Pembroke College has passed a motion to hold a ‘Porter Appreciation Week’ from Monday 2nd to Friday 6th March, in line with the recent trend of JCRs trying harder to appreciate university staff.
During this week, the JCR will give the porters a card and present, alongside organising a secret complement box, a song-orientated honouring and a ‘Porter Poem competition’.
The motion was proposed by undergraduate Dan Bowen in an attempt to recognise “that Hilary must not be a fun time for our porter friends due to weather and drunken students”. He also wanted to rectify the “hard time” that the porters have been having recently, “mainly from members of the JCR”.
The motion declared, “The JCR believes we need to honour our porters to the highest degree. The JCR members often feel like they want to thank them, be it by gift or in words, but (being mainly British) JCR members feel too awkward to do so. The JCR further believes this would be a good opportunity for members of the JCR to make up with or thank the porters if they did something especially kind.”
The motion passed with two amendments; one being that a spending cap of £150 be introduced and the second to make this a ‘Pembroke Porter Appreciation Week’ as opposed to a day.
Pembroke JCR President Ben Nabarro commented, “The JCR understands how much the porters do for students and how integral they are to the student community. The JCR’s reaction has been almost uniformly positive and this is indicative of the number of people who, at some point or another, have been helped, cheered up, and generally looked out for by the college porters.
“I’m really glad to see so many in the JCR engaging with the week and I think it’s right we, as students, show our gratitude to all members of college staff who go over and above what they have to for students.”
Undergraduate Ste Sczcepanek told Cherwell, “I think it’s a good idea because it’s so easy to take the porters for granted or to underappreciate what they do for their job, so it’s a good chance to let them know that we appreciate them.”
However, others were quick to raise the issue of why this specific week is needed at all, with fresher Charlotte Lanning commenting, “I think that it’s a really nice idea, but I also think it’s quite superficial – why do we have a specific week to appreciate them when we should be being nice and respectful all of the time?”
Somerville College also passed a motion this week making all members of College support staff honorary members of the JCR. The motion initially proposed the instatement of bar staff Callum McGuire and Josh Ramli-Davies as honorary members, but was amended during the meeting to include all support staff at the college.
Asked about the passing of the motion, McGuire commented, “It’s great! Pretty sure Sean [McIntyre, who proposed the initial motion], meant it as a joke when he proposed it but if it turned out as something positive between staff and students that’s awesome.”
LMH’s JCR has likewise made more of an effort to appreciate its scouts by organising coffee mornings between college staff and students.
