The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

"Union doing fine by appealing to wider base of attendees through the likes of Beach Party Nights, Rock Nights and Goth Nights and not pandering to the GAA crowd…PRICELESS"

lol...glee night big success?

Also read the headline, the union is clearly not doing fine

i assume this is an accepted user name if feck the gaa is?

@ An old editor

I adore your common sense. To say that those people involved in the Gown have vendettas against people suggests that journalists the world over have all these enemies and people they want to get one over on. I really don't think that's the case. And you're right...a student newspaper doesn;t exactly have a massive area to cover, therefore all stories have to be reported on, regardless of who they're about. I don't know the team but they could all be GAA loving RCs, and if they are then they're doing a brilliant impartial job at reporting on campus news.

time to annoy the union?

@ Christopher Wilkinson

There seems to have been a misconception created this year regarding the Gown team and the GAA. I have watched the site all year and it appears that there is a belief on campus that the Gown team are anti-GAA and out to get the GAA. From knowing the team pretty well I can say for certain that this is not the case at all. If there is a story brought to the team's attention, no matter what organisation it is about, it has to be reported on. It just happens to be the case that there has been a few negative stories written about the GAA and their "crowd" this year. This does not represent the views of the Gown team. They are simply reporting news, and due to The Gown's patch being relatively small (Queen's campus and the metaphorical student "world") they have to grab each and every potential news story. It certainly doesn't mean that the reporter who writes the story has it in for the individual/club/society they are writing about. I can assure you that from my own personal experiences, Gown reporters don't give a damn about who they are writing about on a personal level. They want a good story that will be of interest to the student population, or in some cases a small group of individuals. The same goes for the comments which appear on the website. If the majority of the comments posted appear to be anti GAA then there's nothing the Gown team and the Gown website moderator can do about that. The Gown can't control what their readers, and more so those who post comments, think. Hopefully more GAA representatives will put forward positive viewpoints on Queen's GAA and so the debate will be more balanced. But if they don't...don't blame the Gown team.

As a forum for debate this is a disgrace. There is a clear prejudice against so called GAA people and some comments are down right abusive

Why should a person like "FECK THE GAA" be allowed to have his personal rants, it adds nothing to the forum of debate, his name in itself is abusive and is not needed.

I play no GAA or have any interested in the game. I am a neutral party making useful observations.

Gown, sort it out!!!

Setting staff up to fail Robbo?
Standard management practice i'm afraid - set any staff you want rid of totally unrealistic objectives and watch them fail, then get rid of them because theyre not up to it.
Happens in all big organisations.

Why the obsession with the GAA? Don't get that one!

Here are the important questions - who set the targets? Were they realistic targets, given that we're in the middle of the worst recession anyone of our age has known?
Was the person setting the targets over ambitious? Were they qualified to be setting these targets? It doesn't sound like it to me. To set unrealistic targets in the current economic climate smacks of setting staff up to fail. Sound like anyone we know is SU management?

There seems to be great hostility to the GAA... I do not play or follow it, but but note how many comments - including ones which seem to be well reasoned and argued, have been given a negative rating if they advocate for the GAA, while less well reasoned comments are given high ratings simply for being anti GAA. From what I can ascertain from this article and associated comments (as well as being at QUB for 2 years) is that Seymore is correct - The Union does need the GAA crowd, it is suffering without them and the point he made about there not being a GAA sabbatical (regardless of how certain sabs have acted in the past) seems valid - yet has a -3 rating! The next comment by "Feck the GAA" is just his/her personal feeling and doesn't add to the debate, while poorly reproducing a Mastercard advert. While some points are very valid - such as his views on last years sabbatical officers, he uses broad sweeping, offensive, statements "vast majority...useless wasters", yet this comment has a +3 rating??? Surely Gown readers and those concerned enough to read and comment online are above petty sectarian prejudice? And surely they are astute enough to realise that alienating a large section of the community at Queen's is detrimental. Also while the GAA crowd are important, so are ever other large contingent. The Union is not a good club - look at how fancy and plush the box and rain are inside, the box has character, the Union has a room with a concrete floor that seems to smell. Drink prices aren't the main problem, the music, set up, the venue, the huge bar queues and the comparison with "real" places are the problem, and thus the appeal to the general clubbing/partying student group is minimal - and they are the ones who go out the most and spend the most money.

@Its me,
Do you think Brogan and the puppeteers were happy to give this information out? It's not as if this is a Queen's press statement or something.

I for one would not have been aware of SU's financial situation had this article not been written. That to me is journalism.

Yes, this is amateur journalism from unqualified students, and perhap more questions could have been asked, but give'em a break. I have faith this new Gown crowd will continue to look into this and many other tasty Union tidbits over the next year! :)

GAA have received disproportionate amount of funding relative to other groups in Queens due to sabbatical officer bias...HISTORICAL

Vast majority of GAA sabbatical officers have been useless wasters...CONJECTURE

GAA affiliated sabbatical officers promoting rival venue while ostensibly acting for the good to the SU...SHAMEFUL

No GAA affiliated sabbatical officers this year and the GAA crowd Baww like there's no tomorrow...OBSERVATION

Union is one of the few Belfast niteclubs not to go into administration this year...FINANCIAL

GAA crowd think their patronage is the be all and end all of a venue...ARROGANT

GAA think very highly of themselves...ASSUMPTION

Union doing fine by appealing to wider base of attendees through the likes of Beach Party Nights, Rock Nights and Goth Nights and not pandering to the GAA crowd...PRICELESS

Union did offer 7k to GAA...FACT

Union does need GAA crowd...FACT

"And to feck the GAA boys, the hatfield was after renshaws now before" Y such hostility? They are an integral part of QUB whether you like it or not, the union is suffering without them...FACT!

Without a recognised GAA person in office next year it is hard to see things improving!!!

peace XXX

@ McSleazy: Criticise my punctuation if you want. My point is that this is not ‘journalism’ as I understand it. It is a statement from Brogan reproduced and summarised without any questions of context. Some questions that could have been asked..

Has the University sought to restructure the massive loan repayments to accommodate reduction in bar takings?
How are the numbers comparing to other years?
Should all the officers really be asked to put their campaigning roles to one side to try to increase bar receipts?

Or just ask anything rather than print a statement and call it journalism

The union sponsoring the GAA???... that must be a loads of balls. They get a grant from the union like every other club, and hopefully this year it will get an unbiased review rather than pulling them out of a hole created by a flopped sponsorship deal.

But look at what else they got, the GAA (and other high profile low performing clubs) are getting a pretty hefty upgrade to their sporting facilities out at the Dub. Which, by the way will not cost them an extra penny, unlike the users of the PEC.

"Duffy and Lilly and Courtney offered suggestions on how to improve the offering and they were laughed out of it."

you mean bring in a big name cool fm DJ? That suggestion worked a treat alright. Good work lads.

"long haired freaks"

WTF is this? Are you living in the 1960s!?!??! Besides, give me the long hair freaks over the tracksuit wearing, milk drinking, spud eating, narrow minded bog hoppers that talk like they have a mouth full of boiled sweets.

Wheres this word of 7k sponsership coming from, i though the GAA boys had their 2 sponsers sorted for next year already. And they use the BOT cos the bot sponsers them, thats a simple business deal any blind man cud see that.

People are just set in their ways on where to go out so the union needs to sort its own marketing strategy or change things to improve!

Id say the union needs to worry more about RAIN than the BOT. In previous years the unions and the BOTs biggest nites was a thursday and both these venues have had to reduce drink prices and relable their thrusday nights in a bid to get the croiwd back that goes to rain early on a thursday nite now after a carryout!

And to feck the GAA boys, the hatfield was after renshaws now before :P

The bot has a capacity of 850. This was the number at the recent "back to skol nite."

@ Feck the GAA...If you dont need them then the union will continue to run the way it is now with low turnouts. I frequently attended the union last year as a first year with my "GAA" buddies.

LOL'in at dont need the GAA crowd, is that why the unions offering the GAA 7k in sponsorship or there abouts?

And when we're referring to GAA its not just football heads, we're referring to the broad base that now head out to places such as the Bot, the box and rain. I think people in the Union need to wise up.

Duffy and Lilly and Courtney offered suggestions on how to improve the offering and they were laughed out of it. No wonder they lost hope. And for your interest there were 900 tickets sold for a UV party at the bot. Suppose thats besides the point. The Union needs to figure out what it wants; become once more the focal point for student social activities and entertainment or become a place that only a few long haired freaks are interested in going to to listen to killing in the name of being played three times in a nite.

Hey if the GAA is so repugnant we're happy to take our business elsewhere, we'll let the union rot but don't say we didn't try to help

Just a note on the reduced £60,000 paid to student staff btw. Has no1 picked up on the fact that in a recession the students union has also decided to start giving students less money? Reduced hours is effectively a pay cut when you work as casual labour like. Another gold star for the union there

Get rid of Brogan...what a slacker! It's him and that laura one to blame who are too worried about the university and residents...grow a set!

@Dick, lol, yes fair point!
But I was just highlighting on Its Me's criticism of journalism by picking up on his own grammar.
..which you've then cornered me on, so yes, the joke's on me, JBD!

I think the Bot is a contributory factor, if not the whole problem.

I wish people would stop talking about the Bot. It has a capacity of about 400. The Union is many times more than that.

And LOL @ McSleazy - "appostrophes". People need to find something better to do than correct grammar. It's the lowest form of a comeback.

GAA who needs them, before the Bot it was Renshaws, before Renshaws it was the Hatfield.

The union has never been the preferred hangout of the GAA crowd, they much prefer scummy pubs that smell of jizz, suits them down to the ground.

@Its Me
If your going to criticise the boy's journalism, at least learn the correct use of appostrophes.

The union's problem has, and always will be, losing the GAA crowd to the Bot. They're going to have to do a good bit of grovelling to get them back.

Maybe if we had a more charismatic president in place who would have been able to attract the people that voted for him to the union then the union may be better off. x

the union bars arent acually makin a loss though are they? they have to pay a massive fixed repayment to a bank for the money that paid for the 2006 building work

check out this old annual report:
http://www.qubsu.org/resources/media/reports/QUBSU... (only one i can find on the website - good job union)

same thing happened three years ago apparently - 60k deficit after the loan. AND assume this "projected" number for the passed year was the same as the 2008 turnover.... which you'd assume give that there's been a recession in between.

if brogan is right and its down may he says... the bars are still making more than they were in 2007. and still make profit... they just seem to be lumbered with masssssive debt. who's is reponsible for that? bar staff no, managemet? well they've all change since then. QUB? well they did the same thing to PEC - massive loan + unreachable target = price hike or cuts

(And this is, of course, Dodge's doing. He predicted too high, against the will of the people who knew what to expect.)

Shane's a sheep, it'll be good to see him go.

Daniel, you're a bit of a tit.

They have £1.50 drinks that aren't shite.

Ben

If i give you a statement will you print it and not ask me any questions either?

Brilliant journalism!!

It's silly, they should be expanding rather than stagnating. They should start buying in lower bran drinks such as VHF and flogging them for £1.50 on nights like Tuesday and Wednesday when no-one really arrives. Advertise it very cheaply over facebook and the like and thats an extra 2 nights a week they are getting money flowing in.

Santander not Santandar.

Maybe if the sabbs faithful voters (aka sheep) would frequent the SU instead of the Bot, maybe it wouldn't be quite so bad.