Time for action - university food

ohplease · Armchair Activist

hey i just wanted to apologise for going off on one and saying u eat dog-food (lol sorry man), i am jus so f**k pissed off at the food i get served, the amount of times i have gone to bed hungry or felt sick is unbelievable, i've even lost weight which pisses me off, and yea (before i get attacked) i know how to cook, but as you've stated- we dont know each other's situations so lets not attack each other.

just wanted to apologise man
Wink

doddmistergeneral · Armchair Activist

theres only one way to descibe how the food makes me feel...it offends me!!!!! I am particularly repulsed by the following: The watery residue that accompanies the mornings scambled eggs, the way the orange juice reminds me of pure, cheap squash, the gross broad beans which can be found in the monotinous daily vegetable selection, the stale buns, the ketchup that tastes like vinegar...and the list goes on but u get my drift. It may be a little late to make a difference to our own food but hopefull we can save next years unfortunate bunch from malnutrition. Bring on decent food, no more crap!!!!!!!!!!! ellie x

higuy · Black Bloc

i heard that every year there are similar campaigns by students, only this time we are well organised because of the radish and active.

This is the time for action!!

On friday we handed 82 feedback cards filled in by students expressing general dissatisfaction with the quality and choice of food on offer. the university now have to take notice. The focus groups start from tomorrow (monday) and i encourage everybody who cares to go along.

Our best aim is to get the university to contractually agree to a basic food standards charter. We could mandate the guild to help us in this by passing a motion on Guild Council. I know its not their speciality but EatBugz have agreed to help draw up the charter. Some of us may be on BURN FM soon.

If we are gonna get the university to agree to our charter we will ahve to continue getting their attention and bring them to the negotiating table. Any ideas guys?

deviant · Armchair Activist

Oktober · Black Bloc

A call on all those handy with the old pen, can someone involved in the campain write an article, or I will have to write one myself and it will be really shit.

flanflinger · Meeting Facilitator

Nice to see that the vegetarian choices for this week are variety of burgers. Again.

Yeah I'll try and make my way to one of the focus groups in the next couple of days.

What struck me two weeks ago when I attended the initial focus group was how out of touch the management were. They seemed genuinely clueless about the issues with, say, the tills, that you're often charged full price for just a single item etc.

johnchas · Indymedia Hound

Just thought I'd let you all know that I just ran into Geoff Pringle (head of Hospitiality and Accomodation services at the Uni). I know him well from dealings with footAID and Vale Festival and he's sound. He asked me if knew anything about "this Radish business"... "err... well it was my housemate and I who kind of started it" I said. Laughs, jokes and surprise lead on to him saying that he simply wasn't aware that the food was an issue, but is more than willing to listen and the imprtnat thing is that he and his staff are checking this website regularly so you are being heard. He thought that jumping in with direct action re posters and protest was a little severe and he would have liked to have been informed about things first... I see his point although I stand by the action myself. One of the problems with getting your voice heard throiugh official cahnnels is that you are relating to authority on their terms. Official channels are often inaccessible to regular students, require a level of proffessionalism and language that is unappealing and unnatural to ordinary people, and may be quite daunting. For a democratic system to work efficiently people's voices need to be heard on their own levels and terms - this is why I told him to check this forum and REPLY TO ITS POSTS! Simple, but he hadn't really thought about it. The possibilities are quite exciting, I'm imagining a site where all staff and people in authority at the uni can hear directly what students concerns are and respond to them on terms that are accessible to everyone. Start some polls that relate to your demands and hopefully Geoff and his staff will respond as best they can. I'm waiting to see a post from you Geoff!!

(P.S- lay off the personal insults to members of his staff and who they may or may not look like, they check this site and they do have feelings)
_________________
"err. yeah there was... like this err... big bang... and err... now we have tescos....... oh surley nobodies going to buy that?" (Friedman Lemaitre, Scientist)

theanonymousgeographer · Black Bloc

Invite Jeff to dinner in Shackleton

Oktober · Black Bloc

theanonymousgeographer · Black Bloc

higuy · Black Bloc

does anyone want to carry on with that?

i was thinking the best thing to do after easter would be to get a motion passed in Guild Council to mandate the VPA or VPHC to continously lobby the University to have a student food standard charter incorporated into the contract.

Wat do ppl think of this?

theanonymousgeographer · Black Bloc