This is along the lines of a “HELP! STUDENT PROTEST/RALLY You COME Now" message. Very important. Read on to learn more(and sorry about the length).

Your fees are likely to rise from next week. But don't despair - what better way to get into the Christmas spirit than having a Christmas-themed protest - serious but fun!

This is about next Mondays fee-setting meeting, and AUSA’s plans for that day. I’m the Welfare Officer at AUSA, David, and we need as many people as we can to come along on Monday, and we would like you to get involved. Read on to learn more.

Here's the background:

Every year the University Council(the highest decision making body at the University), conducts a meeting to set the fees for the following year(ie. Fee-setting). Fee-setting tends to occur towards the end of the year. This years meeting has been delayed until next Monday, the 12th of December. Nowadays it is exceedingly rare NOT to have fees increase at some rate every year. The University has proposed to raise undergraduate fees by 3.9% and postgraduate fees by 7.7%. This would amount to about a couple of hundred dollars extra a year.

Their argument for fees has been trotted out year in year out - that their current funding arrangements with the government are unsatisfactory, forcing them to raise fees, and that if not then the university will face a dire financial crisis. Successive years have not produced this sort of predicted dire crisis. And yet they continue raising our fees. This is distinctly unfair. Remember that Auckland University has the highest fees in the country.

The meeting is two weeks before Christmas. Students are being hit with a nasty Christmas surprise, so the timing is right for an appropriately-themed protest. This is a line we should push strongly, however obviously we don’t want to ‘trash’ Christmas - we simply want to use its rituals to demonstrate a point through irony. In essence, we are planning a media stunt to raise public attention about rising university fees.

Here’s the time and place:

The meeting is going to be held at 3pm next Monday the 12th. It is being held in the Council Room on the first floor of the Clocktower building. We’ll meet around 2pm in the foyer of the Clocktower building underneath the Christmas tree(it’s a really nice tree - real pine!). If we play our cards right there may be media present, so we want to make sure we put on a good show.
Here’s the plan:

We need people like you to essentially turn up. On Monday afternoon assemble in the foyer of the Clocktower building. We would have prepared our ‘props’ and costuming. You will be expected to wear tinsel, a Santa hat, baubles around our neck, or any combination. This will be provided by us, and you can keep them if you want, or give them back to us at the end of the activities. We will also give you a leaflet with the words to an altered Christmas carol to sing at the appropriate time. I will give more details on request, but all I’ll say at this stage is that we are planning some ‘media stunts’ - the dressup and singing is important to this.

Here’s the ask:

It would be great if yourself and fellow students would be interested in effecting positive change for students by protesting these proposed fees rises. I will give you more details about what exactly we are planning on the day, and I am open to your questions and suggestions - welfare:_USE_THE_AT_EMOTICON_:auckland.ac.nz.

I know it is quite late in the year, but I would really appreciate if you could forward this on to your networks too. Bear in mind that I cannot stress enough that these plans should not be ‘leaked’ to the ‘higher echelons’ of the university.

It is vitally important that we get as many students along as possible - after all, we are all the ones that end up paying for this. Come along and make a difference.

If you’re keen to come along please get back to me as soon as possible, at welfare:_USE_THE_AT_EMOTICON_:auckland.ac.nz, and 09 309 0789 extn 340. I hope to see as many of you along as possible.

So let me get this straight: Uni says they'll have problems if they don't raise fees, so the raise fees, and don't have those problems.

Perhaps the reason that they haven't had a dire crisis is because they've raised fees AND become cheap about certain expenditures (I heard there will be half the tutors there were last year for an IS subject).

Why don't you go protest the government for better funding?

That's how businesses survive: by telling certain people they're doing terribly, including their customers. Whoops, did I refer to the University as a business?

We can't really lobby the government too much as a small association from Auckland, but that is what NZUSA in Wellington (NZ University Students Association) is for. That's why we pay membership, so they can advocate on a higher level for us.

But thanks to Graham Watson and his cronies who held a referendum on our continued membership with NZUSA, saying we should put the $17,000 into something better and thus resign, we handed in our notice of withdrawl. Just like the voluntary/compulsory campaign, misinformation and misleading propaganda ruled on the day, but what do you expect from a man who was in first year at Auckland Uni the year i was born?!

We will stay members if we can because what they do for us is invaluable. They regularly meet with politicians, so they've got our backs. And next years presidents are ex-AUSA boys, so it'll be Auckland reprazent!

On the side of the university, their argument, which is entirely feasible, is that running costs are rising and they have to stay in line with CPI(consumer price index)/UPI(university price index) or the rate of inflation. I've heard what they are planning to raise them(fees) by and it's not great, but it's better than expected, of course we would prefer a no fee's rise but we have to be realistic. And yes they may be cutting services. At the moment the ratio of staff:student is about 15.6:1, or something around that figure.

Sorry about the long post, i got a little carried away!!

He's still around? Today my brother was telling me the trouble he had with "the Watson brothers" when he was prez, and he's 34 now. He sounds like a true cunt.

If AUSA were full members of NZUSA it would cost us around $100,000 - that's almost two orientation weeks or 17,000 jugs of beer at Shads.

$100,000 in one year is $11.42 per hour.

Id rather have the jugs

Who said anything about full membership? I said just staying as some form of members, associate or otherwise or a continued relationship with them.

Yup, Watson is back full-time next year 'apparently', oh joy, i cant wait till he starts to fuck things up again after we've spent all year trying to fix his messes from last year.

If Grahame Watson ran for prez, I would vote for him.

I would think that right now that the AUSA executive have far greater (self induced) problems and messes than Graham Watson......

Hopefully this years student reps will vote against the increases. In fact one of the reps voted by the Court of Convocation (Kate Sutton) should as well.

So the vote will be won 9:3.

The first sentence I ever said to him: "You're a cunt"

Reaaaaallllllly, you'll have to fill me in sometime, i am oblivious! :huh:

*watches Saturated and Devil struggle with the can opener and the huge can of worms*

Ahhh, okay then, i'm really curious now. Can of worms eh?? Ooooh, exciting *grabs popcorn, sits attentivley waiting for events to unfold*

I met him at a meet-the-candidates thing in Epsom for the last elections, didn't realise who he was (sadly) and got into an argument with him ...

Of course, apparently, according to him, I was from Remuera and had cruised all my life and was wearing a fancy suit (I had bought the suitjacket for like 5 bucks from an opshop), and apparently my parents were paying my fees and that I was an immoral atheist. Following me informing him that I regularly consort with prostitutes and smoke marijuana grown in National electorates.

... and I proceeded to be lectured by him about how he saved the New Zealand university system in the 1980's. He really is a guy who is an utter bastard in person.

From TheWhig

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I HAD NO IDEA HE WAS A MOONIE

wow he sounds almost as batshit insane and opioninated as the Hambeast

that unification church has the right idea though, if everyone had the same religion there wouldnt be any wars over it. Then again, Id much rather retain my "not religious" stance

Actually it would be enough to simply destroy monotheism. All the polytheistic faiths in the Roman Empire got along just swimmingly.

Religious differences was still used by certain astute political operators to mobilize support for their causes. Octavian played on already-existing religious prejudices when he associated Antony with not only despotism but immoral, heathen, Egyptian despotism in preparation for his final assault against him in 31 BC. In Virgil's Aeneid Aeneas' sheild is the centre of a symbolic cultural and religious clash-the civilized trio of Neptune, Minerva and Apollo face off against the Egyptian monster gods.

Relgious prejeduce, closely linked with cultural and racial prejudice was as alive during the polytheistic Roman Empire as it is today.

Hooray for 6th form classics.

:clap: Did not do classics in 6th form, that's ANCHIST 103 talking

I'm going by Gibbons The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which makes some mention of the religious tolerance in the Roman Empire, but doubtless there was some religious intolerance all the same, although I doubt it would be on the same scale as that of later times. Perhaps the only way to truly get rid of religious intolerance is to purge all religions from the face of the earth.

Yes I am aware of the irony in the above statement.

Every time you mention that paper, I immediately think of Anarchy in the UK ( I am the antichrist, and I am an anarchist etc )