Ambition takes you places. Warwick University Students’ Union has two buildings which house seven bars, two clubs and a pub, a pizza outlet, a coffee shop, juice bar and a fish and chip shop. Due to campaigning it managed to secure £11m from the university to improve the buildings.
The two floors that OUSU occupies hosts one main conference room and a handful offices for the sabbatical team, the Oxford Student newspaper and Oxide Radio to work in. Scandalous in comparison.
Oddly for someone who was a JCR President and as a consequence went to OUSU council, I don’t think I heard any mention of a central student venue for the Student Union at the bi-weekly congregation of Oxford’s most politically active; which is troubling because such a venue is key to any attempt to solve OUSU’s problems.
OUSU needs a new venue which hosts several conference rooms, large office space, a bar, a club and more space for the Oxford Student and Oxide Radio.
My support for such a venue is based on the number of bops for undergraduates and graduates or charity events that our student union could hold in a new venue. It’s based on the increase in revenue from a bar that would benefit from NUS discounted drinks or from the income generated through shops paying rent to have access to the site and based on the ease of availability of rooms that clubs and societies will have for meetings and events.
My support is also related to welfare. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve negotiated past drug dealers, intimidating groups of people and abusive squatters to get into OUSU towers.
Surely negotiating through such obstacles is pretty intimidating for a first-year who has been the victim of sexual harassment or unfair rustication? Why should we as students tolerate a building that barely meets the absolute minimum required for the safe exit and entry of the disabled?
The usual comeback is that getting such a venue is too difficult and expensive, but that simply isn’t good enough. Yes, it will be difficult and expensive. But that’s why a new, well-publicised campaign needs to be launched by OUSU to fight for facilities fit for our student union. Getting a venue is a huge project that can’t be tucked away for a rainy day: it needs 110% commitment and a committee comprised of students, university staff and businesspeople to realise this goal. Last year, while informally chatting about this idea with last year’s OUSU business team, the now-abandoned Bar Med near Filth seemed to fit the bill: there’d be plenty of space for the sabbatical team to work with, enough space to fit the accommodation office (which is currently housed in Summertown, not the easiest of places to get to). There’d also be enough space for a bar and a club.
With the university planning on raising a billion and on embarking on a series of major building projects, now is the time to seize this moment in order to get the facilities that students at other universities take for granted.
Respect, revenue and results: it’s time for a central OUSU venue
