For grown up people in real life that don’t have the time to ‘get an earlier bus’ personal transport is the only option. Public transport cannot be relied upon in the city nevermind rural areas surrounding Belfast.

I’m amazed how narrow minded people can be about public transport, sure it’s fine for you when you have a bus outside your door every 5 minutes. There are many areas in the city that mean walking just to get to a bus stop. Areas outside Belfast may only have a bus every hour if even that and even then its very possible your nearest bus stop is over five miles away.

To the point of the lack of parking (which you all seem to have avoided) why do Queens not provide parking for its students? My local chinese, chip shop, indian, off license, supermarket and corner shop ALL provide parking for their customers, I can take my car there anytime and know I’ll get parked.

Does Queens even care? once you’ve paid your fees you’re just a number. Queens is very quickly developing a reputation for not caring about its students, inside or outside of the lecture hall.

You people saying toget the bus, do you always eat what the government puts in your bowl? Grow a spine, sit up, question the system, maybe even develop your own opinion.

There are great bus and train routes to Queen’s and I have no problem getting the bus when i don’t have work but i am still paying insurance, tax etc for a car – i’d like to get my moneys worth. I have 4 lectures in a row on some days so that eliminates my ability to park and pay for an hour. I would still get a ticket.

I don’t feel that having a car park would encourage more students to drive, rather it would encourage students that already have to drive to car share and not have to deal with the prospect of getting up at 6am to get a space for 7am when lectures don’t start until 11am. If Queen’s followed the University of Ulster’s example and paid £80 for a year parking and brought 3 friends – £20 each. Much better option.

Cocaine is very dangerous.

Why not equip yourself with this 32oz bottle of wolf urine?

http://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Urine-Lure-32-oz/dp/B0006IGZSM/ref=pd_sbs_indust_3

there are the park and ride facilities in Sprucefield.

As an officer of the Union you really should have encouraged the organisers of the event to hold it in the Union, especially since you have known for many months about the decrease in income of the SU bars.

If you’re coming from further afield, say Lisburn, Bangor, Portadown, etc. then there is always the train to Botanic.

To be honest, the only time I could think of a student needing a car for commuting to University is if they are from somewhere over an hours drive away like Downpatrick, Newry, Omagh, etc. and in that case, it’d probably be cheaper to be renting a house in the area.

Anyway, if RAG are running a ‘pub crawl’ surely they’re not spending all night in the Union and consequently, any sabbatical officer that supports it is affecting Union income. Students will therefore only arrive at the Union when they’re already drunk and completely incapacitated to spend any more money.

Double standards if you ask me!!

Son, I am disappoint.

“I am a Life Long Learner (mature student), studying my 10th year of a p/t degree course (at my own expense). unfortunatly, the educational establishment that I study in (QUB), is raping the community that lays in it’s very large shadow. This is no longer the balanced community that I have brought my family and grandchildren up to respect.

QUB are more or less a glorifed estate agent*, rather than a premier ‘Russell Group’, university, looking to attract philanthropic and sponsor/supporter monies, on top of grants and core DEL funding (*£50m+ library built in the Holyland, to massive objection(s), especially from the Rugby Road Residents Association. Also see the plans for QUB to commandeer College Park East (Road), for additional private QUB parking and more buildings. I suspect that this car park will eventually be converted to even more real estate. Look at a map of QUB properties – they stretch from Stockman’s lane area, to Stranmillis, St. Mary’s college and now down to QBIS at Queen’s Island (one of the first clients to take up a business on this site. To manage this amount of mainly Victorian terraced properties must be a huge drain on finances (which could be used to keep fees manageable! etc.).

A more intelligent solution could be:-
Keep the Lanyon and Lynn buildings as a centre of excellence or administration, as well as the tourist factor.
QUB should be in a modern purpose built, hi-tech campus, big enough to expand into the future and designed as an easily manageable student village (with plenty of ‘Halls of residence’ or ‘Purpose built, secure student accomodation (many companies, here and around the world, see this model as a long term secure investment for pension funds), It makes sense to have a vibrant student village away from residential areas and close to the Arts Quarter of Belfast.

I have previously suggested to QUB, UUJ, PSNI, Community Groups and BCC that QUB make this move (and the sooner the better) to join their buisness hub on Queen’s Island.
The jaws of the jaded traditionalist dinosaurs creaked to the floor.

Not only would any idea similar to this be practicle but it would ease traffic conjestion in the city, as Translink would not have to run busses from QUB to Jordanstown (and back) all day long. For some reason the majority of UUJ and Belfast Met., students insist on living where the QUB students are???

Lambs to the slaughter.”

*Cry, cry, GAA, cry, cry, GAA, cry…*

Well done Mr Boles

Lovely piece, well-done Clarissa . Hope there are more to come! I have several friends here who are on exchange from the US, i’m sure it’s great for them to see someone vocalising their experiences.

I just thought I’d mention that there were students canvassing in the Hatfield, walking around with a laptop getting people to vote. I saw a guy asking them which candidates were Catholic and just voting for them. The election results were a triumph in the face of these types of people who just vote blindly.

What kind of person would want to put a stop to all that with wardens and the like telling people off all day. 90% of people in the Holylands love the craic when it is sunny. Why are we never listened to?

And as for the rubbish there is frig-all more than there normally is.

And as for all the anti-social behaviour such as shouting (a horrible thing, I know)there is always frig-all of that. A lot of the time the Holylands are quite boring compared to all of the myths and legends.

The VPCS role no longer decides club and soc budgets. This is now decided by the clubs and socs coordinator. So the GAA have nothing to fear – the favouritism that has been displayed to them for 14 years will not be reversed on them in the coming year.

The case is that the holylands has a massive concentration of students and statistically there will be some trouble makers. The degree to which they are anti social determines the course of action to be taken – I find complaining about things after they’ve happened to be one of the most useless courses of action to take. If there is violent or criminal behavior near you then call the police – if it can be resolved safely by other methods then do that. Sorry I had to spell it out – I thought it was obvious.

@Riggs – Niall’s comments about not cutting funding for the GAA societies really aren’t a problem. Yes, no-one here said that he was going to cut funding, but that doesn’t mean that certain people weren’t afraid of the possibility. With regards to your comments on it reflecting negatively on the GAA societies, I don’t think it will. Most people here can see that it is satirical, even if you are unable to do so. If this image has a negative effect on your recruitment numbers (which I don’t think it will), perhaps you should look at your societies’ advertising campaigns and how to make them more effective.

Personally, I trust Niall to do his job professionally. When it comes to grant allocation time, I think that it will be extremely fair for all involved. When it comes to support, again things will be fair. The larger groups do have an advantage when it comes to changeover time, in that they are more likely to have members that know the role and can take over.

At the same time though, saying that everyone in the Holylands lives in a cramped dirty house is something of a sweeping statement, and just not the case for a lot of people! Also, when you say you can’t believe people would pay so much money to attend university, only to live in this kind of area… perhaps it’s because they’re already up to their eyes in debt that the Holylands becomes more attractive. Generally housing there is a bit cheaper than in, say, Stranmillis. There’s also the fact that it’s hard to beat in terms of handiness to Queen’s. So, all in all, i can definitely see why many students might consider the option of the Holylands – most of whom are not anti-social people. They are probably just as annoyed/intimidated by the stuff that goes on thanks to some of their neighbours as you are!

“Wise Up Sarah”: – i think most people would agree that the problem of anti-social behaviour is not often one that can be easily rectified by politely asking your (completely steaming!) neighbours if they’d kindly mind turning their music down! Residents (students and otherwise) have to put up with noise and fights and various other things that they’d really rather not – that’s the reality and there is no point denying it. Drunk people are often pretty inconsiderate and unreasonable, that’s kinda the problem :p

Your point about mephedrone being still legal (and so somehow acceptable?)… i’m not even going to get into that one!

BND: Telling Sarah to just not go to the Holylands doesn’t really solve anything whatsoever though does it? She has a right to her opinion based on her own experiences, and in any case, the issues surrounding the Holylands have garnered major press interest, and such articles colour everyone’s view of all of us as Queen’s students – whether Holylands residents or not.

Ok – stopping now!

Issues like how to apply for funding, both from QUB and outside sources, need to be tackled so that everyone is aware of the options open to them. Again with the finance, there needs to be a transparent system of accounting so a new treasurer doesn’t actually need to be doing an accountancy degree in order to make sense of it, along with a simpler system for purchasing equipment that doesn’t require many weeks of lead time.

I want to make sure that training isn’t a “fire and forget” system, I aim to have ongoing sessions as well as being in my office and available as much as possible to deal with individual problems as they occur. On top of this I’m going to try and attend meetings of every club and society that I can make it to next year, just to try and get a feel for the sheer variety offered to every QUB student and see for myself if there are areas where the service can be improved.

I think that if a club or society has a passionate committee with proper training in how to run their organisation, and full support from their VPCS, David Bradley and any other relevant staff, then this can only be a good thing for the average student member.

For those who need background Niall Bole is a member of QUB Dragonslayers the Queens Anime and Gaming Society. He ran a very strong campaign for VPCS even though it was expected he would loose as the position had been held for 14 years by members of the GAA clubs at Queens. Despite this he narrowly won and this has come as a major shock to clubs and societies members, check out The Gowns report on the election results for more on this.

As such this cartoon depicts Niall Bole as a “Dragonslayer” character standing over the body of a slain dragon, here meant to represent the perceived control the GAA had over the VPCS position which was thought by many to be insurmountable.

Now if the Dragon has had the head of Niall McDermott or Niamh McKernan then that would be another matter as it would be a personal attack and I feel The Gown would be obliged to remove it. As it is I feel this cartoon accurately captures the elation many of Niall’s supporters felt upon his victory, feeling that “the Dragon has been slain.”

It should also be noted that Niall Bole did not draw this cartoon nor aid in its publication, his only comment on it so far is to thank the artist Niall Mooney (lots of Niall’s involved here) and act to dispel GAA fears that their funding will be cut of effected by his election as VPCS.

Niall “Riggs” McDermott has the right idea above in that this cartoon has little to do with Niall’s opinion of the GAA though it might be advisable for him not to take this cartoon so seriously.

@ Merlot

I believe you would very much enjoy Dragonslayers as their website indicated that they have Dungeons and Dragons as well as video games which would think includes Tetris.