Stuart Cullen at the Union has got back to me with an explanation of the absent speakers who were promised for this term (see last post). The explanation basically boils down to this: they promised they would come, then later changed their minds, either because of scheduling issues or other reasons (it’s not entirely unknown for speakers to get cold feet). I can believe this. Unfortunately, the Union is rarely a truly high profile venue nowadays (if it ever was). Oxford is a long way to come, both for speakers and any journalists who might want to cover them. When speakers agree to visit, it may be because they’re curious about such an eccentric institution, because they have fond memories of student days in Oxford, or because they just enjoy speaking to groups of intelligent students. But for most of them, it’s fairly low down on their list of priorities, and so if something else comes up, it’s often the Oxford event that gets scrapped. This appears to be what happened with Carol Vorderman, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and Gerhard Schroeder (on the other hand, they might have just changed their mind and used scheduling as an excuse).
One thing that is worth noting, though, is that of the three, only Vorderman promised to come on a specific date – the others just gave vague intentions to come at some time during the term. When a speaker does this, I think it’s a bit optimistic to claim that they are ‘confirmed for Hilary,’ when it’s perfectly possible that what they actually meant was ‘no, not now, but I might have some free time in a few months so call me then and I’ll think about it.’ Whether that was the case with these speakers I don’t know (and probably nor does anyone apart from them and their staff). So it looks like when these speakers were announced it was all done in good faith, but future Librarians’ offices might want to consider holding off announcing a speaker as ‘confirmed’ until they have a definite date and time. I’ve reproduced Stuart’s email to me below.
Dear Conan,
The reasons for the withdrawals are as follows:
General David Petraeus: We heard on November 18th that he would be unable to come because they’d had a change in their travel plans for February. I’ve got a print out of the email in my office if you’d like to come get it.
Gerhard Schroeder: over the Summer he confirmed that he would speak in either January or February. We were in contact with him throughout Michaelmas to find a date and on December 15th were informed by his office that he would unfortunately be too busy until the summer, when he is hoping to come and speak. I am happy to send you the emails but given its in German it might be a bit pointless. Also printed out in my office though.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies: was in touch with President-elect Laura Winwood about coming in Hilary and said he would do so, but unfortunately was unable to find a specific date when we tried to pin one down. I’ll ask Laura to get you the emails.
Carol Vorderman: Had confirmed to speak on February 22nd but then had to change to a date later in March. We then tried to pin down a date, but I received an email on December 22nd saying that it would not be possible due to “a couple of big project launches Carol is not going to be available at all during the first three months of next year. She sends her apologies.” I’ve got print outs of the emails in my office if you’d like to come have a look.
As you know, having been on committee, term in term out we host a range of speakers that no other student society in the world can compete with. It is a fact of life that the type of people we invite have incredibly busy and fluid schedules and the longer the time is between the date of a booking and the date of the speech, the greater the possibility is of a speaker pulling out. The Christmas vacation gives 3 weeks of working time, when you take out Christmas holidays. In that time, we organised eleven debates and fifty individual speakers. In first week alone, over 450 people came to the first debate, and three of our speakers (Graydon Carter, Imran Khan and Katie Melua) had an audience of over 200. Simon Singh had an audience of over 150 – and that’s in one week. We have 22 Members of Parliament, 7 Peers, 5 members of the Government and 4 members of the Shadow Cabinet all coming in the run-up to a General election. Incubus, Katie Melua, MC Hammer and Duffy (and another big act that’s going to confirm in the next couple of days) on the music front, is quite impressive. This is, by any standards, a good term of speakers, of debates and of socials, and its a going to be a good term for the Union.
Sincerely,
Stuart
