some rooms in the S.U.B. be available for student use in the weekends? This would be very much appreciated, especially on Sundays, by students with uncongenial accommodation.

(3) Notice boards are still inadequate. There is no provision at all for student notices in the Science Block, the Kirk Building or the gymnasium, and very little provision in the Hunter Building. In the S.U.B. there is only one small notice board for general use in each of the three foyers, and these are always hopelessly over crowded. There could be notice boards in the common-rooms, the side-entrance porch, the corridors and the Caf. At present it is impossible to keep the student body informed about current student affairs (e.g., the recent Presidential election).

(4) We object to Exec.'s recent decision to oppose protests against the raising of fees if 500 signatures were not forthcoming. They allowed one week for the collecting of these signatures and then did nothing about publicising their decision or collecting the signatures. Yet at the last Special General Meeting, a motion was passed binding Exec. to organise protests — there were no extenuating conditions included in that motion.— Yours, etc.,