Ash Sangha has resigned from the post of Treasurer-Elect at the Oxford Union after missing three Standing and three Consultative Committee meetings.

Although the Treasurer-Elect was at first allowed to retain his position within the society due to a technicality over what were believed to be incorrectly called meetings, it has since emerged that the meetings were properly called. Sangha therefore has no choice but to resign.

During the Emergency Standing Committee held earlier this week it also emerged that Sangha was unsure why he missed the meetings. Although at first he claimed that his absence was due to illness, Stuart Cullen, President-Elect, produced an apologetic text message from Ash from that day claiming that he was busy dealing with JCR business.

Sangha then claimed that he had another defence, namely that while the Secretary had sent out details for all three of the committees in the appropriate manner, on one occasion there was no time given for the meeting he subsequently missed. James Dray, the President of the Oxford Union, was then asked to decide whether the absence of this detail was enough to render the committee meeting invalid.

Dray confirmed, “It is indeed unfortunate that Mr Sangha has had to resign, and he has done an enormous amount for the society, but in line with the rules I had no choice but to act in the way as I did.”

Ash was disappointed about his dismissal. He said, “I suppose it’s inevitable that people will look for political motivations behind the accusations. To be honest, I think it’s more important for officers to concentrate on running the Union then to speculate on their political futures.

“Faced with the choice between delivering the best deal for members or fulfilling some of the more arbitrary requirements of being an officer I think it makes sense to prioritise members.

If that means missing the odd meeting because you’re helping to look after speakers or getting in a van to help deliver publicity materials for the membership drive then you’ve got to ask what’s the best for members. I’m convinced that I made the right choice.”

A member of Standing Committee commented, “Turning up to Union committees is the basic requirement of a Union officer. Failing to turn up is a violation of one’s duty and is simply wrong. He was obviously very, very incompetent.”

Charlie Holt, the society’s ex-President, has defended Ash. He said, “I am deeply uncomfortable with the way Ash was dismissed on Monday for failing to attend the requisite number of committee meetings. ‘The rules are the rules’ is a favourite retort of the returning officers, but this trivial rule – a rule which carries a grossly disproportionate penalty – seems to be applied in an increasingly selective and arbitrary way.”

David Thomas, currently on Standing Committee, will be assuming the role of Treasurer-Elect next term. It was offered to him after current Secretary Lou Stoppard and Standing Committee’s Dharmesh Nayee both rejected the position.

David Thomas will also feature on the ballot for the Librarian, despite requests to be removed from the ballot. He has spoken at length about the situation during yesterday’s hustings.

Scientists from Oxford University and George Mason University in Virginia are aiming to use human talent to match up images of colliding galaxies in the hope of finding the best models.

The Galaxy Zoo Mergers site will allow the study of what astronomers call “galactic mergers”. Examining them may explain why the universe has such a mix of galaxy types.
The team behind the site believe that the human eye is more useful than computers for the task of matching up images of real mergers with randomly-selected images of simulated mergers.

“These collisions take millions of years to unfold and so all we get from the Universe is a single snapshot of each one. By producing simulations, we will be able to

watch each cosmic car crash unfold in the computer,” said Anthony Holincheck, a graduate student at George Mason University and member of the team behind the site.

“Whilst we’re challenging the 250,000 existing users of the original Galaxy Zoo site to take part in this new project, anyone is welcome to join in – you don’t have to be an expert, in fact our evidence shows that not being an expert actually makes you better at this sort of task,” said George Mason astronomer John Wallin.

Two drug users were found outside University College accommodation last Sunday afternoon.

Concerned students have immediately informed the police and the porters, but the two men fled the scene before the University Security services or the police arrived.

Needles and other drug paraphernalia were left lying around by the entrance.

At between 5 and 6pm last Sunday night, two men walked into Logic Lane and sat in the entrance of Durham Buildings, a student accommodation block. They proceeded to prepare and take the drugs in the entrance, as puzzled Univ students looked on.

Tim Fowler, the second year medic who called the police described how the men “sat preparing the drugs for around five minutes” before proceeding to inject themselves with what onlookers assumed to be heroin. At this point Fowler called the police for the first time. He commented “it is a relatively narrow entrance, people could have got past but nobody really wanted to.”

Fowler added “They were there for another thirty-five minutes and I phoned them [the police] again, but still nobody came.”

During this time, it is understood that the college porters were also contacted by several students. The porters then passed on the message to the University Security services, who are used for the protection of many of the University buildings. Representatives arrived approximately twenty minutes after the drug users had left, which was around an hour after the phone calls were made to the porters.

One student commented, “The police said it wasn’t an emergency, and gave us a non-emergency number to call…I normally feel very secure at Univ, especially as the Logic Lane gates are shut quite soon after it gets dark.”

The Thames Valley Police later arrived at the scene, but were unable to locate the men as they didn’t know what the men looked like.

Alice Heath, JCR President said, “Security is definitely not a general problem at Univ – we have keypads on every external and internal door, the gates to Logic Lane are locked at 7pm and our porters are extremely vigilant and trusted by everyone in college. I’ve never had anyone report any worries about security at Univ.”

A student is pioneering what is believed to be Oxford’s first pop-up restaurant. Lara Tyrrell, an MPhil student at Merton, launched the idea in an attempt to make as much money as possible from a starting budget of £1.

A pop-up restaurant is one that appears to have been set up out of nowhere, and disappears as quickly as it arrives. Often established in people’s homes, Tyrrell has located hers in Merton MCR, holding two events, one last Sunday, and a grand closing, to be held on Saturday.

Another reason for setting up the restaurant was to promote the value of using local produce. “The main point of this is to show to students that there are better food options in Oxford [than the supermarkets].

“Even if you bought the exact same list of items in the Covered Market as at Sainsbury’s, your carbon footprint would decrease dramatically.”

As with many such restaurants, guests pay an amount they deem appropriate. Last Sunday, Tyrrell raised £155.

Xchanging PLC, a global business re-invention company, is to become the first title sponsor of the 156th annual Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race next April.

The new event logo, visible along the Putney-Mortlake course, will feature Xchanging’s brand. The Race has been drawing increasing audience figures, with 153 countries screening the event in 2009.

The 2010 Xchanging Boat Race commences at 16.30 BST on Saturday, 3rd April.

Enterprising students have been putting their skills to the test in an ice cream selling competition.

As part of the Oxford Entrepreneurs’ “OxPrentice” series, competitors in the G&D’s Challenge were asked to come up with a flavour of ice cream and pitch it to a panel of experts. At the end of 6th week, the best two flavours were made, and the ice cream that sold the most was declared the winner.

The two teams went head to head with flavours “Jaffaholic”, made of jaffa cake chunks soaked in cointreau, and a festive ice cream which contained chunks of gingerbread and white chocolate.

Thirteen tubs of each ice cream were produced and distributed to the three G&D’s shops around Oxford. The ice cream went on sale at noon on Friday of 6th, and the winner was the flavour which sold out first, or which had sold the most by midnight on Monday. Both teams were given a budget of £200 for ingredients and £100 for marketing.

The winning flavour was Jaffaholic, which triumphed by a margin of just half a tub.

Ushma Soneji, Hertford College, from the Jaffaholic team said, “We came up with the idea because we wanted something that hadn’t been done before, but would work well with the other flavours available at G&D’s so it could realistically become a long term regular flavour.”

Suzanne Winder, a Hertford graduate, and also on the winning team said, “We had the brainstorming on Wednesday when the idea was chosen, the ice cream was made on Thursday while we got our strategy together (fitted around work), it went on sale Friday lunchtime and I spent most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday entirely focussed on telling everyone about my flavour and letting them taste it. We weren’t really warned about how quick the challenge would be, we just had to get on with it.”

Tom Corcoran, manager of the St. Aldate’s G&D’s, said, “One of the things we were looking for in the competition was that they had to be able to source local ingredients. It was partly because that’s what we prefer to do wherever possible, but also it ensures for us that if the competition was running on Wednesday, as it was, we could guarantee that we could have the ice cream on sale on Friday.

“We could literally go to the same places that they’d sourced the products giving us the prices, everything we needed to know, so it made it very straightforward for us to then go out and make their flavour as they wanted it to appear.”

Hayato Maedo, OxPrentice director, commented, “I’m delighted with the event. We managed to hold a really cool event, the companies were pleased with the outcome, the feedback from the participants was (I think) the best we’ve ever had (averaging in the region of 9 out of 10) and what’s more, one of the winning teams managed to get onto BBC Oxford radio to talk about their flavour.”

Corcoran added, “We were very impressed with the quality of the flavour ideas they came up with and they were quite diverse. Both of the two finalists flavours were fantastic and we promised that we would repeat the winning flavour throughout the course of the year anyway but in actual fact I would be very keen to produce both of the flavours and they will probably be a flavour on and off throughout the year and probably for a few years to come as well.”

Other entrants included Super G, an energy ice cream which was targeted at sports teams and gym enthusiasts, and Banoffee Crunch and Nostalgic Nana, an ice cream based on the banana flavoured sweets from the 1980s.

The panel of experts was made up of managers from G&D’s, the marketing firm Purple Frog, and a marketing representative from Nestle.

Jordan Poulton, President of the Oxford Entrepreneurs, explained the motivation behind

the competition, “We want to help people learn business skills by testing themselves in a risk-free environment. They don’t have to invest any money, only some time, and they get the chance to prove their abilities in real life entrepreneurial scenarios. We have a number of events lined up for the year, and we also have an iPhone App under development at the moment from the previous OxPrentice challenge.”

A lack of advice and service for dementia sufferers and the people who care for them has been condemned by Tony Hope, a Professor of Medical Ethics at Oxford University.

“When a person is diagnosed with cancer, a wide range of services can be accessed. This is not true in the case of dementia”, claimed Hope adding, “Many people with dementia receive little support once the initial diagnosis is made.”

A report on dementia published last month and chaired by Professor Hope, warned against a “‘tick-box’ culture” that “dehumanises the relationships and the care.” Hope also declared that “more information and support from professionals is needed… the Equality and Human Rights Commission should provide practical guidance.”

Dementia sufferers occupy one in four hospital beds, and eighty percent of nurses felt they needed more specialist advice, according to a survey of 1300 carers and 1100 nurses published last week by the Alzheimer’s Society.

Oxford University scientists are using brain scanning technology to investigate how we learn to recognize and comprehend the facial expressions of others.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG), a non-invasive technique that measures the magnetic fields generated by brain activity, is being used to examine the face processing abilities of 96 children aged 5-16.

The study, which samples participants with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), will compare the reactions of children in order to examine how the development of such vital brain responses is affected by ASD.

Dr Swettenham who is leading the study commented, “There is a lot of evidence to suggest that people with autism spectrum disorder have difficulty with processing faces.”

St Peter’s College has sold the only double Victoria Cross awarded during World War One for a record fee of almost £1.5 million.

The double VC was bought by Lord Ashcroft. It will be displayed as part of his medal collection in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, due to open in the Imperial War Museum next year.

The Gallery is funded by a £5m donation from the Tory peer. His collection of 160 Victoria Cross medals is worth £30m.

The first Cross was awarded to Captain Noel Chavasse for his heroism in the Battle of the Somme, whilst the second posthumously for his bravery at Ypres where he died in 1917. It is one of only three double VCs to have been awarded since Queen Victoria created the medal in 1856.

The medals were left to St Peter’s, which was founded by Chavasse’s father in 1929.

A college spokesman praised this opportunity for the medals to “be seen by the public in their proper context” with the proceeds going to unspecified “educational purposes”.

This term Oxford has welcomed the first Afghan woman to study at the University.

21-year-old Shaharzad Akbar is studying for a Master’s in Development Studies after receiving the prestigious Weidenfeld Scholarship.

Akbar’s route to Oxford was far from conventional. She studied Philosophy at Kabul University and then transferred to Smith College, Massachusetts in the United States. However, her education before university was disjointed due to the war. Akbar’s family moved often and she attended school in Pakistan for some time. As a result, she was mainly home-schooled.

Akbar said, “I remember reading about Oxford University when I was a child.” She names Benazir Bhutto as her role model, saying, “She went to Oxford, but I never thought I would end up here. It is truly a dream come true.”
She is one of 29 students who have received the Weidenfeld Scholarship. The programme is mainly open to students from transition and emerging economies in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.

A spokesperson for the University said of the programme; “The scholars are encouraged to reflect on the nature of a ‘good society’ and explore how they can work towards this goal in their own field.” Scholars are expected “to return to their country of origin in due course and play a significant leadership role in public life in their own countries or internationally.”

Speaking on education in Afghanistan, Akbar described how it is improving, even since she first attended university in Kabul in 2005. She says things were different then, “very political” and students had “very few options”.

There are now more private institutions appearing in Afghanistan, though many of them also have limited options for study usually restricted to economics and accounting.
While she praised the increasing opportunities to study abroad for Afghan students in countries like India and the arrival of international teachers in Afghanistan, she pointed out there are still many problems with schooling in Afghanistan, chiefly due to issues with security.

Many schools, especially girls’ schools, are burned down or destroyed and there have been incidents of teachers and students being attacked. Akbar’s mother is a primary school teacher and notes that many students are working in insecure areas and are often not able to concentrate in school. Even in safer regions, problems can arise when teachers are under-qualified or there is a lack of resources.

Jonny Medland, OUSU VP for Access and Academic Affairs said, “Shaharzad Akbar has an amazing story, and it’s great that someone from her background is now a student at Oxford. An inability to find funding is one of the major obstacles to graduate study at the university, and a priority for OUSU this year is working with the university and government to improve the scholarships which are available to graduates. Scholarships targeted at talented students from developing countries are particularly important, and the award of this scholarship is a very good example of why such funding is crucial.”

Akbar described her experience at Oxford so far as “great” and said she particularly enjoys having “access to so many resources.” She also appreciates the array of different events on offer at Oxford.

She is interested in working in community-based development, possibly in areas such as reproductive health, education and women’s rights.

Akbar began her studies in October. She has said of coming to Oxford, “My family are very proud, I am the first to go to university, but all of this would not have been possible without the support of so many people.”