by Rennie on Tue Oct 12, 2004 12:27 am
Legion, sorry - I meant to say that Carlsberg was £1.20 a pint. And now the cheapest (and in my opinion, worse than Carlsberg) pint is £1.60.
Now, not to get myself confused, I only have an A level in Maths after all, but to me that's an increase of 40p. And, if my maths is still holding up - I'd say that was an increase of 25% over 3 years. Am I wrong?
Where the figure of 3.5% comes from, quoted by the Association President, I have no idea. Maybe he could show his workings?
As for the wage bill, the staff are paid the very minimum wage in the Union - and tips must be one of the lowest in town - so you can't really use the national wage laws as an excuse to raise prices - you should have been paying the staff an acceptable level of pay anyway. The reason you pay the minimum wage is because you feel you can get away with it because there's a plentiful supply of workers - fair enough. I think the only reason the bar staff stay is because the bar managers are actually nice and good at their jobs.
You say that the association lost money for the first time in 15 years. Was the bar takings also the lowest for 15 years? I don't know figures - so I'll have to go on what you say - but personally I felt that attendance was lower last year than I can rememeber in the past - coincidentally this is when drinks prices are raised without any noticeable changes in the union.
Has the funding for representation been increased last year? Could this be why the Union has made a loss? Surely the Union should actually turn a profit before it starts to give more money than ever before?
Surely it would make more sense to have a business plan that sets out how the Union are going to pay for the extra money spent on representation, rather than spending it first and worrying about it later?
You say that the Union will be staying in its 70's crumbling building? Well, we all know the University are not easy to get money out of, especially in the last few years with the arrival of Derek Watson and his exclusive views of how something should be run economically to its best, and fuck the morals.
So, where are the Union going to pay to move to a new building if they're making a loss? Are you seriously suggesting that you expect the University to pay for a new building, just because you're making a loss and you can't afford it? Can you not see that the Union's financial well-being is on a downward spiral, and your main source of income is the students themselves, who are just not coming into the Union any more as much as they used to?
You spend £3,000 on acts such as Tiffany and Javine. You could have paid each person who came into Javine £25, and saved her the hassle of being embarrassed at singing to an audience of under 100 people, and you still complain that you don't have enough money? Stop fucking wasting it on shite then!! Simple, no?
This surplus you speak of, and some vague mention of improving the current building. Was all the surplus spent on waiting for planning permission? Did you spent it all on legal fees? Did you piss it up the wall? I don't see what can cost a large (I assume we're talking in the region of £50,000 upwards...) amount for nothing to happen and no improvements to be made.
And, back to another point - the Gateway. I hear the University got the building for approximately £3m (if anyone knows better - post it). Where could the Union find such a place for such a price in St Andrews? Anywhere? You could have sold the Union for into double million figures, bought the Gateway, redesigned it so the acoustics weren't a problem (or just turned the volume down a bit - much cheaper in the long run...) and still had money left over to buy somewhere else to have offices in St Andrews. If the Union ever wanted to move into a new building, they would be hard pressed to find sometihng as convinient and well positioned as the Gateway, and you let that chance slip by.
And, where does the Union plan to expand to? There's no space - you're in the middle of town. Plus, it would cost a fortune to make changes to an already 'decaying' (your words) building - why waste the money?
So, I hope the collection of rants above puts across some points that you can answer for me, when you have the chance. I can't be arsed making spelling and grammatical changes - I'm sure you can all understand what I've said. Over to you.