Bars in Queen’s Students’ Union are set to lose over £52,700 this year. The Students’ Union Performance Forecast to 31 July 2010 predicts that takings are to decrease by approximately £262,948, 14% below the target set during July 2009.
BY BEN FINCH
Students’ Union President Shane Brogan, however, explains that the loss in income should not affect the viability of the Union due to the profits from previous years having been stored within a “sinking fund”. This fund currently holds a total of around £700,000, and the deficit will be funded through this. The Union also stands to run a surplus throughout the next year, through rent from the various shops and the Santander bank located on the premises, as well as the yearly grant from the University.
Brogan maintains that through “good management” the Students’ Union is in a superior position than that of many others throughout the UK, which are shutting bars and obtaining grants to stay afloat. Wages paid to Union staff have been reduced by approximately £60,000, through changes in shift patterns, rather than job losses, and plans for bars that are not essential have been frozen. The first semester attendance at some events was 30% off target. This improved during the second semester, but targets were still missed by 14%.
According to Brogan the Union has “never seen anything quite as bad” as the past year, and admitted the option of closing bars had been considered during the year. There is currently a re-think into what the Union offers students.
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
@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!
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.
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?
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!
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!!!
@ 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.
time to annoy the union?
@ 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.
i assume this is an accepted user name if feck the gaa is?
“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