SUMMER BALL 2007 - Seren - Bangor University

4 Seren - End of Year Issue 2007THE BLUDGEONERThe Bludgeoner is feeling green atthe moment – and that’s not simplybecause of the pleasant day he spentin a small yacht off Llandudno fishing forcompliments the other week. It has becomemost fashionable to be a greeny these days,sticking bottles in your blue box and usingboth sides of the loo roll. The Bludge isreminded of that classic story from WorldWar 2 (although it doesn’t quite rank on apar with the Battle of El-Alamein, it is wortha titter) where housewives were encouragedto spend a second away from blubbing overtheir probably dead husbands to rip upthe railings and ship their pots off to thegovernment for smelting down and usingfor tanks.What happened in reality is that thereare now a load of rusty old fences hangingaround the bottom of the North Sea andno-one in the country had anything to cookwith. In a perverse way many historiansprobably credit this with winning the warfor the plucky Brits, ever-strong in adversity.Mainly because it’s sixty years on and they’restruggling for things to talk about.The relevance of this is such; theBludgeoner wonders whether bundling upthe Sunday Telegraph for the local Councilevery two weeks is really going to save thepolar bear from terrible sunburn and mostof East Anglia from becoming a divingresort.Every little helps, though, one supposes– although there is a certain note of irony inusing that particular slogan from a companywith the ethics of a minor royal at a fancydress party. It’s heartening, for instance,to hear from UCAS that the brighteststudents choose the greenest and mostenvironmentally friendly companies whenthey graduate. The Bludgeoner has severalproblems with this – how do they know? Dothey ring them up?“Hello, are you smart? Now tell me, doyou have plastic cups by the water machineat your place? No? Thank goodness! Thatwould’ve buggered up our contrived pressrelease designed to get us into the papersaround application time!”The statement in itself implies that there’ssome discernment in choosing where youend up after graduation. The Bludgeonerwas always under the impression thatfinding a graduate job was always somethingakin to playing 23 bingo slips at once andhoping one of the little buggers will comegood.It’s all very well being all environmental,but where does it get us? It’s no goodrecycling carrier bags because you’re stillusing them, perhaps it would be betternot to buy a newspaper at all rather than abig belching lorry sweeping the streets fordiscarded rags.Still, readers – all the best for theholidays, enjoy your trips abroad, the longjourney home, etc, etc. Don’t forget torecycle Seren once you’re finished with it– or you can keep it on hand as emergencytoilet paper…The Bludgeoner lives in a nuclear powerstation with three cows in Norfolk.GOLA NOT GUCCIPLANS FOR A SUSTAINABLE STUDENTS’ UNIONSustainability is something of a ‘buzzword’at the moment, with everyonefrom politicians to farmers using theterm. There’s a reason for this: it’s importantand indeed necessary to be sustainable andour Students’ Union is no exception to this.There has been a stirring of excitementin the SU recently (more so than usual) withthe forming of a new group – The Students’Union Environment and SustainabilitySteering Group. The group is made up ofSU Executive Officers (the President, CSO,AU President and Education and WelfareOfficer), members of the society ‘Subject toChange’ and other interested parties. Nonstudentinvolvement comes in the form ofoutside ‘experts’ from Gwynedd Counciland other organisations.The first task for the group was to lookat the broad spectrum of sustainabilityissues that our Students’ Union faces.Waste, transport, utility consumption,This will be my last Summer Ball, asit will be for a lot of other final-yearstudents. Well, my last one at Bangor:maybe I’ll go to another ball, summer orotherwise at another point in my cocktailparty-congested,jamboree-jam-packed,shindig-stuffed life. Therefore, footwear isan important consideration. The premiseis simple: don’t wear small, stupid, pointy,high shoes. Why? Because they hurt. Reasonenough. OK, so they look nice…but youwon’t be the one still on your feet at 5am.Taking them off is cheating (your shoes, notyour feet, as that would be just weird…cool,but weird).Anyway, to cut a long rant short, Ipropose wearing trainers (or maybe, if it’stoo horrifying a prospect for you, I can justabout advocate those sparkly little pumptype things) Why? Because they don’t hurt(unless you choose them really badly). Looking cool is all well and good, but where’s the style in being a bleeding (literally,obviously), crying, whinging mess at the end (or maybe closer to the beginning if you pick some truly killer heels) ofBangor’s biggest bash? And, unless you have an occasional smug side which barely gets to see the light of day, no one hasto know about your furtive footwear. My smug side is sure to want an airing on June 2 nd – I’ll be the one in the blue dress,purple trainers, with no blisters. Cue smug smile from me, and look of intense pity from the fashion columnist.Plimsoll Princess, Lexi Hindleyand sustainability awareness are all areasin which our SU can excel at and lead byexample.An Environmental Policy is currentlybeing drafted and a final version detailingthe SU’s aims and targets will be presentedto SU Council for its approval in October.This will be reviewed bi-annually to keeptargets relevant and to embrace new andrelevant research and technologies.So what will you notice about aSustainable Students’ Union? Well, the firstidea, and the easiest to implement in ourcurrent building are recycling bins. Actually,more than that – we want you to be able torecycle as much as you can, so we’re goingmake the SU a ‘drop-off-point’ for all ofyour recyclables. We also hope that smallchanges like setting printer defaults todouble-sided and draft printing will helpcut down of the use of paper and ink. Whilethese are little steps (that you can also do athome), creating a completely sustainableenvironment is not an overnight fix.So what else is happening? We’reinvestigating car-sharing schemes, as well asusing bio-fuel for the SU’s fleet of vehicles.But the biggest idea of all is to integratesustainable thinking into every action thathappens within the SU and hopefully withyou, the users of the building. There willbe a website with useful advice on how tocalculate and reduce your carbon footprint,which should be up and running in the newacademic year.Want to be involved? Get in touch withSam Burnett, the Students’ Union Presidentat sam.burnett@undeb.bangor.ac.uk formore information.James KerrRHYS FOR THE STARSThis July, the University will notonly be awarding students withtheir hard-earned degrees, butalso famous men and women who havecontributed to raising the profile of Wales.One such person is Hollywood superstarand BAFTA award winner Rhys Ifans. Theactor, who has made such films as NottingHill, Not Only but Always and Vanity Fairand who was also the original lead singerof the Super Furry Animals, will be awardedwith an Honorary Fellowship. This is thehighest honour the University can bestow.This award honours his contribution toWelsh film and television.Also Iolo Williams, the BBC presenterand Nature expert is receiving an HonoraryFellowship for his services to the study ofwildlife. Owain Arwel Hughes OBE willalso be receiving a Fellowship. He is thePrinciple Associate Conductor of the RoyalPhilharmonic Orchestra, and the founder ofthe Welsh Proms. He is being honoured forhis services to music.All that remains to be asked is, will Rhysbe wearing grey to the ceremony, becausewomen just love grey!Siobhan Holt andChris ThomsonWe all know the classic game of Monopoly, but there are actually hundreds of editions of the board game outthere. Everything from Star Wars to the Simpsons is represented, but Parker games are about to create a newedition, which they are calling ‘Here and Now’ Monopoly.The difference is that this time they are asking for our input. You can go online and vote for which places in the UKshould be represented and the top twenty-two cities will feature on the new Monopoly board. Bangor is currently atposition forty-three with 3244 votes. So if you fancy Bangor as the next Old Kent Road or even Mayfair, make sure you geton and vote. You can vote once a day at www.monopoly.co.uk/vote until 25 th May 2007 when voting closes. The game willthen go into production and onto the market in October.Caroline Alvarez