How could the college save money... 2 years on

Effluo

There was a thread made over two years ago by our current SU president looking for a brainstorming session about how the college could save money.
I had a quick look back on some of the posts on the thread and tried to give a bit of a synapses of all the great things that were suggested...

Effluo wrote: »

The way they judge when to have the heating on is a complete joke!

I remember one day it was actually scorchingly sunshiny and guess what???

Yes the radiators were also scorching!....


Using Open office(free office software suite) suite is a no brainer! ffs even the civil service have caught on to it :O the bleedin civil service have started a cost effective initiative before the colleges? :O :O


Something which i know some people won't like but is a very very good option is if we allow and facilitate advertising on campus. Let some business/companies get their sames on a few buildings or walks. Even an odd billboard here and there wouldn't be too bad and even now could generate a serious amount of revenue!!

The "Pint o' Fosters" S.U.?
If i was the S.U. pressie i'd definitely go out and seek sponsorship. They could add so much to the budget of facilities and groups have better nights in the S.U. and so forth

(Link to full thread) http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=61652106#post61652106

Just to start off, on the point of on Campus advertising, I don't think that's as achievable now as it was then considering the current economic climate.

It seems as though to me that the heating situation hasn't changed at all, I don't know exactly how it all works, but I'm guessing at the most it would take one person only a couple of hours to delegate the responsibility to one person in each building to manage the heating system appropriately. And if the heating system is centralised, then it wouldn't even that that long. It's madness to think that this should have ever been an issue in the first place.

Really I can't start to think of the ten of thousands of euro(guesstimate) that gets wasted on heating the University on days when there is no need for it.



Whatever about Openoffice I hear that Libre office has become the best free office suite and apparently has a better developers community behind it too.


Another thing which was highly criticised in that thread were the big screen tv's that were in the Arts block that were criticised by everyone... Well I'm happy to say that we now have many more of these screens almost right beside eachother, in that odd glass building where people eat lunch beside the arts block. (Are they still right beside eachother? I can't quite recall) xD



I'm still getting chunks of lecture notes and module information by departments and lectures, hundreds of pages most of which is not used.

banquo wrote: »

Double-sided printing as standard.

and this of course

efla wrote: »

And online submission where possible

These are really really small easy to implement objectives that would obviously save so much in terms the environment, paper and a heck of a lot of money for everyone concerned.


This is probably one of the most difficult of these points to achieve, but it also is one of the very best suggestions imo.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=62080884&postcount=37

You have to read that post in full, to get what he's saying, but it makes an awful lot of sense to me. That will be quite hard to implement though.


Other suggestions:
Google apps, google apps, google apps

What has been achieved and was mentioned on that thread was the parking permits, which is a really good initiative imo. Although I do sympathise with those who have to commute using a car that now incur an extra expense.


Also I just want to make it clear that, I'm not attacking anyone or looking to start an argument, but it seems to me that almost nothing else from that thread has been achieved. Even the most basic and simple money saving initiatives which make so much sense and could take such little time have not been implemented.

I'm not looking for answers why they haven't been done yet, but I'd like just to see how anyone here might think they could be done(if at all). Also considering how great the last thread was perhaps we can all try to brainstorm again to come up with some more ideas and realisations on how the University is needlessly losing money

LeixlipRed

I think the parking permits are the most regressive think that could ever occurred. You pay more money, on top of your reg fee/fees, for the guarantee of nothing. You get the entry level price of €30, cheap isn't it? Then next year it increases, and then the year after they'll tell us they have to increase it again and so on so forth. It also introduces a private clamping company onto, in my opinion, should be the most public of spaces, the university.

dublindafter

LeixlipRed wrote: »

I think the parking permits are the most regressive think that could ever occurred. You pay more money, on top of your reg fee/fees, for the guarantee of nothing. You get the entry level price of €30, cheap isn't it? Then next year it increases, and then the year after they'll tell us they have to increase it again and so on so forth. It also introduces a private clamping company onto, in my opinion, should be the most public of spaces, the university.

Is it not €40 per semester? I think if they're going to make us buy permits, they have to guarantee spaces. Having a pay and display car park set aside will let visitors park and they can then control the parking system a bit better. I'd say they had to have a private clamping company because security can't be expected to have those skills or monitor cars when they have other things to do... Like buy tea in Bewley's and walk around the Arts Block with vacant stares playing with their keys.

LeixlipRed

Ah we're coming at this from completely different angles, I don't want any private companies on a university campus. And everything should be free :pac: The whole introduction of the permits was farcical. But no one has the time to mount a proper campaign on this, I think it could probably get off the ground but meh, just too much work.

Effluo

Well there was definitely an issue before with the car park, with there being hardly any free spaces after the morning rush and lots of people who live in Maynooth taking up spaces.

I'm pretty sure the point behind the permits were to try and stop the people who live locally from driving to college.

Either way, this is very much off topic

LeixlipRed

No, the parking was a shambles, I agree. A permit system fine, but a free one. What the hell are registration fees for, fees for in general if they don't cover this sort of thing?

As for your original question, I'll wait until others chime in before I have my say. Apologies for going off topic.

itzme

On the parking permit, as far as I know it was introduced in advance of paid parking being introduced in Maynooth itself. When paid parking is introduced in the town the thoughts were that everyone would park on campus. So part of the reason for them was to continue guaranteeing parking for students and staff of NUIM.
On the free permits Leixlipred, well I'd love to have that but how do you regulate it. It seems you haven't thought this through. The idea is if you don't have a permit you get clamped (or some other punishment), to do this requires monitoring of the car parks and equipment which means new staff and new equipment which costs money hence the need to charge for permits.


Double sided printing should be standard alright, but I know the office I use doesn't have a printer that automatically prints double sided. And if I'm preparing and printing notes for a class of 100+ there's no way I'm going to print the even pages, print the odd ones and manually feed the paper into the printer.

On the merging of modules, you should probably look at what has happened in the college since 2009, this has happened. For instance there is now one Computer science first year class for general science, hdip students, csse students and so on. I think this is more likely to be able to achieve in the first year courses, the closer you get to final year the more specialised the classes generally are.

For the last couple of years every department has had to cut its budget by at least 3% every year, there are still inefficiencies and areas that could be improved but it should at least be noted that tough calls have been made to save money. Some of which were good and some bad.

On saving/generating money and ideas I have, to be honest I can't come up with any. As far as I know the college is looking to build a new building where they will house all the start up companies/research looking to be commercialised along with all the support staff for these people. This will hopefully create some critical mass to push this companies. That to me is a serious attempt to generate a good useful revenue stream, the idea that the heating bill is a serious problem.... I don't buy it.

Eric Cartman

LeixlipRed wrote: »

No, the parking was a shambles, I agree. A permit system fine, but a free one. What the hell are registration fees for, fees for in general if they don't cover this sort of thing?

As for your original question, I'll wait until others chime in before I have my say. Apologies for going off topic.

While i accept that charging for parkingshouldnt be in place , if apcoa's fees were included in the reg fee, youd be the very person on complaining that why should students who dont drive be subsidising this, not everyone drives so only the people who do should pay , I would however be more in favour of barriers at the carpark and everyone issued a tag , no need for clamping or patrols and only people with tags could get in the non visitor carparks , then the machines could count spaces easily and the tags should only be issued to people withput addresses in maynooth

CaoimH_in

The electricity/heating is probably a standardized rate, per annum, like with on-campus accommodation and the call-outs for electricians when you need a light-bulb changed. Otherwise, it would be ludicrous.

Eric Cartman

CaoimH_in wrote: »

The electricity/heating is probably a standardized rate, per annum, like with on-campus accommodation and the call-outs for electricians when you need a light-bulb changed. Otherwise, it would be ludicrous.

the maintenence people are employed by the college afaik

TheDrog

LeixlipRed wrote: »

No, the parking was a shambles, I agree. A permit system fine, but a free one. What the hell are registration fees for, fees for in general if they don't cover this sort of thing?

As for your original question, I'll wait until others chime in before I have my say. Apologies for going off topic.

Do you actually understand how difficult it is to run a university in the current fiancial climate? Every penny the college can get from anywhere is vital, most of them are struggling to be able to hire the staff they want because the money isn't there. A college is not free to run, the government only contributes a certain amount the rest comes from registration fees and the money the college can raise, we're ridiculously lucky in this country with the fees we pay, there are reasons why attending university in America and elsewhere leaves you with years of debt, it's because it cost very large sums of money to run them. The belief in this country that everything should be handed to us on a silver platter is why we are so incredibly screwed.

LeixlipRed

You must not follow my posts too carefully, if you did you'd know I couldn't give two hoots about how much it costs, all of it should be free. I suppose you think we should up the A&E charge too, because you know, keeping old people alive isn't free either

We could afford to pay for all of this stuff if we weren't dipping billions down the pan into French and German banks. But I suppose you're one of the sheep who think there's no alternative to that course of action?

TheDrog

so you believe that we should pay tax rates similar to those in Sweden, Belgium or Finland? or do you have a new and unique system for funding free healthcare and education, higher social welfare, housing? For the record I don't approve of the idea of raising the a&e charge but I do feel that they should be able to charge what they want for parking, they should be able to clamp those who park foolishly around the rotunda and make money however they can. Also were we still in a position where we had a strong economy we still wouldn't be able to provide these services because the stronger the economy the more money people demand from it.

Ostrom

TheDrog wrote: »

Do you actually understand how difficult it is to run a university in the current fiancial climate? Every penny the college can get from anywhere is vital, most of them are struggling to be able to hire the staff they want because the money isn't there. A college is not free to run, the government only contributes a certain amount the rest comes from registration fees and the money the college can raise, we're ridiculously lucky in this country with the fees we pay, there are reasons why attending university in America and elsewhere leaves you with years of debt, it's because it cost very large sums of money to run them. The belief in this country that everything should be handed to us on a silver platter is why we are so incredibly screwed.

America is utterly incomparable to Ireland in terms of the structure of its university administration and modes of funding. They cost a sizeable chunk to run, but they aren't 'breaking even' through austerity. Harvard Universty's endowment alone is now worth 32 billion.

TheDrog wrote: »

I do feel that they should be able to charge what they want for parking, they should be able to clamp those who park foolishly around the rotunda and make money however they can. Also were we still in a position where we had a strong economy we still wouldn't be able to provide these services because the stronger the economy the more money people demand from it.

The problem is most of that money makes its way into investors pockets, not back into college infrastructure. I've commuted under both regimes and it is now much worse - what I find incredible is that WIT (just down the road from my house) is also contracted to APCOA, but without paid permits. APCOA reps monitor the site for dangerous parking (i.e. obstruction of emergency entrances, entryways, other vechicles) which was the reason initially put forward by NUIM for adopting the permit system.

LeixlipRed

TheDrog wrote: »

so you believe that we should pay tax rates similar to those in Sweden, Belgium or Finland? or do you have a new and unique system for funding free healthcare and education, higher social welfare, housing? For the record I don't approve of the idea of raising the a&e charge but I do feel that they should be able to charge what they want for parking, they should be able to clamp those who park foolishly around the rotunda and make money however they can. Also were we still in a position where we had a strong economy we still wouldn't be able to provide these services because the stronger the economy the more money people demand from it.

Yes but I don't believe in the same form of economic system as you do so we're not even arguing about the same thing.

Effluo

I can see a lot of good coming out of this discussion...


herp derp

Ostrom

Kinda stepped on your own point there.....?

:pac:

CaoimH_in

C'mon, stop swaying for easy and 'fun' argument. This is an exercise for suggestion.

Perhaps a time-out shut down measure for the computers? I.e shut down after an hour without use. Doesn't take much to press the On button? Could save a few bob with all the computers we have.

There has to be a better way of running the gym? Those lads behind the counter are on Facebook/Youtube ALL the time; even just to get our values worth with a rota of menial jobs.

Do An Post pay for that crowd in the back-room of John Hume? They should if they don't.

When I think about it Maynooth University runs a pretty tight ship. To think, we have 7,500 students currently, compared to Galway and Limerick's 17,000. I suppose we should just try and continue to grow student numbers for revenue.

lordgoat

itzme wrote: »

On the parking permit, as far as I know it was introduced in advance of paid parking being introduced in Maynooth itself. When paid parking is introduced in the town the thoughts were that everyone would park on campus. So part of the reason for them was to continue guaranteeing parking for students and staff of NUIM.
On the free permits Leixlipred, well I'd love to have that but how do you regulate it. It seems you haven't thought this through. The idea is if you don't have a permit you get clamped (or some other punishment), to do this requires monitoring of the car parks and equipment which means new staff and new equipment which costs money hence the need to charge for permits.

.

I heard this too about paid parking in the town coming in the near future but knowing kildare coco that could be a bit down the line.

Eric Cartman

lordgoat wrote: »

I heard this too about paid parking in the town coming in the near future but knowing kildare coco that could be a bit down the line.

they did it in leixlip and heavily enforce it so id say its around the corner, theyre a bunch of b*stards and want to generate money by putting paid parking everywhere. it was a proposal a while back and its the reason the train station and college have reacted to this , the glenroyal carpark at the front will be next and then parking along the road up by south campus will be entirely stopped, id say come 2013 maynooth will easily lose 20-40 parking spots along roads and all the parking thats left will be paid for , then the permits will seem cheap in comparisson