How to start a new society?

evilclive · Indymedia Hound

I wish to start a new student group to campaign against the TV licence.

Not only does the university and the guild do precious little to curb the worst excesses of TVLA propaganda, they seem to be active collaborators. There are posters everywhere saying, "Pay up or else"; where are the ones confirming that you don't need a licence to play console games or watch pre-recorded DVDs?

My main objective is to have a stand in Freshers' Fair in September, getting students to pledge not to buy a TV licence for a year. If enough people sign the pledge, I'll put their names into a raffle, and one of them will win a battery-operated TV! (The point is that battery-operated TVs are covered by your parents' home licence; even if they don't have one, who's to say you're not going to connect the TV to a games console?)

What do I need to do to get this off the ground?

hannoir · Black Bloc

Go to the basement. i think you need 20 signatures and proposals of what you will do etc.
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doc_ido · Sandal-wearing bean eater

The TVLA pay the Guild to have those posters up, so it's unlikely they'll provide any material that might lose them money. Wink

Hannoir's right - the Basement have all the forms and info you need. The Guild will scrutinise you very closely, though, as they have an active campaign to get students to pay for their TV license.
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evilclive · Indymedia Hound

Guest · Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:19 am Post subject:

thing is you cant just set up a society to campaign on a single issue, why dont you just start a campaign.

To set up a society firstly before you go to the basement counter you should email Stu Mathers, VPSA, to get approval. The you can get the recognition pack from the Guild, it doesnt take long to it fill in and collect the signatures. However you cant just start: you need to be recognised by the Guild. The Guild will give you money, you have to show what the campaign will be about, what your longterm aims are. The whole thing is a bit silly, you dont need a whole society to campaign on one issue. Quite frankly you wont get recognised.

If you really want to campaign on this issue then speak to the campaigns officer, Pete Mason. You dont need to set up your own society though if you make a good case he may take your campaign on and you could run it in the Guild.

However if i am to be honest i dont think they will. Fact is students are watching TVs without a licence and even though the amount we pay is ridiculous the fines we get after a court appearance are worse. The Guild does not want to see any students in court with a fine of £2000 because of a £100 TV licence. They would not run the campaign for this reason, more students would take the risk - some would just be confused. The campaign is therefore not really gonna take off.

evilclive · Indymedia Hound

I'll take your procedural advice on board. But I would like to correct a few misconceptions.

First of all, you don't need a TV licence unless you are watching or recording live programmes. Games consoles, commercial DVDs, and stuff that your mum taped for you and bunged in the post, don't require a licence.

The TVLA's gumph is quite deliberate in not making this clear. A few days ago, I was talking to someone who spent four years at university, and bought four years' worth of TV licences for a TV set he never used to watch broadcast TV. Guess how annoyed he was when he looked up info about TV licensing on the net, and learned that he has spent all that money for nothing.

There's also the rule about homes of multiple occupancy, which basically says that any licensable use of a TV behind a lockable door requires a separate licence. This includes students in halls of residence, and students in private accommodation who put TVs in their bedrooms, which are not covered by the communal licence.

In other words, even if you pay up for your student flat, the bastards will still come sniffing round, to see if they can extract yet more money from you.

Now the good news:

The TV inspectors cannot compel you to answer questions.

They cannot enter your home unless you let them or they get a search warrant. They need as much evidence to get a search warrant as they would to convict you, so the threat of search warrants is just a bluff.

They rely on people incriminating themselves when questioned. They'll try and catch you out by pretending to be conducting a survey about what programmes you watch.

Conclusion: don't talk to strangers on the doorstep, and never, ever invite them into your home. Chances are they're confidence tricksters (and I quite deliberately include TVL officers in this category.)

By the way, the maximum fine is £1000, not £2000, and the TV licence is £131.50 as of April. Noone pays the maximum fine: the typical penalty, if you plead poverty, is about a £140 fine plus costs; and since TVL target people in deprived areas, they expect everyone to plead poverty.

doc_ido · Sandal-wearing bean eater

Hmm, yeah. This might sound a bit radical, but you could always buy a TV license if you're planning on watching TV.
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evilclive · Indymedia Hound

NunOnTheRun · Meeting Facilitator

So if i buy a TV, and remove the tuner module.. (not difficult)
And feed it from the SCART output of my digibox / cable box / sattelite box.. Then i'm only using the tv as a viewer for non analogue broadcast signals. So does that mean i don't need a License?

evilclive · Indymedia Hound

Oktober · Black Bloc

I belive the phrase used is 'broadcast signal' which includes analogue and digital terestrial, any sattelite or cable. Now if you hooked up your TV to the video out of your PC and watched shoutcast internet TV or something similar on it, that should (of course what some ancient judge with the technical knowledge of a gibon would rule who knows) not count as internet TV is not broadcast but streamed individually to each viewer, it is a narrowcast.

PC TV cards have the same rule, they only need a licence if you use them for watching broadcasts or recording broadcasts, if you use them for converting analogue video from camcorder or whatever for editing, then you don't need a licence.

Watching videos that someone else recorded is fine from a TV licence point of view, but it may be a breach of copyright, as suposedly you can only video stuff from the TV for 'time shifted viewing' but this is a matter for the copyright owners, not the TV licencers.

hannoir · Black Bloc

Much better to pay the license and have no ads on a few channels than have to put up with anoying ad breaks.
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evilclive · Indymedia Hound

hannoir · Black Bloc

Whine whine.

Honestly, here in NZ they have 4 TV channels, all with ads everywhere, no freeview or chance of slightly sophisticated anything, and well, its basically crap. And they dont pay a licence fee.

You dont know how lucky you are.
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evilclive · Indymedia Hound