Class Rep training junket?

I gotta say I don't ever post on boards.ie nor to I actually care, politically, about anyone in the MSU (I notice FEE keep referring to NUIM and not the MSU which I don't think is fair at all), but the conduct of FEE on Thursday lunchtime to Rob and Naoise was disgraceful. Both Naoise and Rob have shown a bit of immaturity and unprofessionalism as of late, but my god FEE were completely out of line too. The two mature students who were with them were obnoxious, opinionated and looking to verbally abuse Rob/ Naoise rather than engage in polite and calm dialogue (you'd think for their age they'd have a bit of cop on). I'm guessing LexilipRed was the PhD student in the brown t-shirt shouting his mouth off aggressively, rather than approaching the situation with a bit of decency. If you're a PhD student I'd expect you to be of the age where shouting in people's faces, no matter the circumstances/ passion behind it, is put aside for more appropriate venues.

In our economic climate I understand that €5000 is worth saving, but respecting the dignity of others in the work place is priceless and what FEE did was embarrassing and childish. I cringed at the arguments as I heard them, as they popped their chests and feigned political zealousness, imagining themselves as part of some sort of counter-culture worth mentioning. Student politics has always made me cringe... but this bit the bullet.

I think FEE need to find better things to do. Although, yes, I agree that €5000 spent on a training weekend is a tad bit expensive, and that the student reps going should have paid something towards it, I think FEE have bigger fish to fry. Like... I dunno... the abuse of the grant system? The re-introduction of fees? The cost of sambo-coffee combos in O'Briens? FEE used to be cool, man, what happened?

As for the junket itself, I say go for it. What MSU are trying to do is to develop a stronger democracy through a better class rep system, which I think is a good aim to have. How that is deployed is another thing. I think having it in Maynooth is a bad idea. If we don't give people some sort of incentives they will slack off. I know a lot of you come from some sort of pseudo-communist discourse that you shabbily dug-up from Wikipedia, but people operate on this kind of level. People need to be rewarded for their work. Bringing them to a hotel for one night isn't exactly buying them each a segway and discussing stock options with them... But alas, we shall get angry and hit things and call unimportant meetings to maintain our sense of self-importance rather than actually run for political office and try to create change for ourselves. Sure... we'll just get a petition signed and try to stop the bus from leaving campus, THAT'LL SHOW EM!

eogriffin wrote: »

Bigger fish to fry?

FEE is an autonomous grassroots organization (http://free-education.info/about-2/). Can you get anymore grassroots than what happened this week?

Speaking in a personal capacity I feel that some things during the week we got wrong and perhaps would do differently if they were to happen again. We will meet soon and review how things went during the week.

"Just get a petition signed"
921 signatures is no mean feat if we say so ourselves. Considering how early into the year it is I would argue that FEE is only getting warmed up!

Oh please, you know as well as I do that not all those 921 people either cared nor did they even realize what they were signing. Petition-signing is as useful as flashing your man-boobs at Roost staff members to get free jager. I'd ask FEE did they properly engage with each of those 921 people and if each of those 921 didn't just sign and dash in a moment of flirtation with the 'hippies' (which is the case for most petition-signing and why it has little to no effect, except calling a 'UGM' - wowzers, power to you... nothing will come of it, by the way). Let's be honest - MSU students don't care. Stop trying to pretend that they do, and stop trying to change them. People are allowed to be as politically apathetic as they want, and although I would have thought €5000 would have been better spent on some sort of Arts Scholarship, I say go for it and spend it on the class reps. Not as if €5000 in the BILLIONS we owe these days means anything. Waste not, want not, all that stuff goes.. but really you are all just fooling yourself by thinking that €5000 is a lot of money. Sure let's have another booze-fueled anti-fee march in town and get tanked after... I don't know what's worse, the politics or the dissenting voice trying hard to be dissenting.

FEE were a fantastic bunch last year/ since they began. You all have put me RIGHT off with your bully tactics. LexilipRed inter alia need to sit down and reconsider their childish behaviour before they start burning their bras. Either that or join the Shell to Sea guys who actually need that kinda carry-on. Their anger is misdirected and discouraging. In fairness, Naoise is like, what, 17? He's there to organise the clubs and societies and is actually experimenting with the system to see if something better comes out of it. Yes, let's complain more about the €5000!! But, how about we drop the issue, see if it actually somehow works effectively and get the hell over ourselves and go back to the library? If it fails, we can vote with our ballots instead of our bodies. That is, after all, what democracy is. Just because we have a freedom of voice, doesn't give us license to be arrogant idiots spouting watered-down, over-simplified notions of socialist political ideologies and agendas.

What percentage of the elected class reps actually attended the training? I know a few who could not attend so it would be interesting to find out.

Its underway? Well again no Product Design rep's are at this thing, nor were we invited to it (I wouldn't have gone anyway as I stated before). Makes me wonder does the SU care about our course/department. Won't get an answer here just like I didn't during that whole "election" process thing.

If only this had happened...

LeixlipRed wrote: »

This is just bare face lies. Can someone who was there please post up to counter this? I never shouted at any point. I was passionate, frustrated and annoyed at the situation but I held my cool in the face of absolute and utter childish behaviour from others.

I can't believe how innacurate this potrayal is. It just goes to show how when you actually make some effort to get off your arse and do something that there's gonna be some idiot somewhere who'll twist everything to make it seem like you had a personal agenda, vendetta or can be written off as an angry or irate fool.

The two mature students were absolutely and utterly restrained and polite the whole bloody hour. Dave explained in a polite manner to Rob several times how he could not afford to feed his two kids due to grant cuts and asked why Rob could prioritise a junket over establishing this promised welfare fund.

I'll let what you said about me slide, I don't care if you apologise to me or not, I'm not doing this for personal gain and I don't care if people think less of me for it. But you owe Jean and Dave an apology because all they were doing was giving a crap about what happens in the bloody college, what's happening to them and others who can't afford to feed themselves. You should be ashamed of yourself for lying essentially.

Not one single person verbally abused Rob. That is just a lie. And you'll never post here again, I've no doubt of it.

I was there, dude. And you're confusing passion with shouting. You even talked over Rob on at least three occasions. I don't know this Dave character nor Jean, but I will say that their behaviour was uncivil and rude. There are thousands of people in a similar position to Dave's, and while I empthasise greatly with what he's going through, it does NOT give people the right to shout at anyone. I actually just walked away in the end, so I didn't catch it all. If anything, FEE owe me a lunch because I couldn't stomach eating after that scene.

I'm in no way associated with FEE or whatever, but I went along on Thursday to see what was going down.

I'll start off by saying the Rob at the beginning of the debate proclaimed that he couldn't stay around because he had to run to an important meeting about rent allowance, he then stayed for the debate and also afterwards he handed out papers, stood and chatted to people and was there for a good 45 minutes at least... which means he either lied about the rent allowance meeting because he wanted to avoid any confrontation and questioning, or he was happy to leave people waiting on his presence at the meeting. Neither of which is cool.

dublindafter wrote: »

I gotta say I don't ever post on boards.ie nor to I actually care, politically, about anyone in the MSU (I notice FEE keep referring to NUIM and not the MSU which I don't think is fair at all), but the conduct of FEE on Thursday lunchtime to Rob and Naoise was disgraceful.

I've got to disagree with you there. Its a debate. There's two sides to every argument and each side gave there own.

Both Naoise and Rob have shown a bit of immaturity and unprofessionalism as of late, but my god FEE were completely out of line too. The two mature students who were with them were obnoxious, opinionated and looking to verbally abuse Rob/ Naoise rather than engage in polite and calm dialogue (you'd think for their age they'd have a bit of cop on).

In what way did they abuse Naoise or Rob? There were no personal attacks, there was no over the top shouting or violence whatsoever.

Just because there are people who want to voice their opinion it does not make them obnoxious and abusive.

Polite and calm dialogue is great, but when engaging in a debate and one side continually avoids answering the questions, blusters there way through 'answers' then I'm sure you can understand how frustrating that would be for the people on the other side. On many many occasions direct questions were posed to Rob and over and over again he evaded answering them by just either being petty and pointing out minor mistakes such as getting the name of the council wrong or he just listed xyz what the SU had done and avoided answering the question. If someone asks you a direct question, it should be answered concisely and with no bluff and fluff at all.

Don't even get me started on Naoise, who consistently avoided answering any question by just being petty and immature. He also proudly announced that yes he did have a smug smile on his face. He is an SU officer, I don't know how anyone would be comfortable approaching him when he has such a dismissive and condescending attitude to those who he is supposed to represent.

I'm guessing LexilipRed was the PhD student in the brown t-shirt shouting his mouth off aggressively, rather than approaching the situation with a bit of decency. If you're a PhD student I'd expect you to be of the age where shouting in people's faces, no matter the circumstances/ passion behind it, is put aside for more appropriate venues.

Were you there for the whole thing? It all started out very civil (and imo, it got heated but never aggressive) and it was only when Rob and Naoise continually avoided answering any simple questions with bluster and fluff answers that really didn't answer anything. Constantly pointing out that you're 'not even paying for dessert' means absolutely nothing when you're wasting €5,000 of students money.

In our economic climate I understand that €5000 is worth saving, but respecting the dignity of others in the work place is priceless and what FEE did was embarrassing and childish. I cringed at the arguments as I heard them, as they popped their chests and feigned political zealousness, imagining themselves as part of some sort of counter-culture worth mentioning. Student politics has always made me cringe... but this bit the bullet.

Why did it make you cringe? Because they have the balls to stand up for what they believe in? Because they got up there and went to those in charge to speak their minds because they're not willing to lie down and let SU folks with high and mighty political aspirations waste their hard-earned money on drunken weekends away? And yes, it will be drunken. I stood outside the SU as people were loading on to the bus and saw students pouring naggins of vodka in to coke bottles.

Respecting dignity goes both ways, imo Rob and Naoise were petty and immature in their counter-arguments on Thursday. If a question is put to you - answer it. It's extremely rude I feel to constantly evade and squirm your way out of things when they are put to directly, it shows no respect or concern for the opposing party. When Rob wanted to speak, he spoke. He was given his time to give his side of why it was necessary to have the training in a hotel. Just because he was then challenged on these points does not mean that he was jumped on and attacked

I think FEE need to find better things to do. Although, yes, I agree that €5000 spent on a training weekend is a tad bit expensive, and that the student reps going should have paid something towards it, I think FEE have bigger fish to fry. Like... I dunno... the abuse of the grant system? The re-introduction of fees? The cost of sambo-coffee combos in O'Briens? FEE used to be cool, man, what happened?

It's little things like this trip that need to stop before they get out of control.

This year it's €5000 and a night in a hotel, next year it's €5,500 and they're paying for dessert. It's only going to escalate as it continues. It needs to be nipped in the bud. Robs argument all along is that it wouldn't be possible to do it on campus because people would be leaving and going wandering. But he's also said that this type of training has never been done before? Then why couldn't they try it this year on campus and see how it goes, if it doesn't work, rent a function room for the day in a hotel next year, provide busses up and back. I feel that someone had this 'bright idea' to get everyone away and people got caught up in it and were blinded by their own genius (:rolleyes:) that they didn't even try to think of how else it could be done. Why not try it this, less expensive, way, this year and then reflect on it afterwards, see what could be improved and how it could be improved and then maybe alter it for the following year when you can look back and say 'no we did really need to get people off-campus'. At least then they would have an argument to support them. They've said that it couldn't be done on-campus that it wouldn't work, how do they even know that when they're never tried?

As for the junket itself, I say go for it. What MSU are trying to do is to develop a stronger democracy through a better class rep system, which I think is a good aim to have.

How can you even say this when 15 sentences ago you said

Student politics has always made me cringe

Do you even care about any of this or are you just here to troll your way through the board?

How that is deployed is another thing. I think having it in Maynooth is a bad idea. If we don't give people some sort of incentives they will slack off.

Wanting to look after and support and help your classmates should be incentive in the first place. If the kind of people who are now class reps are the people who only went along for the incentive of the weekend in a hotel then they're not the kind of people who should be reps.