The UnionSummer 2014

The Newsletter for Life Members of Glasgow University Union

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Contents3. From The President - Owen Martin4. A Year of Change - Gavin Tulloch6. Make Way for a Brand New Nightclub - Owen Martin7. Freshers’ Week - Rory Slater8. D*** F***** 2013 - Imogen Dewar10. GUU Reaches the Worlds Final - Paul Baird11. It’s all Fun & Games - Ryan Stodart12. Say Hello to G-You - Lucy Keown13. A Club Night in the Old Building - Simon Tierney14. GUU Brings Home the Awards - Owen Martin

If you have any queries regarding GUU alumni matters, please do not hesitate to contact the Board of Management at alumni@guu.co.uk.

Friends of the Union,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the latest edition of the Life Members’ Newsletter. It has been a while since the last one and there have been numerous exciting developments over the past year that I am ex-cited to share with you all.

The most significant news is that, although disappoint-ingly a year later than scheduled, construction on the new Extension is due to start on the 7th July with a current completion date of late August 2015, hopefully just in time for Freshers’ Week 2015. Problems with the tendering process were responsible for the delay in the project but it is great to finally know that the brand new nightclub facility will be with us in the not too distant future.

The past year has seen a host of extremely successful events and the Union has continued to flourish even without the Extension, hitting capacity in an incredi-bly successful Freshers’ Week, our Halloween Party, St.

Patrick’s Day Party and House Party while also hosting a sold out Daft Friday. Holding a club night in the old building at first seemed like an impossible task but after a lot of hard work the setup has proved to be a roaring success. More to this, GUU has won a handful of awards over the past year including Club Mirror’s Student Union of the Year 2013 for the third year running, a Gold Best Bar None award and the DRAM Award for Social Responsibility.

GUU Debating has continued to go from strength to strength and last December saw GUU final at the World Debating Championships in Chennai, a truly outstanding achievement bringing us one step closer to another one of those glorious trophies.

Last year’s and this year’s Board of Management have worked incredibly hard and the past year has seen some serious hardships that the Union has only recovered from due to all the work that has been put in by both the student and non-student Board Members. Allegations of sexism at the Ancients Debating Competition in March 2013 put the Union in the headlines and seriously questioned the culture within GUU, resulting in an Independent Inquiry being commissioned that now sees the Union in a much stronger position. A host of new measures and policies have been implemeneted that demonstrate our dedication and commitment to being one of the safest and most inclusive establishments on campus.

I have had a fantastic first few months in my role as President and have big plans for the year ahead that I am excited to start work on. Life Members really are a huge part of the Union and I hope this newsletter gives you all a good insight into everything that the Union has achieved over the past year. If you have any queries or questions for myself please do get in touch at president@guu.co.uk.

Owen MartinPresident

From the President

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Following an incident at Glasgow Ancients in March 2013, the Union found itself the sub-ject of controversy in relation to the suggested

acceptance of inappropriate behaviours within the premises. Condemnation was widespread, appearing across social media and in the national press, and the Board of Management faced allegations from stu-dents, clubs and societies, alumni and the university itself of a pervading discriminatory culture at GUU.. The scale of the issue was unprecedented.

Needless to say, investigating and tackling this percep-tion became one of the main foci of the 2013/14 Board of Management; it was not a case of ‘putting out a fire’, it was about effecting real change in the Union. The Board commissioned an external review of its work-ing practices by an independent panel, comprising

Sandra White MSP, Professor Noreen Burrows, and Dr Roderick Neilson. A number of inter-im measures were taken by the Board, including amending the Standing Or-ders to empower the Speaker during de-bates, implementing an affirmative action debating policy (re-

quiring that a third minimum of each gender be sent to every debating competition), seeking advice from the University’s Equality & Diversity Officer, and tem-porarily suspending single-sex dinners. The Inquiry Report was published in October 2013 and made a number of recommendations, all of which were ac-cepted and passed by the Board.

A year later, every GUU board member, including non-student board members, has completed the Uni-versity’s equality and diversity training, and this is now a requisite feature of board training for future. We were the first student body to ensure that every board member had received this training, and have set this as a precedent for all student bodies on campus (some of whom are yet to introduce this requirement).

A number of legislative changes were made, with the

A Year of Change

Sandra White MSP

2013/14 board members collectively writing a new Bullying & Harassment Policy, Equality & Diversi-ty Policy, and Complaints Procedure. The Discipline Memorandum was revised under the guidance of the Honorary Secretary, Imogen Dewar, in order to en-sure that it was fit for purpose. Perhaps most signif-icantly, the entire Constitution of GUU was revised, taking into account recommendations from the in-quiry as well as assessing and rewriting other out-dat-ed aspects of the document. The constitutional review was led by myself and Vice President Gavin Muir, and I am pleased to report that all changes were passed by the membership at a Special General Meeting in May 2014.

It was ascertained by the inquiry panel that single-sex dinners should be permitted providing that the din-ners comply with the objects of the Union and uphold the principles of the new policies. Since October 2013, seven single-sex dinners have been held in GUU, none of which has received complaints from any Un-ion members or members of staff.

Further to the inquiry recommendations, the 2013/14 Board of Management took a number of extra steps to ensure that GUU is as welcoming as possible to all students. A temporary gender-neutral toilet has been installed on the top floor; GUU was involved in the organisation of International Women’s Week on cam-pus, with activities including fundraising for the Ed-inburgh Rape Crisis Centre; this year’s Glasgow An-cients included a very successful Women’s Debating Competition, the first of its kind to be held in Scot-land. The tireless work of last year’s Assistant Honor-ary Secretary, Owen Martin, with our affiliated clubs

GULGBTQ+ hosts “QueerFest” at GUU- 4 -

and societies has ensured that GUU is a welcoming place for all society events, epitomised by GULG-BTQ+ holding their flagship all-day QueerFest event in GUU in March to mark their re-affiliation with the Union.

The work done to change GUU over the past year has not been easy. Union legislation often took precedence over board members’ university work; efforts to en-gage those groups condemning us were met with no reply; student board members were constantly facing blame for activities and attitudes that took place long before they were even born, let alone before they ma-triculated as students. But the positive change effected over the past year is a testament to the continued pro-fessionalism and objectivity of the GUU board – not only when it comes to dealing with immense pressure, but also when it comes to realising, reflecting and rep-resenting the will of the membership and the wider student body.

Gavin TullochPresident 2013-2014

The full inquiry document can be found on GUU’s web-site – www.guu.co.uk – along with an updated review of action taken since its publication, and all relevant policy documents and the most up-to-date constitution.

Heather Whiteside (Debates Convener 2013-14) ran Scotland’s first Women’s Debating Competition

The New Policies are all on display in the Main Foyer

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The University’s General Business Committee is currently following it’s established procedure in organising an election to fill two vacancies for General Council Assessors. The General Council is one third of the Univer-sity’s tripartite governance structure and comprises all graduates and senior academics of the university. The General Council is an advisory body on university affairs and it is important that the elected Assessors have the university and it’s students in their best interests.

There are fifteen candidates standing for the July election and we encourage all of our life members to engage with this election. The University’s governing bodies have a strong influence on some Union matters, particu-larly financial and regulatory issues, and it is important to GUU that those elected have an understanding of the student bodies and their importance to the student experience. We would therefore strongly recommend that all life members consider the nominated candidates carefully, all of whom are listed (along with further information) at http://www.gla.ac.uk/about/generalcouncil/generalcouncilelections.

Please note that ballot papers are being sent out with the most recent edition of Avenue. If you receive Avenue electronically or have not received ballot papers with your paper copy, you should contact the University’s alumni office as soon as possible to ensure your vote.

Want to Get Involved?

Make Way for a Brand New NightclubConstruction is finally due to start on the new Extension

I am very happy to finally an-nounce that work will begin on the new GUU Extension/Stevenson Project at the start of July. The new five storey structure will consist of a brand new nighclub for GUU on the ground floor as well as four storeys of new indoor sports facilities for the Sport & Recreation department.

A whole year after the demoli-tion of the Hive and after sev-eral delays down to problems with the tendering process, work is now due to be com-pleted in August 2015, just in time for Freshers’ Week next year. It does mean that GUU now has a year longer than initally anticipated without a nightclub, but with the new set up in the Old Building the Union continues to flourish even without the Extension.

The new facility will house state of the art lighting and sound equipment, a brand new dancefloor and four new bars: one with the ability to be a Cafe by day and a bar by night, another with a special staged area for bands to per-form and a dedicated Kareoke Bar.

Plans are well underway for the interior design of the building and the Board of Management will spend the next year making big deci-sions about the furnishings and fit out of the new club in order to provide the best pos-sible experience for our mem-bers and the wider student body.

The exterior of the new Extension

The new Cafe area able to function as a Bar on club nights

The current Redevelopment site

The designs are already look-ing fantastic and the Board are really happy with overall look and feel of the interior. And yes, there will be a podium on the new dancefloor.

As of March 2015, work will also commence on the new rear staircase facility that is to be constructed behind the Old Building where the current rear fire exit is. This will dramati-cally enhance the fire safety of GUU by providing a safe and secure fire exit from all levels of the building as well as pro-viding a brand new lift facility allowing disabled access from the Beer Bar basement level all the way up to the Billiards Hall on the top floor.

This development will have a significant impact on the Old Building itself, primarily in the Billiards Hall as a new bar will be installed in the centre of the room and four tables will be re-moved to create space for this. If anyone knows of a willing home for such tables please do get in touch!

There’s a lot of work to be done over the next year to make sure everything’s ready for the grand opening - but rest assured our Life Members will of course be invited back for some sort of special gathering as soon as the facility is ready.

Owen MartinPresident

For more information please vis-it www.guu.co.uk or get in touch directly at president@guu.co.uk.

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Design image for the new dancefloor area

In March 2013 I was elected to the Board of Man-agement that had recently lost the Hive Extension

nightclub facility. It was a daunting time for us with no idea how the year would pan out. Could we even run a successful Freshers’ Week? The answer of course was yes and I’m pleased to say it’s been an incredible year.

The Debates Chamber is now getting more use than ever. It’s uses range from dance classes to pantomimes and even as a university lecture space (one day a week) but, most significantly, as our interim nightclub. This probably seems like a completely alien concept to most of you, but the primary space to meet your fu-ture partner now lies in the very same room in which you’re likely to fall out with your future partner in the competitive environment of parliamentary debating.

September saw an incredible line up for Freshers’ Week 2013, fantastic acts hitting the stage night after night including Admiral Fallow and Radio 1’s Jameela Jamil and Huw Stephens. The fact that a band can play a full set and just an hour later a DJ can take to the stage really shows just how versatile the Union is and how hard the Board have worked in adapting the old Building into such a venue. This is currently achieved-with a series of drapes that transforms the look of the room and with state of the art light and sound equip-ment a brilliant atmosphere is created.

Last year also saw the return of top notch comedy, our hugely successful Games events such as B.A.D.G.E and Iron Stomach as well as some new events includ-ing an International Fair and a mini Comic-Con.

The pressure is on this year’s Conveners for Freshers’ Week 2014 but I can tell you that it’s already looking to be massively successful with a huge amount learnt from our first year without the Extension.

Thank you so much for your continued support, please feel free to drop me an email at honsec@guu.co.uk and I look forward to meeting you at one of the Life Members Events we have planned for the future.

Rory SlaterHonorary Secretary

Freshers’ Week

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Daft Friday 2013GUU Never Dies

One of the most attractive features of Glasgow University Union is its ability to merge the pres-

ent with the past. This unique aspect which sees, for instance, Dodgeball tournaments being played in the beloved Debating Chamber, is one of the foremost reasons that students develop an enduring passion for GUU. The knowledge that regardless of what is going on outside the Union, there shall always be a warm fire alight in the front foyer is very comforting indeed.

However, the recent struc-tural changes to GUU, namely, the demolition of the Hive Extension build-ing, have greatly threat-ened our campus home. When I decided to contest the position of Honorary Secretary 2013-2014 it was in the knowledge that run-ning any event without an Extension, particularly the big events such as Freshers’ Weeks and Thursday night clubnights, would be in-credibly difficult.

Thank goodness then for Daft Friday. For it was this event, which is the gem of the GUU calendar, which served as a reminder that popular events do not re-quire a nightclub to make them successful. I have been involved in the running of Daft Friday since my year as a Present Student Member in 2011 and was determined to maintain the unique qualities of a tra-ditional ‘DF’ that make it such an awesome night, not-withstanding the quite serious problems posed by the loss of the Extension.

Those problems were significant. Without the Exten-sion, building capacity and, crucially, potential ticket sales revenue, were reduced by almost half. Yet costs are not similarly reduced because the majority of the

building and decoration costs are spent in the old building. The pressure to turn around rooms, so that, for instance, it would still be possible to put on the vast array of musical entertainment expected of a DF was taken to the point of near impossibility, and much more basic problems, such as the need for equipment storage, also became real headaches. Initially, the pre-dicted income vs. expenditure budget predicted such a shortfall that it was questioned whether we should

run the event at all.

But we did run it. Why? Because, very simply, this was the 105th year of Daft Friday, and not running it just wasn’t an option. With a brilliantly experienced team of painters and build-ers, led by Rob McMillan, Aisling Holling and Su-zanne Martin, we decided upon the theme I have al-ways dreamed of running - that of James Bond. Plan-ning begun in March 2013 and designs were finalised by September. The team of thirty students with fifteen non-student volunteers worked for roughly twenty hours per week from Sep-tember till December. In October, just before tick-

et sales began, we managed to secure the main act - Glasgow band CHVRCHES - a local talent that are now taking the world by storm. Tickets were a sell out and things began to look promising.

However, one final set back did look to ruin all of our efforts. In an incredibly disappointing move, Glas-gow City Council Licensing Board took the decision to hold a hearing on the day of Daft Friday to decide whether the traditional extension of licensed hours until 8 am would be granted. We were given only 3 days’ notice of this Hearing, and were unsuccessful in

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in the Hearing, meaning that only a 3 am alcohol li-cence was granted, although we were permitted to keep the building doors open until 8 am. Despite this bitterly unfair occurrence, Daft Friday went off incredibly well. 1500 people enjoyed this historically brilliant night and over 700 received their free break-fast in the early hours of the morning.

Much has changed within and outside the Union in the Century since James Bridie first hosted this won-derfully unique event. But students still love experi-encing, running and upholding the oldest traditions that give the Union its flair and unique identity. So long as the Union fails to have an Extension building we always thought it would struggle to run profita-ble and attractive events. But Daft Friday 2013, apt-ly named “GUU Never Dies” in honour of its James Bond theme, stands testament to the fact that GUU members will always love this slightly bizarre but to-tally wonderful night in their campus home.

Imogen DewarHonorary Secretary 2013-2014

Artwork photographs from previous years and much more can be found on the official Daft Friday website at www.daftfriday.wordpress.com. If you have any photos from previous years you would like to see on the website please contact daftfriday@gmail.com.

Imogen DewarHonorary Secretary 2013-2014

The Daft Friday Committee 2013- 9 -

GUU Reaches the WUDC FinalIt has been a tremendous past year for debating at

Glasgow University Union. Competitively we have seen success not enjoyed for over a decade on the do-mestic and international circuits and, internally, we consistently draw very healthy crowds to our events which shows that debating continues to appeal to our student members.

My predecessor, Heather Whiteside, and her Debates Committee were instrumental in this success and their incredible work ethic and dedication have seen us en-joy one of the best years for debating at the Union for many a year. This, of course, culminated in the Union making the grand final of the World Universities De-bating Championship in Chennai, India, where we narrowly lost out to the vic-torious Harvard team who spoke in first proposition. The same team, comprised of two of our senior debat-ers, Duncan Crowe and John McKee, also made the semi-finals of the European Universities Debating Championship in Manchester. Domestic inter-varsity successes also included the Union making up three of the four teams in the Scottish final of the John Smith Memorial Mace; breaking to the finals at the Essex, Westminster, Imperial, SOAS, Durham and Oxford Womens’ competitions; and breaking to at least the quarter finals at the main Oxford and Cambridge competitions. Competitively it has been a superb year for the Union and is a level of success that we need to ensure we aspire to in the long run.

Internally the Union has been just as successful, with our five Parliamentary Debates attracting a range of speakers both old and new as they always do. The World Almighty Distributist League was victorious this Session, by a margin of twenty points, for the third consecutive year. Parliamentaries remain the crown jewel of debating at the Union, training our speakers in the art of wit and sharp, pithy responses to challenges, and campus is a better place for having it. Glasgow University Union Ancients also attracted a maximum team cap this year, with World Champi-

ship standard teams attending, as well as a top CA team. This is especially important from the Union’s point of view in order to continue to market ourselves to other universities and debating unions as the pre-mier inter-varsity competition in Scotland and one of the top competitions in the UK. It is an event that the Union pulls off well every year without fail in terms of attendance and revenue and will be at the focal point again this year of the efforts of my Debates Commit-tee. On a weekly basis the Union continues to hold

speaker training events on Tuesdays and Thursdays where we offer a range of training programmes to en-sure that we continue to remain competitive on the circuit. These range from more accessible, interactive debating workshops for our more junior debaters to more intense presentations given by our seniors to maintain knowledge on current affairs.

Glasgow University Union is firmly back on the map as far as our competitive reputation goes and that is an achievement that has been hard won by all of our debating members who continue to put in the time and effort every week to raise ourselves up alongside the best debating unions in the world. This year, my broad policy aim is to take further the developmen-tal outlook that debates has assumed in the last year so that, in the medium to long term future, we are in a professional, cyclical habit of properly training the junior members of today so that they can become the world champions of tomorrow.

Paul BairdDebates Convener

GUU Team John Mckee & Duncan Crowe Debate in Chennai

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With the closure of the Hive, Games Commit-tee-run events have proved a continued success

and draw for our members. Month of Games was a huge success with every event being fully subscribed or oversubscribed by competitors as well as many be-ing very well attended by spectators. It is my intention to build a stronger PR campaign towards Month of Games events in this coming year to ensure students who are less familiar with the Union understand what is going on, what they can participate in and what they can win. The Darts Competition in particular has been consistently one of Month of Games’ most poor-ly attended events, but the competition has great po-tential to be held in the Debates Chamber and create a proper darts competition feel with music, lighting and the round functions tables on the floor.

In the coming year, with the decision to move away from club nights within the old building, Games events can and will play a prominent role in sustain-ing membership participation and appeal. We hope to create new interest by running one-off events as well as new continual events throughout the year, in conjunction with the already established Games event calendar. It is vital for the success of the Union to en-courage constant use of the Union and its facilities throughout the year. By running regular Beer Pong competitions (with the possibility of a league being

It’s all Fun & Gamesformed) we hope to increase regular and return-ing footfall within the Union both during and after the event. As an incentive to regularly use the Un-ion throughout both day and night we plan to hold a monthly pool tournament, in a ladder format, with the highest ranked player at the end of each month winning a prize. These changes are aimed at encour-aging membership loyalty and regular use, something I feel is vital that we establish for our members, par-ticularly for first year students and in the on-going pe-riod without a nightclub.

Glasgow has had a successful year in snooker, with the University of Glasgow Snooker Club recently win-ning the British Team Shield Competition at BUCS (British Universities & Colleges Sport). The Billiards Room has also recently had all of its tables re-clothed to an excellent standard. This coincided with the Un-ion welcoming the Home Nations University Snooker Competition back to the home of the event. Glasgow boasted a strong contingent of the Scottish team with 5 players out of the 7 participants allowed. England lifted the “GUU Cup” winning both the team com-petition and the singles competition, with a Scottish player reaching the final of the singles.

Ryan StodartGames Convener

GUU President Owen Martin presents a trophy to Dan Womersley, the winner of the Home Nations University Singles Competition

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This year, Libraries Committee has taken on a number of new and different responsibilities. The

past Libraries and Entertainments Conveners have started a series of events called the Endeavours lec-ture series, run by both the Libraries and Entertain-ments Committees. The Endeavours lectures aim to have guest speakers talk about their jobs, how they got them and what they do on a daily basis in their work, to inspire students to think outside the box when it comes to graduate jobs. Eddie Harrison, a former film critic for The Metro newspaper who is now employed by The List, came to talk and do a Q&A about how his life has changed due to his job since he was a student at Glasgow University; from studying in the Elliot Li-brary to going on benders with Robert Redford, his career path has taken him all over the world, talking to movie stars as a normal day in the office. Other people who talked at the events include Dominic Hill, the artistic director of the Citizens’ Theatre, and Lou-ise Welsh, a Glaswegian Crime Novel writer.

As well as introducing the Endeavours lectures, we held a Comic-Con both in Freshers’ Week and Re-Freshers’ Week, with graphic artists, comic book stores such as Forbidden Planet and graphic novelists, who sold their wares and demonstrated their story-board and drawing processes. This event tied in real-ly well with the Superhero theme of Freshers’ Week, brought a lot of people up to the Reading Room dur-ing the day, and really helped GUU appeal to a greater variety of student interests.

Say Hello to G-You

The past year has also seen a change in one of the Li-braries main remits, GUU’s magazine. What was once the GUUi magazine has had a re-name and a bit of a makeover, and is now called G-You. We held a compe-tition for people to think of a new name, with G-You being the winner. Coinciding with the re-launch of the magazine, the website for G-You has been re-vamped, with featured interviews from the University Rector candidates on the run up to the election. This easily accessible forum for the magazine has become really popular, and combined with the online edition, the magazine has seen our number of readers go into the thousands.

The upcoming year will see us continue these events, and continue to think of more innovative events and ideas to keep G-You, and the Libraries Committee, relevant and resourceful branches of the Union.

Lucy KeownLibraries Convener

The online edition of the G-You magazine can be viewd at http://issuu.com/guui/docs and the official G-You website can be found at http://gyoumagazine.word-press.com.

Claire Flynn (Libraries Convener 2013-14) hosted a Comic-Con event in Freshers’ Week 2013

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The revamped magazine is now on its third issue

Since the end of January last year, things have been very different at GUU. The Union has had to adopt

various solutions to compensate for the closure of the Extension Building, in particular, the running of a Thursday club night.

The Board of Management have been working tire-lessly over the last year to create the same great atmos-phere experienced in The Hive but in the Original Old Building, with many of the rooms being converted for the night to be a functional social space. The Drawing room, which is a coffee shop by day, is turned into a fully functioning bar complete with foosball and beer pong tables; The Reading Room is now used for ka-raoke set up along with a bar. And perhaps most sig-nificantly, the bottom half of the Debating Chamber is closed off using blackout material over the viewing gallery and down the sides to become a dance floor, complete with a DJ booth and fully updated sound system on stage.

Despite being successful in takings and in footfall, the fact remained that the Union building is a colos-sal space and even with there being 500 people in thebuilding it still looked moderately empty. GUU

A Club Night in the Old Building?The Entertainments Convener talks us through how it works

therefore recently decided to keep Thursday nights relatively confined using only the Beer Bar and Drawing Room spaces. This has been popular with the Beer Bar in particular keeping a fun-filled envi-ronment that people still come to the Union for. De-spite this, the Union has put a lot more effort into the ‘one-off parties’ which crop up throughout the year and which this year’s Board of Management will be creating more of. The nights have been heavily PR’d along with exciting attractions, special DJs and bril-liant drinks deals and it is this effort that has seen the building hit capacity level, of 1540, on several occa-sions, fully making use of every room in the building.

The end of the academic year 2013 saw the first of this style of events in the old building with GUU’s Beach Party which ran all day and included Al Fresco Open Mic, the Life’s a Beach games event and a guest DJ appearance from Westlife’s Brian McFadden. This day took fabulous takings on the door and in the bars so a similar event ran this year, branded as a ‘Brazilian Beach Party’ that featured a Samba band with Brazil-ian Dancers in the Reading Room and a Surf Simula-tor in the Drawing Room.

The drapes close off the lower level of the Debates Chamber creating a better nightclub atmosphere

The Debates Chamber transformed to a dancefloor

Samba band MacUmba, Brazilian Dancers and a Surf Simulator all featured at the Beach Party

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After the success of Freshers’ Week 2013, the first par-ty we held with the new first year students was the Halloween House Party. With a wonderful effort from our PR team the reach of this event both on Facebook and in student halls was vast and on the night the queue was from the back entrance all the way along to Gibson Street! With competitions being run for best costumes and ghoulish pints of fun, the spookily decorated building was at capacity by 11.30pm with students dancing into the wee hours.

More recently, and the start of my time as convener, we have seen similar successes on St. Patrick’s Day and our new End of Term House Party. Paddy’s Day was better prepared for in general this year, with the addition of security and an executive Board Member being on duty which allowed the maximum amount of bar space to be utilised in the Drawing Room and Billiards Hall. Along with this, rising band Bronagh and the Boys played a great set in the Drawing Room.

The biggest success of the current Board, so far, how-ever was the popularity of March’s End of Term House Party. This is a time of year which saw events in the Extension Building not even be that well attended, but with an organised Beer Pong competition, inflatable tug of war and a DJ playing in the Debates Chamber the building once again saw capacity with excellent takings on door, bar and cloakroom. Another side achievement of this was the gaining of a lot of mem-bership because of the incentive of discounted entry.

Simon TierneyEntertainments Convener

Open Mic on a Friday night has moved from Deep Six into the Reading Room

The Debates Chamber Stage acts as a prime location for a DJ Booth

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GUU brings home the Awards...The Union has won a handful of awards over the past year which we are incredibly proud of

In July 2013, Imogen Dewar (Honorary Secretary 2013-14) and Gavin Tulloch (Pres-ident 2013-14) accepted the DRAM Award

for Social Responsibility at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow

In November 2013, Saoirse Toner (Present Student Member 2013-14) and Owen

Martin (President 2014-15) accepted a Gold Best Bar None Award at the Grand Central

Hotel in Glasgow

In November 2013, Owen Martin and Gavin Tulloch accepted the Club Mirror Award for Stu-dent Union of the Year at the Palace Hotel in Manchester - with Special Guest BBC Presenter

Hazel Irvine- 15 -

Looking to purchase old Board Photographs?

We are currently in the process of digitally archiving our Board Photographs dating back to 1932.

If you would like to purchase one they are available from Graham Govan at http://photocall.shootproof.com/event/568771/view#a_all-grid.

Another Good Year for FoGUUThe last financial year has been positive for FoGUU with 10 additional monthly direct debits secured and our net surplus for the year reaching just under £10,000. Our overall financial position is strong with little to no expenditure matched by our continued ambition to build a secure financial safeguard for the Union. In the last year we donated £16,500 to the Union for the pur-chase and installation of a new till system throughout all of the bars and food areas. The Union have reported back that this contribution has been immensely helpful to the smooth running of the day-to-day activities.

We continue to seek further sponsorship from our alumni, and are looking forward organising more events for Life Members in the near future.

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Thank YouThe Board of Management would like to thank all of GUU’s Life

Members for your continued support.

This Newsletter was put together by the Board of Management and we hope you have enjoyed this edition.

Any queries about the publication should be forwarded to the Board at alumni@guu.co.uk. We welcome all feedback, positive

or negative.

Any queries regarding life membership should be directed to the Honorary Secretary at honsec@guu.co.uk.

Please also remember our four Former Student Members, who are life members themselves, can be contacted at

alumni@guu.co.uk to discuss any queries. These are Jag Kooner, John Anderson, Neil MacGregor & Paul

Sweeney.

www.facebook.com/guualumni