Argument for your favourite Society

Boston

nope, guess someone had the same idea.

John

Shane O'Brien as in the guy on the left?

Boston

That would be the Guy, and don't post his picture on the net.

John

I may have posted it here put he put it up, he's our webmaster at DURNS

desertcircus

Exactly what events were planned as part of this Comedy Soc? The Hist runs an annual standup night for student comedians, Ents brings in professional comedians, H-BAM put on regular performances...if you're in charge of a limited budget and someone proposes to duplicate work already being done, then what other choice would you have?

Nietzschean

lol @ desertcircus.....you arn't by any chance affilated with the SU/CSC/Hist are ye?

dermot_sheehan

He's a former phil council member and current SU sabat

atlas

just another vote of praise for the Geog Soc! Excellent piss ups

desertcircus

Gabhain is right, I'm an SU sabbat and I served on Phil council last year. And now that people know that, I have to emphasise that when I post as desertcircus, I'm speaking in a purely personal capacity, and I don't represent any viewpoint other than my own. Ass duly covered...

I honestly don't think there's any great degree of nepotism in the CSC. In particular, I don't think the Phil/Hist/Players have a monopoly on how CSC money is spent. The structure of CSC gives strength to smaller societies, with each society having one vote no matter how big or small - DURNS has an equal vote to Players, Mathsoc has an equal vote to the Phil. I happen to think the structure of CSC is very fair; if votes were weighted for membership, the GMB and Players would effectively run the show. I understand that some people are angry about being turned down in society applications, but my earlier post stands: I do think a lot of what a Comedy Society would do is covered by various bodies in College. I don't necessarily agree with the decision made by the CSC, but I can understand the reasoning behind it.

Boston

Gamers actually run the show for what ever reason.

PHB

Yeah, why would the CSC give you money to do something thats already done?
It'd be like me setting up a stand up comedian society after you've set up your comedy society
Its all an excuse to get free drink anyway
CSC are very anti everyone cept for players
Nah they are fine, but they'll only give you money if they honastly think it'll benefit all of college.
Thats why for example players get so much money, because they stuff they do benefits the college a lot.

Nietzschean

how? maybe u arts heads.....but i don't see it benefitting me or well anyone i know down this end............
Phil/Hist/Players are all arts type things, and for the former 2, what gives them such numbers? maybe its all the free beer in freshers week? that not contrary to the previously quoted rule in the CSC?

desertcircus

But at least four hundred members of the Phil last year signed up after Freshers' Week. The social events always play a part, but almost every society has them - some just do more than others.

One other thing - there's nobody from the Phil or the Hist on CSC Executive this year...

desertcircus

the people involved in the Phil/Hist always include a sizeable number from outside Arts. Of the three candidates for Hist auditor this year, one was med, another was Comp Sci and only one was Arts. The officers of the Phil from last year (not sure about this year's ones) were only a third Arts until an ICT student resigned and was replaced by a BESS boy.

Nietzschean

how many members are in the phil?

O and just incase my previous post is taken real anti-hist/players/phil , i've nothing against them , they are the biggest, should get the most money, but claiming they repesent us all would be an over-statement to put it mildly

ApeXaviour

desertcircus wrote:

the people involved in the Phil/Hist always include a sizeable number from outside Arts.

They really don't you know..

Nietzschean

well sizeable could mean 4(a figure i'd believe, active memebers not ones who signed up for teh free beer)...its kinda arbitary........

PHB

Well the argument made would be

Players provides the college with plays, and help develop tcd students in acting circles
Hist/Phil attract guests to come and speak at the univercity
Salmen Rushdi, Joshua Jackson, Bertie Ahern, That bishop guy from south africa whos name escapes me, being notable examples
I've never really understood what dubes does but I think its to do with santra pay
Cards soc recently got loads more funding cause they became active and ran touraments
Netsoc get money cause they provide web stuff etc

These societies don't benefit arts students, they benefit students.
Just cause people from arts might take more active a role in them doesn't make them "arts" societies.

I don't use Netsoc, I don't think it benefits me in particular, doesn't mean it doesn't benefit the college

Nietzschean

PHB wrote:

Thats why for example players get so much money, because they stuff they do benefits the college a lot.

Now the way i took that u were single'n out players as a society that benefit's the college 'a lot' vs what?
imo mathsoc/physoc benefit the college just as much if not more so, but thats my opinion.

And those socities benefit arts students, or well more accurately their membership which are predominantly arts students.This is more an arguement over what could be defined as benefiting the college more than anything else, imo all the socities together benfit the college, together, not as singular items as by their nature they only cater to select segments of the student population.

ApeXaviour

PHB wrote:

Well the argument made would be

Players provides the college with plays, and help develop tcd students in acting circles
Hist/Phil attract guests to come and speak at the univercity
Salmen Rushdi, Joshua Jackson, Bertie Ahern, That bishop guy from south africa whos name escapes me, being notable examples
I've never really understood what dubes does but I think its to do with santra pay
Cards soc recently got loads more funding cause they became active and ran touraments
Netsoc get money cause they provide web stuff etc

These societies don't benefit arts students, they benefit students.
Just cause people from arts might take more active a role in them doesn't make them "arts" societies.

I don't use Netsoc, I don't think it benefits me in particular, doesn't mean it doesn't benefit the college

Well that made no sense.
The Phil/hist/players/dubes are all predominantly arts/bess. This IMO would classify them as "arts" societies. Why? Because of all that stuff you listed up there: the guest speakers, the acting. They are aimed to be of "arty" (..im not very articulate today) interest.

I'm not saying that these arts societies don't benefit the college. They do benefit parts of it, similar to netsoc, cardsoc etc etc.. It's when they claim to represent the most of the student body, this IMO is similar to the way the US think they are the world. It's just not so.

desertcircus

Trust me when I say I have a better idea of this than you do. I served on Council last year and I've spent three years lazing around in the GMB.

Three of last year's six officers in the Phil were outside Arts. The treasurer was a Maths student, the registrat was med, ands the steward was physics. The librarian was ICT, but resigned and was replaced by a BESS boy.

The Hist's officers this year include a genetics student and an advanced materials student, and the two losing candidates for auditor were med and comp sci.

It's a myth that the GMB is populated exclusively by Arts students. There's always been a healthy number of students from all areas of the college.

PS: Phil membership last year stood at just over two thousand, if I'm not mistaken.

Kappar

That bishop guy from south africa whos name escapes me

Tu tu? Why have I got a feeling I'll be hereing that alot :- )

Nietzschean

do you have figures on the break down? i'm not saying your lie'n or anything i just think they'd be interesting to see....

ApeXaviour

desertcircus wrote:

Trust me when I say I have a better idea of this than you do.

desertcircus wrote:

and an advanced materials student,

Yes I know him. He's the only Science person in my year I know of that is anyway involved in the GMB. You've mentioned that about the officers. They could be just token "see we're for everyone" Colin Powell-esque. But like sky, if ya had a break down of the active members though that showed that a large % were Hamilton end people, I'd concede. Until then though, I'll continue to firmly believe and voice that phil/hist/players are predominantly arts societies.

John

I'm also under the impression that most of the people who take part in the Phil/Hist are mostly arts. I'm sure there are a lot of Hamilton people who are members but I'd say most of the prominent members are arts. Not that I particularly care, I've yet to look at one of their posters and think "That sounds like a good night". Interesting guest speakers the odd time but I find the whole concept of debating as practised by those society's to be artificial and exercises in lekking.

desertcircus

There's no figures or percentages on how many GMB heads are from outside Arts. There are at most forty people involved, and I don't know what courses a lot of them do. At a push, though, I'd estimate that about a third of those involved are from Health Sciences, Science, or Engineering. People like Sarah Deeny, Dave Sanders, Alex Gryson, Wei-Yu Chen, James Mahon, Paul Brennan, Claire Gleeson, Mark Wilkinson, Cathal McHugh, Mark Lally, Brian Reddy, Brendan Bruen and the legendary Paddy de Feu, are all from outside the Arts/BESS enclave that people think exists in the GMB.

ApeXaviour

Hah I know three of them personally. I knew Alex was involved, but Tim Chen and Brian. I wasn't aware of their involvement. Brian's MSISS though.. isn't that kind of a gray area? Ok I suppose it's more engineering than anything else.
Hmm.. ok that was surprising to me. It's certainly dampened my perspective somewhat. I'm a little confused though? You said their numbers were in the thousands. Now you're saying 40. Do these people just have higher-ranking involvement? What about the everyday active member? Do you honestly reckon that a third of them are hamilton end students?

A quick look at the prospectus, and if (as we're already doing) you divide the college courses into sections.
Artsy: Arts(letters and humanities) and BESS
Sciency: Engineering and system sci (including CS), health sci and science.
The number of places (and therefore the student population) are dead even. About 1300 entering JF each year.

Just to put it in perspective..

I've yet to look at one of their posters and think "That sounds like a good night".

Ahaha . Ain't that the truth..

desertcircus

The total number of members and the total number of highly active members are two different things. The Phil has two thousand members, but it's run by a Council of fourteen people. I don't have figures for the total membership and their courses, but in terms of the small number who run the societies and organise everything, there's certainly a high number of Science students. I'll happily admit that there are more Arts students, but a major cause of that is that science students have more lecture hours and less free time to get involved.

In terms of the total number, I'd guess it's not too heavily biased in favour of Arts. There's about forty or fifty Engineers who play foozball in the Phil every day, and the numbers in Freshers' Week are about even as far as I know.

SOL

if the hist/phil have 2000 members thats most of the freshers, how can there be a bias? and I would have to say that these societies benefit people from the "science end" even more as they otherwise probably wouldn't get such exposure to current affairs, etc, also free refreshments benefits everyone,

ApeXaviour

SOL wrote:

if the hist/phil have 2000 members thats most of the freshers, how can there be a bias?

I had no such opinions before I started college, or when during my freshers week I joined both the phil and the hist.
Itwas after being in the college for two years that it "appears" that the phil and hist are arty socs.

SOL wrote:

and I would have to say that these societies benefit people from the "science end" even more as they otherwise probably wouldn't get such exposure to current affairs,

Huh? What does that mean???