Quoting David Bean from 00:39, 22nd May 2007
A professional disagreement, maybe, but uncharitable un-Christian? Moi? Shurely shome mistake! :O
I chose the words, as Kylie sang to the other one whose name escapes me like a pop career escaped him, especially for you. Do note that I didn't say "un-Christian;" English, much as Greek, is a language of precision...
Is that where that ridiculous expression came from? Goodness, I genuinely hadn't heard that before.
I did not serve under Stevie D, so I'm not positive - perhaps Dr Joss'll remember better; however, it was always described as originating with him by the venerable Spiers of tarnished memory.
Can you recall the reasoning behind it?
Not beyond "they're more than just societies."
it was Ben himself who sat on the E&E Committee at the time
Of course he did; he was DoS. The impetus for most, if not all, of the 13 page E&E manifesto was Hedvig's.
I know first hand that he was the one who was trying to enforce it on the UDS
Again, of course he had to, for t'was his job to enforce the express will of the students through their elected officials to have paperless meetings in the interest of saving Mother Earth and making her more hippy drum circle friendly.
Come now, Ralph. You know as well as I do that he was for disaffiliation
Disaffiliation is not the term I'd use; under the model I believe he preferred, debating would have been reconstituted as a regular society instead of one of the "supers." You will recall, of course, that back in those days, dinners were being subsidized by the Association and there was all manner of perceived tomfoolery - a service to all of the students it was not. Under the unadopted Spiers model, the UDS would have become more reliant on the funds raised by the membership for their own activities rather than on Union ones. Emminently sensible given the circumstances as he found them from an outsider's perspective.
it's true that he was making those arguments, and I agreed with them at the time
I put forward that Ben made them first and they've stuck, hence calling it his legacy / contribution. (Do not fret, I think you made a contribution too. You wore that hat, for example.)
I defy you, though, to argue that a service-oriented UDS was the conception thereof held by the pre-Spiers crowd of Patterson, et al. They were UDS of the old school, running debates for UDS aficionados which, owing to the quality of the speakers participating, both student and non, and the high standard of motions, by happy coincidence, were of interest to the student body at large who consistently packed out LPH week after week after week.
I will note in the "not in my day" stylee oft attributed to me and mine that it's funny how, since the shift to a service orientation, both the quality of LPH debating and house attendance have declined.
the SSC 'cannot comment on staffing', which was, I repeat, a lie.
If the SSC passed a motion saying "This SSC demands Bruce Turner be sacked forthwith." would he still come into work the next day? I think you'll find he would, as the SSC has no authority in that regard and hasn't since it ceased to be the UMC and possibly well before that. Again, never having served on the UMC, Dr Joss'd be better placed to field a question of that sort than I.
can you or anyone deny that he used to make up laws prohibiting students from doing what they wanted
Of course I deny it. My memory may be slipping in my dotage, but not to the extent that I forgot what his tactic for blocking measures he disliked was for it was a great one.
He always presented his cases based on one thing, his own personal authority as an expert on past precedent, not law. Nobody questioned that he knew better than they about the Association's internal workings and how things had gone before - folk like Derek were comparative newbies etc. That he used his
auctoritas to block certain measures was only natural. You speak of "stopping students doing what they wanted" but you cite no real examples thereof. Odd that.
Regarding the UDS and booze, even you must concede that the man had a point which remains valid; the Union sells booze via Off Sales, and that which it doesn't have it can easily acquire for a regular customer such as the UDS. Weekly, the society had been going to Luvians
vel sim. to purchase its sherry, port, gin etc., for pre-Debates drinks (ah, the heady days when the trolly full of drink arrived to be ferried up to the Senate Room...). Strongly encouraging the UDS to shop at the Union instead just made/makes sense. That this instruction not to bite the hand that feeds the society has passed into the common parlance as being some manner of legalistic requirement is hardly his fault and owes more to some people's inability to comprehend than some devious megalomaniac's long-term plan to harm students from one of their highest elected positions.
my regard for Mr Covino remains undiminished.
I'll pass that on to Mr Covino when I see him at the end of next month; I'm sure he'll be thrilled.
