Men’s Rugby has been disaffiliated from UCLU on “sexual harassment” grounds after pornography was left by the men’s team in the Phineas bar. The club are appealing the decision, the result of which will be divulged on Friday. If the appeal is unsuccessful they will be unable to compete in fixtures. UCLU Democracy and Com- munications Officer Sam Gaus told us that rugby had been forced out of UCLU for four or five different offences, only one of which was the pornography left in Phineas. Our rugby club contact commented on the UCLU dccision saying it was “quite con- venient for the union though because they fucked up Varsity a treat this year” Finding a venue to host this year’s match had been proving difficult. Twickenham Stoop, the previous hosts of Varsity, has refused to host the competition again due to the crowd violence last year.
Between Roxy and a hard place
UCL ‘SportsNite’ will be leaving The Roxy at the end of the term. The twelve largest sports clubs have signed a contract to take the Wednesday night fixture to The Loop Bar, Oxford Street, starting from January. The committees of at least fifteen of the larger sports clubs pushed for the move because of the queuing times experienced at The Roxy. David Brucie Morris, a regu- lar at ‘SportsNite' said of The Roxy: “the fairytale romance will all never be forgot- ten.... The Roxy is a palace of dreams,” but added “Wednesday nights have outgrown” the club. The Roxy and now The Loop give sports societies financial incentives to bring members to their clubs. According to one sports team insider, The Loop is offering more money to societies than The Roxy was. Another factor in the decision to move may be the new venue’s offer of free entry and a separate “elite” queue for committee members. For those who are not benefitting from the perks of committee membership, the entry price will be £3 until 11 and £5 after that. The Loop Bar describes itself as “a mecca” and “a dedicated party playground’, with address code of “smart but funky, casual but clean”. One previous member of squash society described The Roxy as “just the worst” and “vile", so perhaps the move to this so-described boozy Elysium is a good move by the sports teams.
Get out of my space
UCL occu-bloc were back on campus two weeks ago when around forty students en- tered and occupied the Wilkins Garden Room on 29th November. The target of their anger was UCL Stratford: the univer- sity’s continuing plan to build a 23 acre cam- pus in the cast end, costing £1bn, and dis- placing 700 residents who currently live on the Carpenters estate. Of the forty or fifty people who entered the room on Wednes- day, only about ten were there overnight — with numbers the next day dropping as low as five or six. During the two days it lasted residents from Carpenters estate came and visited the occupation. It was all over by Friday evening when UCL delivered a high court injunction to the occupiers. Fearing legal fees and other costs in the region of £40,000, the occupiers made a hasty exit. Some of the same faces organized a protest against UCL plans in the quad on the 5th December and are conducting tours for UCL students of the estate in Stratford.
Poppycock
The campaign to no-confidence ULU Vice President, Daniel Cooper, over ‘poppy- gate’ continues. After Cooper declined to lay a wreath at the University of London’s remembrance service i November all hell broke loose on Facebook and Twitter. A Facebook group was quickly set up by angry students, many of them Conserva- tives, demanding that Cooper resign. UCL students involved in the push for no-con include Will Hall, ex-Tory soc president and the current Tory soc president, Mat- thew Corner. The clicktivists have begun collecting signatures for a petition for a ref- erendum on confidence in Cooper, which will go ahead if it reaches 250 names. ULU president Michael Chessum has said that the signatures are being collected in an “insecure” way and for this reason the petition as it stands will not be accepted; ULU trustee board has seconded this point. Even if the referendum does go ahead, the level of support for the no- confidence campaign is not clear. The ‘Dan Cooper must resign’ Facebook group has over 1,700 ‘likes’ but the pro- portion of those who are University of London students, or even students, is uncertain. A different page on Facebook, containing many of the same names as the sack Cooper page, has been established demanding that the sabbatical officers of ULU be abolished altogether.