Well, as promised to Hannah, I shall explain the headaches of red tape that the Archery Club experiences. I guess the only people that this really directly influences are those in the Archery club, and potentially those who are members of SUSport if I try my completely psychotic and radical form of protest.

As I have previously mentioned, the club has been forced to move from the Square, to St Pauls Oval.

Initially, though we had experienced some resistance and problems with people wanting to move, it went very well and it's quite a refreshing place to shoot with lower than average disruptions from some college boys crossing the field.

Now here comes the crap.

We were told we had sole booking on our training times, Tuesdays and Fridays from 2pm to 5pm. This was one of the conditions of our forced move. But, as I have also previously mentioned, Moore college (the Theology college in Newtown) apparently made a booking from 3pm-5pm to play touch football/rugby depending on what you want to call it. When the problem was first encountered, Damian O'Mara [(d.o'mara@susport.usyd.edu.au) <---- I have given his email if you want to randomly not spam, but bug him about the unfairness of this situation] who is the Acting operation's manager said that Moore college boys would have to get off because we had the field.

Now, in a COMPLETE backflip, he has told me that Moore College has the field from 3pm-5pm, and we ARE NOT ALLOWED to share the field because they do not think it is worth the risk of a accident causing injury. Which means, our training from 2pm-5pm is now 2pm-3pm, unless we start earlier. Ok, you might say, why not start earlier, but with a established time for our club members, it means more disarray because we might not be able to have anyone start earlier, and it means everyone who comes down in the afternoons after classes can not shoot anymore, such as Jenny if recall correctly her afternoon physics classes on Tuesdays. IT IS A LOAD OF BQ!@#$*(@#%!

We can share the field, and with a perfect safety record and not a single injury claim, I can not see what kind of risks they anticipate. Especially if we arrange for the Moore boys to play BEHIND THE SHOOTING LINE!!!!!!! Grrrr, Damian really pisses me off.

Then the second point which really wants me to just punch him in the head is equipment storage.

We want to store our stuff at St Pauls Oval because it isn't viable to transport it each session. He says no, it isn't secure because bows and arrows require armoury storage like firearms. I say rubbish, people including me keep it in open view, or under beds. He then says St Pauls does not have enough supervision for security. !@#$@#%@# What!!!!?????
The Arena area OUTSIDE where our gear is stored, in a LESS SECURE area (1 lock roller door, and 1 lock cage) is not supervised. Security when they do a driveby inspection can't even see if the door to the roller shed is open or not..... Where as St Pauls is already more secure (1 outdoor lock, 2 internal locks, potentially 1 more lock added cos there is a unlocked bolt) and since it's in the middle of nowhere, no-one would think about it. Sure the college boys could have a crack at stealing our stuff, but since Ada is a St Pauls boy, he'd know about it easily, and if you observe newbies trying to put stuff together to shoot, it happens that they always get it wrong, and the bow is so useless and they can't shoot with it.....

It is so screwed. So I am trying to set up a meeting with Damian on Thursday and argue it with him.

Now, the radicalness of my plan is this.

In a few weeks is the SUSport Annual General Meeting and Committee Meeting.
All clubs must attend the Commettee Meeting, and should also attend the AGM. Now, further more, all SUSport members (i.e. Students and Annual Members who have paid their fees that are Usyd related) are eligible to attend and ****VOTE****.
Now, we have 88 members in the club this year, and a good 70 members are eligible to vote (associates and associate restricted can't vote). This means, if we can somehow get all 70 of them to come to the AGM, then we can effectively veto and negate anything we want. And we can pass motions for things to happen as well. The simple logic is that, for every AGM I have been (4 of them) there hasn't been more than 70 people in total. Which means we would have close to, if not a complete majority on every vote.

Scenario of AGM:

"Motion to pass the minutes from the last AGM, all in favour,"
"Aye"
"All against"
70 Archery club members "Nay!"
"Grr, motion failed"

"Any other General business?"
"Yes, the archery club would like to put forward a motion to receive double funding in 2005."
"Grrr, All in Favour?"
70 members "AYE!!!!"
"All against"
"Nay!"
"Grrrr. Motion passed"

etc.

Potentially we can sabotage the entire AGM. However, that would definitely make us some very powerful enemies. At the same time, we can demonstrate the power of unity and democratic processes when a large portion of club members disagree with process.

But unless we resolve our problems calmly I am willing to go to such extremes if the rest of the club supports me in this, and has the whole processes explained and why we have to voice our concerns instead of being walked over by the rugby and cricket bigwigs that control the SUSport processes.

Ah, that was a good vent.
Next posting.