Increase in student levy by €100

Columc

So we already paid for the actual gym building and we are still paying for it in the student levy. Now they are asking us to pay another 100 to get free membership into the gym.

This is a proposal by the students of NUI Galway to have universal access to the university gym at a charge of NO MORE THAN €99.99 per student. This would be attached to the student levy. Did you know? You as a student of NUIG already pay €100 each for the building the gym is in yet you get nothing for it. We are asking for this HEALTH SERVICE to be available to the masses and not just to the priveliged. Advantages : For current gym members,your membership cost is reduced by €150 :For those of you who cannot afford the current €250 asking price it is a reasonable compromise : For those of you who do not exercise it is an opportunity to freely take part in university programmes be it club activities or fitness incentive programs. Also it frees up the sports unit to design and implement sports programs that might attract those of you who don't exercise regularly. For Clubs in NUIG the €2 Kingfisher charge will be removed as will the cost on the sports unit for club slot allocations( this amounts to €80,000 annually) Also slots in the gym would no longer be restricted to evening times, you will be able to train in the morning/afternoon


For more information contact me at su.clubs@nuigalway.ie

Eric Brockie
Clubs Captain

So Why should students who don't use the gym(other then using it for exams) need to pay €200 in student levys. Should their not be a students membership of €100 and leave that out of the levy?

Croppy Bhoy

I look forward to the SU doing absolutely nothing about this

Zillah

For those of you who cannot afford the current €250 asking price it is a reasonable compromise : For those of you who do not exercise it is an opportunity to freely take part in university programmes be it club activities or fitness incentive programs.

...for those of you who don't want to use the gym, exercise at home, or have made other arrangements; fu*k you.

Columc

Pretty much, I had to find out about this from... the chess soc email, since none of the SU want to tell the people they are spose to represent what is actualy happening!

brianthebard

So the clubs want other people to subsidise them even more? Lolz what pricks!

Croppy Bhoy

How about subsidising the college bar, so everyone gets dead cheap drinks. Ya it would be unfair on those who are teetotal, but sure "For those of you who do not drink it is an opportunity to take part in drinking" :rolleyes:

Ficheall

Columc wrote: »

Pretty much, I had to find out about this from... the chess soc email, since none of the SU want to tell the people they are spose to represent what is actualy happening!

Ah yes - the ChessSoc email is pretty awesome

TheCosmicFrog

Ficheall wrote: »

Ah yes - the ChessSoc email is pretty awesome

I signed up to Chess Soc to get these supposed legendary emails. But after never having received one, I unsubscribed

Columc

TheCosmicFrog wrote: »

I signed up to Chess Soc to get these supposed legendary emails. But after never having received one, I unsubscribed

its from the chess soc gmail account. in-case your referring to yourspace

InvisibleBadger

Does anyone know:
When is this the vote for this?
Are we going to be/have been emailed about it?

RolandIRL

I only found out about here. There's been no email to me at least. Is there some meeting tomorrow to discuss it in the Arts Millenium?

DriverMad

100 euros should be no problem to the students. Look at all they spent last week on Rag week and they are giving out now about 100 euros.

Get real students... Nobody will have any pity for yee after the antics of last week and the wast of vital resources, guards, fire services... etc....

Ficheall

There's a meeting to discuss it in the Kirwan at 6 on Wednesday.

Only the club members have been emailed about it. I asked the Socs Officer to mention it to Socs to email around, which she did, but they don't appear to have done so. It is on the SU website.

There may be no vote to be had, if there is it will be decided at the meeting tomorrow.

MissMoppet

I think it's absolutley ridiculous!!!!
There is no way I can afford another €100 with the grant being lessened as well..Argh.. The SU seems pretty p*ssed off at the whole situation as well. :mad:

Croppy Bhoy

DriverMad wrote: »

100 euros should be no problem to the students. Look at all they spent last week on Rag week and they are giving out now about 100 euros.

I heard some students spent €300 at Oxegen last summer, some even went... on holiday. Shouldn't be an issue sticking another €500 on the levy so :rolleyes:

Get real students... Nobody will have any pity for yee after the antics of last week and the wast of vital resources, guards, fire services... etc....

Anybody who blames the entire student population on a gathering of mongs outside Dún can keep their pity. You need it more than us.

Columc

DriverMad wrote: »

100 euros should be no problem to the students. Look at all they spent last week on Rag week and they are giving out now about 100 euros.

Get real students... Nobody will have any pity for yee after the antics of last week and the wast of vital resources, guards, fire services... etc....

Be gone troll!

Canvasser

DriverMad wrote: »

100 euros should be no problem to the students. Look at all they spent last week on Rag week and they are giving out now about 100 euros.

Get real students... Nobody will have any pity for yee after the antics of last week and the wast of vital resources, guards, fire services... etc....

dead right. most students can afford it if we're honest here. we need more honesty in this country.

whadabouchasir

brianthebard wrote: »

So the clubs want other people to subsidise them even more? Lolz what pricks!

It's not just the clubs in fairness,plenty of people not in any club would benefit from this,people that work out in the gym or go swimming,to classes or use the climbing wall.

RolandIRL

Got the email about tonight's meeting.

A request has been submitted to the Students' Union calling for a General Meeting of all students to discuss the proposal of a referendum to increase the student levy to provide for universal student gym membership. The meeting will take place on Wednesday March 9th at 6pm in the Kirwan Theatre. All students are invited to attend the meeting.



The General Meeting has the power to call a referendum of all students so it is essential that as many students as possible show up and make their voices heard!



The proposal

"Implement EUR99.99 (CPI indexed linked) student Levy to provide for Universal Sports Centre Student Membership , any necessary development/expansion/maintenance of facilities required to cater to extra usage, the modification of the premises to provide an Administrative Home for the Committees of Sports Clubs, financing to purchase additional hours in the sports halls(taken from said levy) for Club activity and the elimination of the EUR2 entry charge payable by members of Sports Clubs who are not members of the Kingfisher Club (This currently generates approximately EUR8,000, as it is not routinely applied.). The Levy is to be payable by all registered students of the University. Full-time students will pay the full levy, and part-time students to pay in accordance with ECT's (The ECT based mechanism has already been agreed with the University as the basis for calculating the amount of other levies payable by part-time students"



Some more facts

Currently Student Membership of the Student Sport Complex is EUR250 per year. Gym or pool is EUR5 per visit. Gym and Pool is EUR7.50 per visit.



Against the proposal - Peter Mannion, SU President (su.president@nuigalway.ie)

There's no rush

The current operator of the University Sports Complex has a contract for all of next year. No change could be made for September 2011 so there's no advantage of acting quickly. If students want universal membership then time can be taken to work out a detailed proposal which can be put to the students at any point next year.



The current Sports Complex is not big enough

The University, the current operator and many users all agree that the current University Sports Complex is not big enough and doesn't have enough facilities to accommodate universal membership. A significant expansion of the facility would be required. These plans would need to be considered carefully and designed to ensure that they accommodate the needs of all students. This work is not complete and rushing through this process would not ensure the best possible deal for students.



Quality would deteriorate

Under the current arrangement an operator has a financial incentive to ensure the gym is well run, adequately staffed, clean and responsive to needs of paying users. If a system of universal membership was introduced there would be a reduced incentive for an operator to do a good job as their income would be guaranteed! It may be possible to work out a system whereby certain targets must be met by an operator but none of that work has been carried out at this point.



The SU and other student representatives would be put In a weak bargaining position

If it was decided that students would pay an additional EUR99.99 levy for the University Sports Complex the Students' Union, the ones tasked with ensuring the best deal for students, would be in a very weak bargaining position. It would be difficult to ensure the best facilities, the most demanding contractual requirements or the longest opening hours when the University and every potential operator already know what's on the table. If this is to happen the detail should be worked out and then a motion put to students.



EUR100 is too much money

Many students are under unprecedented financial pressure and would struggle with an additional burden of this size. The current proposal is linked to inflation and would likely increase indefinitely in to the future. The cost of this will be prohibitive for many students.





For the proposal - Eric Coleman-Brockie, SU Clubs Captain (su.clubs@nuigalway.ie)

There will be an emergency general meeting to decide whether or not we should hold a referendum on the introduction of Universal Gym Membership for all of us students. The issue at hand is why hold a referendum now and not later.



Will we continue to exclude the masses because of the issue of affordability?

Ever since the sports complex was conceived the idea of having Universal Membership has been on the table. Currently for student membership in Kingfisher you pay EUR250. That is on top of the EUR100 you already pay out of your student levy for the construction of the building. That is EUR350. Barely 20% of our students can afford to pay that price now and has been the case since the doors opened according to membership figures.



Lessons from UCC

In UCC they have paid EUR149 as part of the student levy since circa 2002/3. 4years ago they completed stage 2 of the expansion of the building. They have as of this month commenced stage 3 in the development of the building which boasts to increase floor space by almost 40,00 sq ft. All past developments and this one came at no extra cost to the students. They still pay EUR149.



When is later?

Why this needs to happen now is because it should have happened back when the planning for our complex happened. We want it made affordable for everybody, not just the privileged and we want provisions in place for the future development of our facilities. We should not stand idly by while another year of students are denied this service because they cannot afford it. Please come to the meeting on Wednesday to find out the finer details of the proposal, the facts and figures.

clubs have the most to benefit from this. see the bolded bit. i'm wondering about the people who already have paid for membership in other gyms. should they be forced to pay this? i wouldn't use the gym too much. The only thing i might use would be the pool and treadmills, and isn't there a lovely city for me to walk and run around?

WallyGUFC

F*cking joke. If people vote yes to this they are idiots. The gym is crazy enough already, don't need another 15,000 students to be using it. Pay 250 if you want membership but don't be making everyone pay.

brianthebard

whadabouchasir wrote: »

It's not just the clubs in fairness,plenty of people not in any club would benefit from this,people that work out in the gym or go swimming,to classes or use the climbing wall.

Technically I would benefit from this cost wise as a gym user, but in every other way I would lose out. this is designed to pay for club members too lazy or cheap to join the gym. If they have one club meeting per week that adds up to 104 quid a week, I'm presuming they are in the gym much more often than that, plus this will give them free access 100% of the time.

WallyGUFC wrote: »

F*cking joke. If people vote yes to this they are idiots. The gym is crazy enough already, don't need another 15,000 students to be using it. Pay 250 if you want membership but don't be making everyone pay.

True, the previous agreement was bad enough on the part of the SU but to allow all students to use a facility that is full most of the time already will only damage everyone's ability to use the gym.
The people who vote yes to this aer going to be the club members because they have a motivating reason to do so. The people who aren't going to benefit from this just aren't going to vote. And thus it will almost certainly pass.

Croppy Bhoy

You know what I'd appreciate the most? If they just admitted they were stealing another €100 of us instead of being f***ing dishonest about it and pretending they're actually saving us all money "because there's no €2 charge".

WallyGUFC

Apparently there are already 3,000 members of the gym but I'll assume not all of them are students. There are just over 17,000 students. The gym is a no-go area most of the time because it's crazy busy. I'll assume if people are getting this membership for 100 that a lot, lot, lot more people will use it. If they threw 5 floors and 5 more pools on top of the existing gym we'd be singing but ammmmm, that's not happening!

Croppy Bhoy

I don't know.. I mean obviously lowering prices will increase interest, but of all the people I know, anyone who has any interest in using the gym already has a membership - I don't know anyone who's put off by the cost really, I think it's mainly just people like me who couldn't give a toss about lifting weights or playing hamster on a treadmill.

Ficheall

The 'motion' to have a referendum was defeated. Thought ye might like to know.

RolandIRL

was at the meeting earlier, eric the clubs captain wasn't particularly great at debating for the proposal. peter mannion was much better, there was too many people speaking that were against it for the other side to put up much argument.
the proposal was clearly rushed, having only been brought before the SU 3 weeks ago, class reps were against it, so the clubs decided to take it to the students. i'd say a referendum might happen, given that most club members had more notice than everyone else, and more showed up, though i'd say it'll get blown away in a vote. at a time where grants are being cut, reg fee is going, and they want to add another levy, i can't see many people going for it.

EDIT: Ficheall replied as i was writing my post. glad it got defeated.

challengemaster

Was at the talk too, interesting to see that it's based on UCC considering how shíte that turned out for them.

Was down there for archery student championships only a week or two ago, and we had the lights turned off on us by the Mardyke in the middle of the competition. Fooking stupid. It doesn't benefit the clubs one bit, and thats even the opinion of UCC students.

whadabouchasir

whiteman19 wrote: »

clubs have the most to benefit from this. see the bolded bit.

I don't think that this universal gym membership idea really solves any of the clubs problems.It doesn't adress the major issue that is the severe problem of a lack of space in the kingfisher sports hall or Dangan.I was talking to a lad who was thinking about setting up an MMA club in the college,they were told that there were no slots available between 6 and 10 monday to friday in the kingfisher.this pretty much denies the college what would probably be it's most popular club. From what I've heard things aren't much better out in Dangan either.
There are perfectly good dance studios to train in,but the kingfisher being a business has classes on in these,private ones many of them.but I suppose we should be grateful for sharing a hall or getting a raquetball court while these are on.Oh and that dedicated Martial arts room that we were promised when the kingfisher was being built?Never happened.Although there was talk of a new one in the proposed new extension for the gym,you know the one with no approved funding and no real plans?
We are all paying €100 a year,so I'd like to see the inside of the kingfisher a bit more than during the exams for that sort of money.
I'm just left wondering where that money is going then? Because it certainly isn't going to the clubs,may of them rowing and Muay Thai for example have a yearly or semester fee to pay for equipment and stuff.

Tl;dr:The clubs are being rightly screwed over and this universal gym membership wouldn't really have solved anything.In fact a lot of club members voted against it going to referendum.

RolandIRL

The €100 we pay now goes towards the loan that built the gym. It was decided by students a few years ago, when a philanthropy company (or something) said they'd part-fund the builiding of a gym, only if the students matched their donation or better...students had a referendum and voted yes. i think it's supposed to run for 18 years or so, the levy that is.

they explained a lot of what would happen to the €99.99 proposed levy at the meeting tonight. bit tired atm, so can't remember much of it

whadabouchasir

whiteman19 wrote: »

they explained a lot of what would happen to the €99.99 proposed levy at the meeting tonight. bit tired atm, so can't remember much of it

They were very vague with a lot of it now.They said that they would ensure that the kingfisher gets an amount based on the average number of students that currently pay the full €250 membership and that the rest would be used for "development" which I took to mean building an extension to the gym.

Columc

whadabouchasir wrote: »

Tl;dr:The clubs are being rightly screwed over and this universal gym membership wouldn't really have solved anything.In fact a lot of club members voted against it going to referendum.

For the last couple of years, every student union a clubs captain is always the major role which cant be filled, and from that terrible condtions the clubs have gotten themselves into you can see why this role is vital. it is a pity the way the kingfisher has gone, and I think its a laughable matter on how the college can take advantages of the students like this. no matter what people say that is was a propsal by another SU ears ago, our SU this year hasnt done anything to increase the use of a college building for collgee students but yet privatise it!

HotDogger

whadabouchasir wrote: »

I don't think that this universal gym membership idea really solves any of the clubs problems.It doesn't adress the major issue that is the severe problem of a lack of space in the kingfisher sports hall or Dangan.I was talking to a lad who was thinking about setting up an MMA club in the college,they were told that there were no slots available between 6 and 10 monday to friday in the kingfisher.this pretty much denies the college what would probably be it's most popular club. From what I've heard things aren't much better out in Dangan either.
There are perfectly good dance studios to train in,but the kingfisher being a business has classes on in these,private ones many of them.but I suppose we should be grateful for sharing a hall or getting a raquetball court while these are on.Oh and that dedicated Martial arts room that we were promised when the kingfisher was being built?Never happened.Although there was talk of a new one in the proposed new extension for the gym,you know the one with no approved funding and no real plans?
We are all paying €100 a year,so I'd like to see the inside of the kingfisher a bit more than during the exams for that sort of money.
I'm just left wondering where that money is going then? Because it certainly isn't going to the clubs,may of them rowing and Muay Thai for example have a yearly or semester fee to pay for equipment and stuff.

Tl;dr:The clubs are being rightly screwed over and this universal gym membership wouldn't really have solved anything.In fact a lot of club members voted against it going to referendum.

Why don't you thow on your ninja costume and go down and kick someone's arse? How did this whole thing come about anwyay? Did the owners want everyone to pay 100 rather than just some pay 250? Was it the fellas over at the Alpha Beta house wanting to pay 150 less? Sleazy.

nobbo

Also, several club captains voted against this proposal, and a lot of club members voted against it. Hopefully next years clubs captain can do something constructive with a bit of time with the tender for running the gym up for renewal soon.

Off-topic: Just on the issue of space for the MMA club, I'm sure they would've been offered space in one of the racquetball courts while they were on probation, if there was no space for them.

whadabouchasir

nobbo wrote: »

Off-topic: Just on the issue of space for the MMA club, I'm sure they would've been offered space in one of the racquetball courts while they were on probation, if there was no space for them.

That would only work though if about 10 people turned up for training,it's just too small for a big group.

nobbo

whadabouchasir wrote: »

That would only work though if about 10 people turned up for training,it's just too small for a big group.

If that was the case then Kathy(sports participation officer) would have no choice but to give them a bigger allocation, just another club may have to share the slot they currently have.