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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, June 1928

Correspondence

page 44

Correspondence

The Editor,—

Dear Sir,—It is time someone voiced the feeling that is general concerning the running of supper at the 'Varsity dances. These dances, held in the Gym., are on the whole, and as a rule, very jolly affairs. They have a serious drawback, however. The arrangements for the supper are the most futile and unsatisfactory arrangements it has been one's ill-fortune ever to encounter in connection with any similar social functions.

When the supper dance is announced, what happens? Before the first few bars have been scraped out, there is a large and rapidly increasing phalanx of youths and maidens heaving and pushing at the doors above the stairs leading down into the supper room. Presently a harassed individual opens the door and allows the first sitting, i.e., those who had had the wit to charge the door first, to go down to supper. This "first sitting" have as good a supper as they can get—one believes one has subsequently heard certain of them mention coffee, fruit salad, trifle, as having been substantially apparent. One does not know if there is foundation for the rumour, not having had, so far, the good fortune to participate—at least successfully—in a Victoria College First-Sitting Supper Charge . . . . . . . which is tantamount to saying, that, in common with many of those others who have not weight and must therefore wait, one's experience as far as the 'Varsity dances is concerned, has been limited to a cup of cold water—in preference to a spoonful of coffee dregs— a sandwich or two, perhaps (yea, perhaps) a nibbled cake, and an alluring vista of empty cream-encrusted bowls, filled with nought but memories. All this as a reward for swaying and heaving for half an hour, tightly wedged amongst a mob of hungry would-be "second-sitters," who urge clamorously round the bolted door, whilst languid couples from the lucky "first-sitters" drift up from the supper-room and dance.

Is there any good reason why the suppers for the dances should not be more satisfactorily arranged? Or why the supplies of coffee and fruit salad should not extend to those who cannot get down to the first sitting? Surely not! One recently had the good fortune to attend a dance held under the auspices of the Teachers' Training College, in their College Hall. There were many more couples present than is customary at any 'Varsity dances. The supper arrangements, nevertheless, were exemplary; there were two orderly though very large sittings, the second one having as generous a supper as the first. This despite the fact that the Training College students do not, I understand, pay for admission to these dances, and that the number of students paying the regulation Stud. Ass. fee is but a fraction of the numbers doing so at Victoria College.

In the face of all this, one may justly declare that a much-needed improvement in our supper arrangements should be possible, nay, comparatively simple of attainment.

Are the supper arrangements for the next Victoria College dance going to merit the sorry description earned by previous ones in this letter? One hopes that these sorrowful lines will cause the promoters of the next dance to go forward in their arrangements with awakened minds.

—I am, etc.,

Unfed.