True grit

The meeting was characterised by fathomless group psychology that seemed to compel protagonists of whatever "side" on whatever issue, to heckle, interject, boo, hiss, scream and shout, over the top of anyone they happened to disagree with. This had the apparently desired effect of intimidating speakers and the standard of debate suffered accordingly. The speeches that could be heard, however, generally differed from each other less by the point of view they expressed than the degree of imbicility they managed to attain. "Heavies" and featherweights alike, heaping up mountains of words, withered and perished from neglect, as people paid more attention to catholic jokes, darts, sexist comments about feminists and various other asides.

Peter Aagaard. . . sensing victory

Despite a convincing spiel and a hard sell by Alick Shaw, Peter Franks and President Sacksen, the motion was strongly defeated for no apparent reason at all (unless we assume people were convinced by the "jobs for the boys" demagoguery from a few speakers who should have known better and a few who didn't know at all).

The first two were passed almost unanimously, the third being the bone of contention Fight people spoke for and six people against. The motion was then put and declared passed at about the same majority ratio. This met with a loud burst of applause. People screamed with delight and ran in all directions. Trots and Maoists hugged each other in fond embrace. Alick Shaw's voice was actually drowned in the noise. Meantime Cath' soe'ers and CU'ers donned sackcloth and ashes as Madam Chair shouted for order and then declared the meeting closed (collapsing with exhaustion as she did so). Closing the "meeting" at this juncture was all that could be done. This was regrettable however since there remained three other items on the agenda of equal importance that were not dealt with. Still, socially concerned students can't do everything and even SGMs have to end sometime.