Quoting Disapointed from 07:45, 26th Oct 2007
It's a shame, that gone are the days that Bonnie made huge profits.
What was it that all the losses were made on?
The Union has been expecting to make a loss of some description for the past several years on the increased price of energy. Remember that for a significant portion of the year the building, which is old and badly insulated, needs to be heated and lit. But that is only part of the problem-- the legacy of certain sabbaticals of the past is also to blame.
Any blame for the present situation lies not with the present sabbaticals, but with sabbaticals of the past who have made rather unwise strategic decisions, going as far back as 2003-04, that the current team has had to inherit, although it should be said that the Association leadership at present is ill-prepared to deal with the problem and more business-minded candidates will be needed to put the student wing in a position to work with the Board and the Financial Controller to remedy the situation.
If you would like an example of how past leadership has failed to prepare for the present crisis, we should consider how the Association has been in the business of making unnecessary constitutional changes for some years, rather than simply expectitng its elected and paid leadership to step up to bat and behave like normal working people.
The example of which I speak is the demise of the Director of Services sabbatical post-- which is presently split into two posts, in the form of the Director of Events and Services and the Director of Student Development and Activities. While Lee Kane was an excellent member of the Association and contributed a great deal over his many years there, I am thoroughly unconvinced by arguments from certain quarters that the post is at all necessary, and it certainly does not contribute to the earning power of the building. It should be abolished.
The fact that the sabbaticals are inefficient in the execution of their duties is evidenced plainly by the fiasco of constitutional reform and the Strategic Plan. A past President took over a year to try and figure out what the Union's bye-laws were, with little success, and rather than simply re-drafting and submitting new byelaws for approval, the project went dead and nothing got done.
Still another example is the Strategic Plan, which has been in existence in one form or another since the days of Rory O'Hare (President 2002-2003) and its current incarnation is simply a bit "slicker" but contains, in reality, no more substance than the original, and does not make any new proposals. It does, however, smack of a campaign gimmick. Anyone who has any work experience in the City is likely to be capable of drafting, formatting, and publishing that particular piece of work in about a week from start to finish, if not less. However, the rather absurd established
modus operandi of elected officials tends to place an emphasis on special sub-sets of interests and extensive "consultations" with groups such as the EIG rather than relying on hard work and leadership to pave the way.
This process also resulted in the emasculation of the "Vice-President (fill in the blank)" posts and their renaming to "directorships", as part of some profoundly stupid idea of a "non-hierarchical" management structure. I personally believe it had more to do with jazzing up CVs than anything else. Groupthink at its worst, the Union's appalling lack of leadership-- or even its lack of any capacity to accept leadership-- is one of its worst failures. Tom D'Ardenne, the current President, is not to blame for this, as he inherited the current structure and acceptable work habits from certain sabbaticals who shall remain nameless here.
The institutionalisation of failure resulted from years of neo-Labour chat about "stake-holders" and "constituencies," leading to the creation of absurd positions such as the "SRC Member for Library and Learning Resource Users", and many an unfilled post for the opportunistic hack to fill in order to avoid any real contests if one wishes to have voting power on a committee. And eventually, they get a paid job.
Making the post of DOSDA redundant and expecting the DOES and DoR to do real work would save approximately £13,000 p/a in salary alone. That brings your operating deficit from £37,000 to £24,000, a considerable amount. If Sabs worked effectively, the remit could be covered by the other three with ease- perhaps what is needed is a bit of job training and work experience in June.
In life, on the Earth, in the real world, when losses are made, cuts are also made in order to bail out the organization--- except in government, where inefficient public bodies ask for public funding (eg tax).
The Union is not providing an essential service like the armed forces or the NHS and it should be responsible and behave like a business.
Operational losses should be remedied so that the Union does not have to liquidate its investment fund to cover for them.