WHERE ARE ALL THE FRESHERS?

‘"We organised a hell of a party but someone forgot to invite them.............."

A disastrous orientation programme and a ‘half ass’ change to semesterisation rendered this year’s Freshers’ Week a £30,000 budget liability.

To avoid a repeat of last year’s confusion, the University combined its campus orientation programme and the £29.50 Freshers’ Week entertainment pass in a single leaflet, supposedly sent to all 6000 freshers during the summer.

Unfortunately, the guide, formulated by the mysterious Staff Student Support Division, made no mention of any of the free entertainment organised by the unions as part of the Freshers Pass, including the GUU’s Mark Owen and the QMU’s Proclaimers concerts. The leaflet appeared to suggest the pass entitled freshers solely to a campus tour and a free night bus back to halls.

According to the University, the entertainment was excluded due to the late confirmation dates of the acts, and was never intended to be part of the programme. As a result, only two hundred of an expected three thousand passes had been sold by the beginning of September. Former Guardian editor Matt Brough was drafted in to design a flyer promoting the entertainment, which was sent to all new students in the hope of averting disaster. However, plans to link the concerts to the Freshers’ Week website as they were confirmed unfortunately came to nothing.

The leaflet increased sales to around 800, and some hard work from the SRC saw 2000 passes sold by the end of the week. Alison Eales, SRC Senior Vice President, who inherited Freshers’ Week organisation in July, praised all those involved in what was a remarkable turn around.

However, many freshers remain disgruntled by the mess. Some freshers claim never to have received the orientation programme, whilst others contacted the SRC asking for a refund, when extra ticket sales to non freshers saw some denied entry to Friday night’s Proclaimers event.

Both unions and the SRC expressed bitter disappointment at the poor attendance of freshers at organised campus events. With revenue from Freshers’ Week split evenly between the three and GUSA, the university’s student organisations have been left with black holes in their budgets extending to several thousand pounds.

GUU President David ‘Digger’ Grant praised both unions for organising what should have been the best week of freshers’ events in several years. Grant pointed out that several hundred freshers must have rejected the campus events in favour of drinking in the city centre, to the detriment of both unions.

Grant highlighted the lack of publicity produced by the University, commenting, ‘there was nothing more we could do, the University failed to deliver. We organised one hell of a party for them (the freshers), but someone forgot to invite them.’

QMU President Alistair Deutsch echoed Grant’s sentiments. Estimating lost revenue in the region of several thousand pounds, not including the knock on effect on bar returns and the ability to attract future advertisers, Deutsch asked the inevitable question, ‘where are we going to be this time next year? I’ve never been part of such a fiasco.’

The bands enticed to this year’s event made it one of the most expensive yet organised, costs that would have been met had the projected number of passes been sold.

Deutsch also highlighted one of the main concerns of SRC SVP Alison Eales, that of the chaos caused by semesterisation and the scrapping of week zero. With Freshers’ Week running concurrently with matriculation and course orientation, the effect on Freshers’ Week was almost inevitable.

Eales branded the timing of Freshers Week, ‘completely useless.’ With the Registry having block booked the halls for matriculation, the Freshers’ Address was squeezed in at the end of the week, resulting in less than two hundred freshers turning out.

Indeed, Alistair Deutsch questioned the practicality of expecting freshers to attend 9am orientations during a Freshers’ Week in which many events ran until 3am. With the majority of continuing students also on campus enrolling in their courses, one could be forgiven for wondering whether this year’s freshers had arrived at all.

Eales remains adamant that the student organisations were not to blame for the chaos, arguing that something must be done before next year to allow freshers time to enjoy the social side of university before the academic session begins. As she commented, ‘the Registry doesn’t seem to care about Freshers’ Week. This cannot be allowed to happen again.’