First Debate?

[Lid]

Seeing as historically LPH is not the historical home of the society anyway I hardly see how it matters other than upon consistency for members to know where to go.

Historically, the Debating Society's Historical home, historically, was historically College Hall.

The first debate of the Debating Society in 1794 was held in College Hall. Though I don't think a session of the Union Debating Society has ever been held there.

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We are not drunks, we are multi-millionaires

[exnihilo]

Given that we're talking about a university society, and given that it has now met in LPH for pushing 30 years, I think it's fair to say that LPH is the home of the Society - arguments about its historical home are foolish at best.

[OhhMy]

Quoting exnihilo from 08:27, 8th Jan 2007
Given that we're talking about a university society, and given that it has now met in LPH for pushing 30 years, I think it's fair to say that LPH is the home of the Society - arguments about its historical home are foolish at best.

Sadly being Guzumped by some one paying for the hire of LPH (we just pay for the Janitors' time) is very foolish but it is unavoidable. It did happen last year and will happen again. There is no controling it. The contingency is a Pub debate. Usually there is plenty of warning but some times Reservations just kicks us out. Its not fair but that is the situation. It may have been different in the past.

[exnihilo]

And nothing I said contradicted that. I was just saying that the suggestion that the home of the society was other than LPH is foolish.

Also, I'm perfectly well aware of the arrangements for use of LPH and what the Society does and does not pay for. I can certainly understand the reservations office allowing someone else to book on a Wednesday but they absolutely should not take your booking and then cancel you because they got a better offer - indeed, I'd think that's illegal whether you pay or not, it's a question of good faith.

And it simply would not be good enough if you had someone like Richard Dawkins coming to have to tell him he was speaking in a pub. I assume someone has written to reservations to complain formally? But if there is a real problem I'd be happy to speak to the Principal, as, I'm sure, would a good few other alumni.

[ChrisH]

What happens is that reservations gets a "provisional" booking, which may or more likely will not pan out. When we turn up block book LPH for the next semester, which I believe, though I could be wrong, we can only do so far in advance, we are informed that several Wednesdays are off limits. The problem arises when reservations have issues telling us when provisionals do not turn into actual bookings.

In terms of the legal standpoint as we are not paying for the room, thus providing a deposit I am sure that reservations is perfectly within their rights (unfortunately) if they wanted to cancel a booking. I don't know how often, if ever, this particular scenario happens but I do seem to recall vaguely it having happened.

As for getting eminent speakers into a pub we would just do what was planned for one of the later debates in last semester and hold it elsewhere (school 1 I think), although in that case the janitor told us the booking was only provisional so we got LPH in the end.

The point about LPH being the home was not to say that it is not the standard location for debates, something I entirely agree with, especially given its history, but to take issue with the idea that not to obtain it would brand us failures. The 'traditional' venue for debates has moved many times over the years due to different reasons and so I feel that particular statement disingenuous.

[exnihilo]

No deposit or cash would need to change hands; a verbal contract is entered into, it is, as I said, a question of good faith.

However, we have strayed, again...

[John Stewart]

Normally a contract becomes legally enforcable only on the exchange of "adequate consideration" between both parties. Which would imply the payment of a deposit.

Regardless, this is sadly a problem that has seemed to occur more and more frequently down the years. In the past debates have been held in other venues such as Upper College Hall (I gather they are reluctant to give access to LCH) and while other rooms may not be so pretty as LPH, you should be sufficiently engaged by the speakers so as not to be staring at the walls. Otherwise your problems are likely to run deeper than the availability of venues...

[David Bean]

Quoting ChrisH from 23:38, 7th Jan 2007
Well seeing as how a) Laura had the same problems last year apparently (and who knows before then) and b) reservations does not give us priority as we do not pay for LPH, thus if an outside organisation offers money for a Wednesday we do not get it. Frankly I can entirely understand their view, sadly we are not Oxford, Cambridge or Durham with our own facilities, we rely upon finding rooms.

It does go back before then. The reason we have debates on a Wednesday to this day is because I was gazumped by Reservations for an entire semester's worth of the Thursday debates I'd planned for, and even begun booking, during the summer after I took over. Gazumped not even by an event in Parliament Hall, but by evening classes in the Psychology Department, of all things! Thankfully I was able to move the programme wholesale over to Wednesdays with no adverse consequences, and in any case Wednesday had been the traditional day for all but the past couple of years before mine.

I would say, though, that you shouldn't worry about it all that much, and Steve is (I suspect) being a little alarmist. For one thing Chris is right that there is genuinely nothing a convenor or Board can do about it and, for another, it's not all that difficult to find alternative accommodation. I didn't have to move any of my debates out of Parliament Hall, but other convenors (including Herr Puschmann) held them in the College Halls pretty successfully. Those rooms are a bit trickier to book because they require the backing of an academic, but it shouldn't be a particularly mammoth a task to secure that. You might try getting the DoSDA involved, though I don't know how good Lee is at that sort of thing.

I wouldn't recommend going with the Schools, though. Seats aren't moveable, which pretty much puts the kibosh on any non-competitive or AGM event.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[Al]

"And in any case Wednesday had been the traditional day for all but the past couple of years before mine."

And all the many years - before the switch to Wednesdays - when it was traditional for debates to be held on Thursdays, you mean?

[bdw]

Quoting John Stewart from 21:29, 8th Jan 2007
Normally a contract becomes legally enforcable only on the exchange of "adequate consideration" between both parties. Which would imply the payment of a deposit.

That's largely correct from an English law standpoint (except that consideration need only be "of value in the eyes of the law" rather than "adequate" - the latter term would allow the vendor to challenge the legitimacy of any bad bargain he concludes). As exnihilo correctly indicates, consideration is not a prerequisite to contract formation in most cases under Scots law.

[toff-toff]

A very Happy New Year to you all, and thank you for the messages of well-wishing and congratulations that people sent during the trip to Canada: I've only just received most of them, but thank you; I've passed them on to the rest of the group.

In regard to LPH: it certainly is, to my mind at least, the traditional home of the UDS and I see no reason why that should be changed. It will hopefully remain the Society's home for many years to come.

In regard to Reservations: I have encountered problems, Laura encountered problems, and it seems the issues stretch back far further than that in so far as booking LPH is concerned. There are a couple of weeks in the coming semester when LPH on a Wednesday is not available. For these weeks, we will either be relocating on the Wednesday, or if it suits speakers better, shifting the debate to the Friday evening for that week and staying in LPH. The suggestion that debates would be held in a pub is wrong, and I wouldn't ask speakers to speak in a debate where they had to compete with slot machines! On the occasion that it looked like LPH was taken away last semester, we had School I on standby. In the end, it was not needed and the debate went ahead in LPH. Other venues that could also be used are LCH and UCH, and possibly even the Senate Room, although as has been disussed at length on this Board before, our situation in regard to the Senate Room is under review. Holding some debates in LPH but on a Friday evening instead is also a valid alternative. For one-off formal debates, a Friday night can in fact be very useful, as many MPs and other professionals find it difficult to attend mid-week, but would be able to attend a Friday evening.

I contacted the University and Principal's Office before the Christmas vacation to review the issue, and my contact with them is on-going. Thank you very much to all the Alumni who have offered to help lobby on the Society's behalf. I sincerely hope it will not come to that, the situation will be reviewed and a solution to the problem (which is an old one) found. If not, thank you for the knowledge that we can get the support of the Society, both present and past members, behind our calls for a change to the system.

In regards to the term card, which this thread was originally about! I've been in Canada, been delayed in London, had two days to recover and then got an exam tomorrow morning - it's been one busy Christmas! However I get back to St Andrews this evening, and will be sending the term card out upon my return via the link-up. I will also put it up on this message board, however if you're not already signed up to the link-up, it's a great way of getting information (not just the term card!) about the Society without having to rely on The Sinner.

So, term card to follow very shortly, and never fear: LPH is our home, and long may it be so.

Rachael

[exnihilo]

Quoting exnihilo from 09:19, 6th Jan 2007
We never see...
- a run down of the most recent debate from someone who was there,
- a continuation of discussion on the motion.

Anyone want to volunteer to start doing this once things get going again post exams? Seems to me it would be pretty much the best reason for having a debates discussion board, but I may be alone.

[David Bean]

It'd maybe be a good idea to start each thread before the debate, so people who aren't around could chip in and give the student speakers some ideas, if they cared to check. This was something I used to do in my year, but there didn't seem to be much interest, so I stopped doing it; now more people who are genuinely interested in the debates seem to frequent this board, so it might work better.

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Psalm 91:7