The Card System

Why did we not reserve places for card-holders or ban door sales? The general answer is that in planning the programme and budget we had to be mindful of past experience on this campus. Unfortunately, last year only a few hundred cards were sold and there would be few people around now who can remember as big and varied a programme as was offered this year. With no strong popular Orientation tradition and little precedent for the value of a Registration Card we knew we could not rely on Card sales alone to finance the programme. This again was unfortunate, but one of our major aims was to create a level of cultural activity that would carry over to people's expectations for next year.

This is exactly what has happened at Canterbury, where Card sales rose from 500 in the first year of a "Card system" operating, to 2,500 last year. Their tradition is now so strong that this year they were able to ban entry to all non-Card holders and still cover their costs. If we had done that we would have lost several thousand dollars (or had to attach a much higher price to the Card, which would also have affected sales).