Manifesto Points:
- Improve Student Experience in Venues: Simplify food menus, more music and events in V-Bar, make The Lounge work.
- Protect Students: Boycott unsafe clubs, proper safeguarding training for staff, anti-spiking measures, easy routes to bar predatory customers.
- Transparency and Sustainability: Democratise charity fundraising, reduce waste, and University divestment from unethical companies.
Go With Joe
A Route to a Union that Works for You
For a summary of pledges please see foot of page.
Preface
Missed opportunities. Lack of understanding. Untapped potential. The student-facing side of our Union simply does not work for us students, and we are not getting what we pay for. Having worked multiple jobs in multiple venues for the SU, I have seen firsthand the profit-first, student-second attitude that drives our venues’ operation.
Therefore I aim to get for you one thing; what you pay for.
As students, we pay outrageous sums of money for our education, and to fund a Union whose venues only seem to take more from us.
The safety of us students is hardly considered in any part of SU-based university life, be it in campus bars or officially endorsed city-based nightclubs.
We have six on campus venues, and not one will sell something as simple as a burger, for the sake of environmental sustainability, while we produce mountains of unrecyclable waxed paper. All for the sake of branding that only serves vanity.
In Courtyard we pay £5.40 for a single pint of Guinness, nearly a pound more than the average pub, and for overcomplicated, overindulgent pizzas with huge profit margins.
In V Bar we pay for an identity crisis – an SU music venue without a single event receiving proper SU funding.
In The Lounge we pay £6.50 for 30 minutes of pool to barely keep afloat an empty venue, rumoured to soon close down to all but societies with advance bookings. A venue perfect for winding down between lectures; pool and darts, popcorn and video games. Yet it doesn’t even open before 7pm.
There is not one venue on campus which is being run to its full, reachable potential.
But what can change? My name is Joe Venables, and this is my third year at the University of York. I know, understand, and love this University, and the communities within, but I know, as we all do, that both our University and Students’ Union could be doing so much better. And so, these are my pledges, all achievable within the year to make fast, effective, plentiful positive changes to your University life.
The Pledges
Make Our Bars Safe for Students
Too often are we made to feel uncomfortable by others in our own venues, which for many of us is an extension of our home. And to combat this, staff have nothing but a short online course in safeguarding. I will make sure staff get the proper training to keep you safe. With too many cases of staff and customers alike being seriously and dangerously harassed without the perpetrators being permanently barred, I will fight for fast and easy routes for intimidating, predatory customers to be barred, with an absolute zero-tolerance policy for non-students. With a growing epidemic of spiking in York, I will ensure that our bars provide free, reusable anti-spiking drinks covers, ready to keep you safe both on and off campus.
Ensure the Union Puts Students First Off Campus
Everybody knows of at least one person who has been spiked, attacked, assaulted during an SU-backed club night, and too many have experienced it personally. And what does our Union do about it? Profits. The Union continues to line their own pockets by promoting places like Club Salvation, long known to be unsafe for students. Multiple videos have been released of bouncers abusing their powers to physically assault incapacitated students. Many report of spiking, most recently with needles. I personally have been assaulted by bar staff, completely unprovoked. And still it stands as an official SU-certified ‘student night’, where bouncers are reported to not even check Student IDs upon entry. What can be done? I will promote the continued boycott of Salvos, wiping it from the lineup of official club nights, and I will enforce a stronger vetting process for the clubs which receive the privilege of SU promotion. If they cannot guarantee a safe night for us, they do not deserve our Union’s support.
Simplify the Food Menus
We, as students, want simple, easy, and most importantly, cheap. We do not want to go to the only SU cafe on West Campus to pay up to £7.80 for a small bagel meal deal, more than double the price of a supermarket’s far bigger alternative, with such underwhelming fillings as ‘cream cheese and cucumber’, or as off the wall as BBQ jackfruit. I will fight for a return of the basics. Sandwiches. Paninis. What you expect and want from a cafe. Also, I will fight for a complete change of Courtyard’s ‘Weirdough’ pizza menu. Bloated with zany pizzas with ridiculous toppings, Courtyard’s current menu pales in comparison to what it was even two short years ago. I advocate for simpler pizzas for a lower cost. Margarita, pepperoni, vegetable, etc. There is room for variety on a menu, but not in place of simple, and certainly not in the place of affordable. I will also advocate for other foods, for if you want to eat literally anything other than pizza.
Make The Lounge Work
For those who don’t know, The Lounge is another SU bar, open in evenings only, and hidden away in James College with hardly any advertisement from the SU. It was recently renovated to house a new American pool table, two shuffleboard tables, and multiple retro games consoles, all available by the half hour – for extortionate prices. And this investment of tens of thousands of pounds turned the Lounge from the home of campus’ most memorable music events and Welcome Weeks’ finest bar experiences into a ghost town populated only by overpriced consoles and games, and the spectre of yet more missed potential. When paying for drinks already priced above many town-based bars’ student rates, it is insulting to be expected to pay obscene prices for these games, including many we will already have access to at home. Therefore, I will fight to drive down the prices of these games as low as I possibly can, right down to being free.
Campus currently has four separate bars open in the evening, leading to its students, and the atmosphere which they bring, being spread far too thin. Therefore, the Lounge should live up to its namesake – a casual, cheap, relaxing venue for us to unwind in. I will argue for it to open earlier, and close earlier, as well as installing a coffee machine, opening it up to be a chill hub for students looking to fill the time between lectures, as well as making way for the other, more popular, bars during the evening.
Fund the Events in The Vanbrugh Arms
I have personally campaigned already for a one-off Union investment into proper equipment, and yet again, the Union has shown its unwillingness to invest in student life. Events using the Union’s old, faulty equipment are plagued by technical issues, damaging the experience for every student. And why bother seeing an event struggling to run, with poor sound quality, if any sound at all, when we live in a city with such a vibrant live music scene? I will fight for a one-time £800 investment into sound equipment, equivalent to just a fraction of the average takings of a single Jazz Night, to last for years to come, raising money in the long-run by improving the quality of events.
Off the back of this, it is simply nonsensical to have two separate SU venues in the form of V-Bar and Courtyard, less than a five-minute walk away from each other, doing the same thing at the same time. Therefore I will fight to open The Vanbrugh Arms up to more events, giving students more opportunities to see and perform live music. This will bring more revenue to the venue to fund further investment, whilst giving V-Bar the life and personality it deserves.
Reduce Waste in Our Venues
The ‘Weirdough’ branding used in the Courtyard, the most popular Union venue, results in huge amounts of waste waxed paper, thrown into the general rubbish, unable to be recycled or reused. But it can be reduced. I will fight to change the presentation of our food to produce no more waste than necessary, ditching the waxed paper for reusable, sustainable alternatives, such as simple plates and boards, ready to be washed and not binned. I will also fight to further advertise, streamline, and make more accessible the YorCup scheme to reduce the huge wastage of paper cups. In Glasshouse, despite the great quality of Yuzu food, we still see large amounts of waste in the form of waxed paper and single use chopsticks. I will lead a negotiation with Yuzu to allow us to make our campus sustainable.
Increase Transparency and Democracy of Fundraising
Our SU is constantly raising money through RAG and other channels, including the optional donations you may have given when ordering food and drink. But how much has been raised? And for what? The information is heavily obscured, next to impossible to find. I will not only make this information easily accessible, but promote it. We should be proud as a Union of the money we raise. I will also democratise charity partnership, allowing students to suggest and vote on what charities our money goes to, letting us help the causes that mean the most to us.
Build on the University’s Path to Sustainability
The University’s, and Union’s, sustainability issues do not just stop with divesting from fossil fuels. We still have our money invested by the University into such companies as Nestlé (£87k invested in 2023/24), infamous for their human rights violations and environmental destruction, or Enel (£98k invested in 2023/24), an Italian gas distributor found guilty last year of mining and building on protected land. I will continue the fight to divest from unsustainable companies and brands, and divert the funds into sustainable alternatives, particularly UK-based Green Energy firms. And while it is not too hard to find the list of investments the University has, it includes over £670,000 in offshore funds, with no indication of where this money actually is. I will lobby the university to be fully transparent about its investments.
Conclusion
Few will refute that there is plenty wrong with the Students’ Union, and with the University, but it must be recognised that with the right direction, a stronger, better Union that serves Students before all else is more than attainable. My experience working within it has made clear to me the direction which this is, and therefore I know that I am the right person for the job of Union Development Officer.
Go with Joe for a student-first Students’ Union.
Go with Joe for a Union that fulfils its potential.
Go with Joe for Union Development Officer!
Summary of Pledges:
- Simplify the SU’s venues’ food menus to what we actually want
- Boycott Salvos and set up a stronger vetting process for official student club nights
- Open up easy routes for barring predatory customers in our bars
- Provide proper safeguarding training for Union venue staff to keep you safe
- Free anti-spiking drinks covers accessible in campus bars
- Open V-Bar up to more gigs and other events throughout the week with an £800 one time investment
- Drive down prices of The Lounge’s games and give the venue purpose
- Reduce excess waste in food venues and promote an easier YorCup scheme
- Make SU charity raising information easily available
- Allow students to put forward and vote on charities to raise money for
- Divest from unsustainable companies and brands, diverting funds into sustainable alternatives
- Lobby the University to be fully transparent about investments
The manifestos appear here exactly as they were submitted to us. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of York Vision.