Vanbrugh is one of the more established colleges on campus, being only three years younger than the college elders that are Derwent and Langwith. It’s central location on Campus has given rise to the slogan: ‘the central college, the essential college’.
Vision spoke to enthusiastic outgoing Chair Kallum Taylor about his time with the spirited Vanbrugh College. Taylor raved about V-BAR, RAG and having plenty of dosh. In the elections, he campaigned for the refurbishment of V-Bar, more non-alcoholic events, afternoon hours in V-Bar, the return of CU toasties, Sky TV in the Vanbrugh Common Room and a weekly surgery in V-Bar. After an impressive year, Taylor has seen great success in all of his policies, with the exception the introduction of afternoon hours in V-Bar. To find out how and why this was the case, we caught up with Taylor and asked him a handful of questions.
What are your greatest achievements from your term as Chair?
I think the most concrete achievements can be taken by the whole JCRC, such as the record breaking number of STYCs which has shown so many people wanted to ‘be part of it’, and of course the confirmation of the £100,000 V-Bar refurbishment. The latter is particularly satisfying, because many said it was never going to happen and that it was nothing more than a ‘poster point’ for my election.
More ‘abstract’ achievements would definitely be the improved involvement of Fairfax House, joint 1st in RAG, bigger sports teams with more funding, profitable Volume events (at last!), and of course the jump from £200 in annual sponsorship to over £10,000. This allowed us to not pass on a lot of the cost of Freshers events, and massively subsidise events throughout our year – or even have them for free.
What are you greatest regrets from your term as Chair?
My first term ‘in office’ felt like a magical merry-go-round of discovery about who is who, and what they do at York. Hopefully the new JCRC co-ordinator, hired by YUSU, should help new Chairs to hit the ground running right from the off. A light-hearted one is probably just missing out to YUSU on getting the Pigeon Detectives to play one of our Freshers events – though I’m not sure how many people know that!
Who has been your “Committee Superstar”?
As cliché as it might sound, you’d be better off asking me which members didn’t perform! Hmm, nearly all of them have simply gone above and beyond – they’ll know who they are. I will save a special thank you however though to this last year’s Block Reps and Ordinary Members… Those roles have evolved from mere postering people almost to mini-secretaries, campaigners, crowd gatherers, well, a bit of everything to be honest – they were ever-present.
What advice would you give your successor?
Providing the new JCRC is solid – I would strongly encourage them to firstly meet all the other College Chairs and the YUSU Sabbs, and unite on issues to campaign together on. After that, become familiar with the university’s management and staff throughout its various levels – whilst you’re there, let them know that whilst you want a productive relationship with them for the sake of our university, you and your students won’t be pushovers.
Former Female Welfare Representative, Hannah Wigley, shared Taylor’s sense of enthusiasm for the achievements by the Vanbrugh JCRC over the past year: “It’s been a fantastic year for Vanbrugh- the changes throughout the college are evidence of our successes! The JCRC have worked fantastically as a team, each helping each other wherever necessary.”
But to see whether the students shared in their college committee’s enthusiasm, Vision asked a few for their thoughts on the past year. Their views on how large an impact the JCRC had on their time at York was mixed…
First Year Marcus Simon: “The Volume events were good, but there should be more, I threw up after both of them!”
Second Year Alex Baker: “The Ents team have been really good, Volume events are fun ways to meet other people and I really felt the college spirit during the RAG parade!”
Third Year James Bugg: “I don’t think the JCRC has had a particularly great effect on me during university. During my time playing college football, I think we benefited from having training paid for by the college. However, other than this, I cannot think of many ways I have felt to have benefited greatly from the JCRC, although this may be due to my lack of direct involvement with the matters they deal with.”
Finally, we asked an enigmatic Taylor to sum up his time as Chair in three words. In what may be a guarded reference to the rumomurs circulating about his intentions to run for the role of YUSU President next year, he replied:
More to come.