These are the meeting minutes for the 25/26's first full commitee meeting. We discuss Stash, Meal plans, Tree felling, the Room Ballot, Sports Funding and end by giving some updates about what we've been up to!

Intro 

• Isabella (President) says JCR refurb is the priority at the moment and confirms that a camera for just dance is being sorted out. 
• • Isabella agrees to meet with Laura (Disabilities) to discuss accessibility for the refurb. 

Stash 

• Committee agrees to make the committee stash. Louisa (Stash) will sort this out. 
• Louisa also says she will send out surveys shortly to see what stash people want before the next stash drop

Meal plans 

• Isabella (President) is looking to expand the meal plans to a week either side of term time and is looking for longer notice on what the halal food will be. 
• • Isabella will pass on feedback from JCR instagram about more diversity in meals. 

Committee

• Isabella (President) is excited about the fact we nearly have a full committee. Accommodations officer to be sorted out soon

Regarding trees

• Isabella (President) says trees are being removed for safety and health and safety. Not all trees are being removed and this still needs council approval.

• Sam (VP) mentions there will be a meeting once plans from college are solidified to discuss this. Will also look to make college tree replanting commitments more specific. 

Room ballot

• Sam (VP) says only 11 people chose the cheapest room when it was their turn so rent reductions are unlikely. 
• • Inigo (Green) mentions that group decisions about cheapest rooms need to be considered too and people are being forced into long leases as they run out of rooms. 

• Laura (Disabilities) suggests the out of ballot window should be expanded so students get better time to collect medical evidence. The required evidence for out of ballot should be clarified. 

• Mia (Freshers) suggests that rent reductions for out of ballot for people with specific needs (such as an ensuite) need to be sorted out
• • Kayyisa (Foundation year) highlights that other colleges offer their subside based on a single bed no ensuite room whereas downing takes the average of all rooms. This can lead to the “reduced rent” offered being more expensive if an out of ballot student took a room below average pricing

• Laura (Disabilities) highlights that floor plans are not accessible and fail to list certain things that may need to be considered such as the weight of doors. 

• Committee as a whole points out that rooms don’t always match on the room browser and that this needs to be addressed

• Isabella (President) to feed all this back to college

Regarding sports funding

• Isabella (President) says college is merging sports and griffin funds. College met with outgoing and incoming presidents and treasurers of the griffins and outgoing sports officers and said the decision is to make funding more widely available. Angel (Access) asks about refunds for Griffin's membership and Isabella says this will happen. 

• May (Sports) - spoke to sports officers and generally people think this is a good idea. It should be made clearer what criteria are for receiving funding. When asked by Ivan (welfare) about criteria changes, says it doesn’t seem to have. 

• Sophia (Gender Equalities) says people need to focus on necessity (i.e. spending on studded shoes but not a football kit)
• • Isabella (President) agrees

• Mia (Freshers) - says a focus on equity and means testing for students would be helpful
• • Kayyisa (Foundation year) - evidence should not be degrading to give though

Updates

• Access (Angel) - Had a handover meeting. Wants to sort out extracurricular funding. Other colleges have this and it works well.  Discusses running a downing tiktok which may be helpful for access, successful in many other colleges. Has a meeting next week where they will get in contact with it. 

Foundation year officer (Kayyisa) 

 - Wants to work with freps, access and welfare to help foundation years build connections with other foundation year students in the college. Possibly a few days before foundation week? A lack of department means things such as library tours aren’t facilitated. Foundation year students don’t have funds for academic dinners - potentially organising a halfway meal to help foundation students meet similar tripos students. 

• Foundation year not on a specific committee, will be assigned too and invited to relevant meetings. 
• • A fund may need to be sorted for foundation year students 
• President will see what can be done for this. Regarding induction days, during international student arrival could arrange it around this time
• • Mia (Fresher rep) said that this could be possible 

Fresher reps (Mia and Mercedes)

• Carried out interviews for freps. Good diversity of students in course and began booking interviews
•  Currently focusing on marriage formal and booking Jazz Band
• Waiting for official dates (matriculation) to solidify the dates and begin working on freshers hand books
• • Canva premium account login details will be distributed by George (Comms) to committee shortly

 International (Hui Lin and Ibraheem)

• Looking to get more storage for this year, if not next year
• • Talks of using an external company but unclear how on board people would be due to potential costs of delivery. Wants to discuss with college about this
• Would like international students to arrive a few days earlier so they can deal with jet lag faster and settle in

Disabilities (Laura) 

• Has had hand over of past paperwork. Would like to rerun a survey that went around 3 years ago. Wants to do disability meet up potentially with welfare officers
• • Comms (George) to meet and help sort out instagram out
• Will circulate a guide for how to make events accessible to committee shortly. 

Sports (May) 

• Would like better enforcement of womens hours and looking to change the hours to be more consistent to hopefully encourage this
• • Kayyisa (Foundation year) could use cam cards more feasible and possibly bring back university gym passes
  • • President will look into this, could be used to counterbalance equipment replacement
  • Sam (VP) asks what process for changing gym hours
  • • May Will look at making woman's hour alternate between busy and non busy hours

• Looking to arrange an inclusive Lincoln sports day with egg and spoon race etc

• People want a downing sports day, this might be a welfare sort of thing in easter - unclear how feasible this is 

• On Gym equipment : focus on leg press and at replacement. Mentioned that these will need full replacement as there are no replaceable parts. 
• • If we have a stairmaster, we will need to replace a machine - unclear how affordable this is though - send out surveys to figure out priorities
• On gym hour extensions, impossible due to staffing reasons - this needs to be communicated better with the students
• • Isabella (President) confirms

LGBT+ OFFICERS (Arun and Declan)

• Looking to arrange pride month formal, waiting for exam timetables to organise this. Have a big box of decorations to keep it cheap. 
• Discusses flying the progress pride flag at college 
• • Isabella (President): Downing follows university policy, but University policy changed to include flying progress flag 
  • • Arun (LGBT+) - looking to get the process moving 

Treasurer (Stella) 

• Trying to make rules for reimbursement more accessible so people know what can get reimbursed. 
• Have received funding details on JCR attachment

Stash (Louisa)

• Preparing surveys to sort out student stash shortly

Comms (George)

• Is working on a committee post and thanks people for pet pics. 
• Raises student feedback that H staircase is accessible to members of public which is a potential safety issue
• • Isabella (President) to raise this with college

Gender Equalities (Chelsea and Sophia)

• FemSoc Relaunch craft night event went down well and there will be an Alumni Talk next term
• Want to make the harassment policy clearer to avoid students being sent between people and make all of this policy accessible in one place on the JCR website. Also thinks that confidentiality from disclosure policy needs to be clarified by the college.
• • Isabella (president) suggests speaking to the Welfare team in college at the beginning of Easter

Green officer (Inigo)

• Emphasises need for communications on trees

AASMCO (Owen)

• Looking to get feedback on careers events
• Sorting out university challenge 
• Spoke to senior bursar to help sort this out

President (Isabella)

• Mention survey to be sent to comms officer
• Notice board outside porters lodge can be used
• Website profiles need to be sorted sooner rather than later.