The "gown off" rule, 2004-05: Rest In Peace

[exnihilo]

When I lived in Dean's Court, I wore my plain black graduate gown to the formal dinners, even though I was also the Association Treasurer. The following year, when I was invited to a formal dinner there as a guest (no longer living there), I wore the Treasurer's gown. In the first instance I was "at home" as it were and not there because I was Treasurer, in the second instance the opposite was true.

That said, when I was Rector's Assessor, I wore that gown to every gowned event, including Strafford Club, debates and so forth. I took the view that as an officer of the University it was appropriate to do so. After all, nobody would suggest that the Chancellor ought to wear a plain black gown to such events. But I suspect that that gown is a special case.

[Al]

There are good arguments to be made in defence of both positions, and there is not a "right" or "wrong" here. It really comes down to what the individual thinks right. That said, if a person chooses to wear an Association gown - and the same is true for all gowns - then it should be worn and not treated as some sort of accessory to be carried around or draped over chairs.

[Bonnie]

Bean,
I haven't even read this thing but I do know one thing.
You have absolutely no prerogative to make Association policy on gowns.
SRC does.

[hr]

I love cheese.

[RJ Covino]

Quoting Bonnie from 23:14, 16th Jul 2005
Bean,
I haven't even read this thing but I do know one thing.
You have absolutely no prerogative to make Association policy on gowns.
SRC does.

Ooooh, cat-fight.

I'd beg to differ with the Bonstress; quite clearly it's an SSC matter.

[hr]

http://www.ralphcovino.com

[David Bean]

Quoting Bonnie from 23:14, 16th Jul 2005
Bean,
I haven't even read this thing but I do know one thing.
You have absolutely no prerogative to make Association policy on gowns.
SRC does.

Precisely, and perhaps if you had read the foregoing, you might realise that since absolutely no policy prohibiting gown-wearing by officers during debates has ever been passed, I have every prerogative in the world to point this out to people.

[hr]

...SssssssssssssssSUCK IT! Degenerate into somethin', fool - we just got tired o' doin' what you told us to do. Dat's da breaks, boy, yeah - dat's da breaks, little man! Break it down! DE-GENERATION X! DEGENERATION!

[Eliot Wilson]

Quoting exnihilo from 10:07, 16th Jul 2005
When I lived in Dean's Court, I wore my plain black graduate gown to the formal dinners, even though I was also the Association Treasurer. The following year, when I was invited to a formal dinner there as a guest (no longer living there), I wore the Treasurer's gown. In the first instance I was "at home" as it were and not there because I was Treasurer, in the second instance the opposite was true.

That said, when I was Rector's Assessor, I wore that gown to every gowned event, including Strafford Club, debates and so forth. I took the view that as an officer of the University it was appropriate to do so. After all, nobody would suggest that the Chancellor ought to wear a plain black gown to such events. But I suspect that that gown is a special case.

I agree almost entirely. The one exception I would make on the point of University officers is if they visit other universities, and in what capacity. If Sir Kenneth were to return to a function at his alma mater, Balliol, I would expect him to wear the gown of his degree, not his Chancellor's gown. But it comes back to the simple question: why are you at a certain function? From that most answers to gown dilemmas will flow.

[hr]

Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[Guest]

Quoting David Bean from 02:52, 17th Jul 2005
Precisely, and perhaps if you had read the foregoing, you might realise that since absolutely no policy prohibiting gown-wearing by officers during debates has ever been passed, I have every prerogative in the world to point this out to people.

by saying that you are

the new sabbatical officer in overall charge of gowns

?

[David Bean]

Yeah, they're in my office, so I'm the one who's going to be issuing the bloody things and keeping the register. Doesn't exactly take a PhD in Common Sense to work that one out, does it?

[hr]

"Don't ask me what you know is true, don't have to tell you, I love your precious heart. I - I was standing, you were there, two worlds collided, and they could never tear us apart" - INXS

[exnihilo]

I often wonder how we used to manage without a gown supremo. We seemed to rub by somehow without locked cupboards, registers and armed guards.

Still, I imagine everyone will be gratified to learn that the creation of a new sabbatical post wasn't an exercise in pointlessness and that he has vital work to occupy his time and his mind.

[Al]

The use of Association gowns seemed so much simpler in the past. Each officer was given the appropriate gown, told to look after it and to bring it back in a year. I never heard of any gown being stolen or damaged or being "lost". It is a sad state of affairs which requires the signing out of gowns and the keeping of a register. It is even sadder that the senior officers of the Association can't be trusted to act responsibly.

[Eliot Wilson]

Ah, but that was when there were specific gowns for specific offices instead of the mad rammy for any gown that's going by Association officers who want a gown to wear. I remember a Senate rep blagging a VP gown because it was there. The obvious thing to do would be to sit down, decide who gets what and then give them out at the beginning of the year, but 'obvious' and 'sensible' are rarely watchwords of the Association.

[hr]

Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[exnihilo]

Given their paucity, I'd be inclined to suggest that either they go only to Association officers (as opposed to SRC/SSC) or to Executive officers.

Perhaps some method could be devised for adding a crest or other distinguishing mark to ordinary red or black gowns, that would sate the gown-lust and promote the wearing of the undergraduate gowns. Something so many officers seem desperate to stop doing at the earliest possible opportunity.

[Eliot Wilson]

I think that would be entirely sensible. After all, nowhere does it say that everyone who holds an Association position will be entitled to a gown. You need a gown for the President, a style for the "Directors" (I still think of them as VPs and probably always will, because this non-hierarchical idea is bullshit, as I argued in SRC at the time), one for the Chair and the other Association Officers, and that, actually, could be it (the Convenor's gown, of course, is not really an Association gown - it belongs to the President of the UDS rather than the SSC Debates Officer, as it were).

[hr]

Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[exnihilo]

Indeed, and if some small discreet marking could be added to the scarlet, then being an officer of the SRC might be seen as a smidge more inclusive and a smidge less about poncing about in a gown.

[David Bean]

Quoting exnihilo from 09:02, 19th Jul 2005Still, I imagine everyone will be gratified to learn that the creation of a new sabbatical post wasn't an exercise in pointlessness and that he has vital work to occupy his time and his mind.

Are you just being randomly nasty, or did you honestly not realise that all I'll be doing is exactly the same thing as what the AP has done for the last, oh, two or three years? And I can assure you, my remit has to it much more than that (for one thing, the quotation of the Laws posted on another thread was wrong - I actually AM a member of the committees that were listed, not just someone who can attend if I feel like it, as the posted wording made it sound). Honestly, I can never understand the need some people have to be so downright negative all the time.

Also, we have established specific gowns for each office. Music and Mermaids have to share one, unfortunately, owing to a shortage, but everyone else has their own specific gown (though there are three black gowns with yellow faces, so the officers with those might not necessarily check out the same one every time).

[hr]

"Don't ask me what you know is true, don't have to tell you, I love your precious heart. I - I was standing, you were there, two worlds collided, and they could never tear us apart" - INXS

[exnihilo]

I assure you, it wasn't random. Please don't assume that any sniping in respect of the idiocy surrounding the current "directors" and their ever-mutating arrangement was done from ignorance. I'm sure you have an enormous amount to do of vital import, but I'm equally sure that the continual rehashing of the constitution was about as unnecessary as the resultant post you now hold. Still, only my opinion.

[Eliot Wilson]

Quoting David Bean from 14:20, 19th Jul 2005
Also, we have established specific gowns for each office. Music and Mermaids have to share one, unfortunately, owing to a shortage, but everyone else has their own specific gown (though there are three black gowns with yellow faces, so the officers with those might not necessarily check out the same one every time).

Well, why don't we just give them out at the beginning of the year and collect them at the end, then? But surely not every office has a gown attached to it? After the latest constitutional stylings, the SRC has, what, about a thousand members.

[hr]

Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[David Bean]

First of all the constitutional changes that over-inflated the SRC were pushed through principally by Ben Spires; I didn't raise too much of a fuss, because at the time I was kind of busy trying to make sure he didn't forceably disaffiliate the UDS. That said, sorry, when I said 'each office' I was talking about the officers' positions, ie. the ones who chair sub-committees. These are the ones that now have specific gowns attached to them. And because of this we cannot simply give them out for the whole year, because, quite simply, people might nick them. It's all very well to say that everything was rosy in the good ol' days before these young whippersnappers came along and started mucking up the system, but the rather obvious counter to that one is that we used to have several gowns that we don't have any more. At the most, only a small proportion went missing in the time I've ben around, so we can only conclude that of the people who enjoyed the freedom to keep their gowns at home, a significant minority of these people were the ones who abused the privilege by stealing them, and it is as a consequence of that that we have to be warier about issuing the things.

I would, coincidentally, be pleased to hear any informed arguments as to precisely why my position is unnecessary, but I think that is fairly obviously a matter for another time and place.

[hr]

"Don't ask me what you know is true, don't have to tell you, I love your precious heart. I - I was standing, you were there, two worlds collided, and they could never tear us apart" - INXS

[La Jouissance]

On the contrary, since it seems that information about this role of yours is difficult to come by. Now it may be that I am a poor web navigator but I wasn't even able to find out from the union's website who the current AP is, far less any information on the new-fangled position that you hold. Care to start a new thread here or elsewhere to explain precisely what the role is/involves to a long since gone Hon. Life member?

Thanks.

[Al]

"...we cannot simply give them out for the whole year, because, quite simply, people might nick them. It's all very well to say that everything was rosy in the good ol' days before these young whippersnappers came along and started mucking up the system, but the rather obvious counter to that one is that we used to have several gowns that we don't have any more. At the most, only a small proportion went missing in the time I've ben around, so we can only conclude that of the people who enjoyed the freedom to keep their gowns at home, a significant minority of these people were the ones who abused the privilege by stealing them, and it is as a consequence of that that we have to be warier about issuing the things."

I am not sure how issuing them by the day is any likelier to stop the theft of gowns. If anything, it is more likely to cause losses as it would require only one failure to properly record who has which gown to make it impossible to find out when a gown was taken. If each Executive position was allocated, and issued, a gown then it would be much simpler to keep track of them. Each officer would be held responsible for the safe-keeping of his or her gown. That - and I know it is harking back to the "good old days" - is how it worked and it worked well. I cannot remember ever hearing of a gown being lost or stolen.