One World Week members threatened with ban

Approximately 40 One World Week 2012 members, including two members of the OWW exec, faced being banned from Union events unless they paid their Societies Federation membership fee.

Matt Rogers, the Students’ Union (SU) Societies Officer, became aware of the fact that a number of OWW members were not members of the Societies Federation or the OWW society. He contacted OWW Coordinators informing them that “if you are listed as a team member but have not joined the Societies Federation… you will be banned from all Union events from Saturday onwards… until you pay the Socs fee.” He highlighted that “if people don’t pay, the price goes up for everyone.”

However, according to the SU bye-laws, this is not the correct form of disciplinary action. In order to take action against a society or student, there first needs to be a disciplinary panel, overseen by the Union Development Officer and an Investigating Officer which will decide whether to invoke disciplinary proceedings.

The regulations note that although the disciplinary action may result in a ‘total or partial ban from some or all of the Students’ Union’ or a ‘a removal of rights to use some or all of the Students’ Union facilities’, this cannot be enforced without the authority of the Disciplinary Panel.

One World Week coordinators, Julian Ried and Michael Pan, commented: “We were not aware that all Team Members had not signed up to the Societies Federation.

“There is no way we could have known, because we do not have access to any database that shows who has paid for the federation fee.

“All Team Members should have paid their federation fee… One World Week is not planning to take any action against these people, because there is no action we can take… most of the Team Members in question are no longer involved in our society.”

They declined to comment about Rogers’ threat to prevent students from gaining entry to SU events.

Of the potential for similar problems to occur in the future, they said: “It is up to the Coordinator[s] of One World Week 2013 to decide if he or she would like to take any action to stop this happening in the future.

“However, unless the information concerning who has not joined the Societies Federation is provided much earlier in the academic year, such as mid-Term 1, it will be extremely difficult to take any effective action.”

It has also emerged that similar incidents have occurred in other societies.

A member of the Photographic Society’s exec said: “We found out towards the end of term 1 that a student who hadn’t joined as a member had still been coming along to events and borrowing expensive equipment.

“We didn’t really take any action though – she was happy to join when we pointed out the problem, and she’s continued as a fairly active member of the society.”

Rogers, commented that he believes people “should pay for what they’re using”.

“If they take the benefits of a society and if some people think they’re above that, then it pushes the cost up for everyone else because the cost has to be carried somewhere. We’re just trying to be fair really.”

When questioned as to whether he had followed the correct procedure, Rogers commented: “I’ve got the power to refer it to a student disciplinary. At the moment, all I’ve sent is an email which is perfectly within my power to do.”