Talk:University of Birmingham Guild of Students

Controversy over Controversies

Ok, the text in the Controversy section has recently changed, specifically the Evangelical Christian Union incident.

I no longer believe that it is factually acurrate or unbiased. Further, I don't see that the current level of detail entered into is particuarly relevant for this article.

I hope it's OK for me to comment your specific points in this way - I felt since you didn't sign them, that would probably be OK, as long as it's made clear that these comments are by me. I confess that it's possible that this section is no longer entirely unbiased - it's recently been edited substantially by people who took both 'sides' of the debate, and I don't think either side (including myself, but especially the other side, who were pretty nasty and entirely inaccurate, basically slandering BUECU, and who I responded to in irritation in some edits, I suspect) were entirely unbiased in their approach. That said, I don't think that the article is factually inaccurate, as you claim - and I do have quite a large working knowledge of BUECU and the sitation. (I live with the BUECU president and the other member of BUECU Exec who was most involved in the controversy, and also work with BUECU as a part of my job, and know people on guild exec, including Richard Angell vaguely, so I feel very much familiar with the situation - and also inclined to strong feelings on the matter, which may not help entirely with the bias.) I feel that this length of detail is appropriate, given that the BUECU situation was actually quite a significant event, appearing in a number of national newspapers, and being an event that's also become very much part of certain sections of the evangelical culture (in a generally inaccurate form, though). It's also worth noting that the BUECU entry is (quite rightly, I suspect, though I'm not certain) being deleted because the only noteworthy thing about them is this event, which is covered here in detail. Thus I think this level of detail is basically necessary. TheologyJohn 11:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Line by line:

"In January 2006 a row errupted as the guild took issue with the Evangelical Christian Union's long established policy..."

The policy was not long established. However long it existed, it was in controvention of the Guild Constitution. As this takes precedence; officially the "policy" never existed. As soon as the Guild Executive learned of the policy, they took steps to reach a solution where the Guild's Constitution and the aim of the policy would not contradict each other - initially working very closely with BUECU officers. When all efforts to find such a solution broke down, BUECU proposed to change the Constitution. This proposal fell.

Well, I guess that's a debate about semantics. BUECU have had this policy for many years - I think it's been in place for as long as the society has been in existence (76 years). That's what they do, and what they always have done. Wikipedia defines policy as "A policy is a plan of action to guide decisions and actions. The term may apply to government, private sector organizations and groups, and individuals." If an individual can have a policy of doing something, then a group can too - regardless of whether they are legally a part of a bigger group whose constitution they are contravening by doing so.TheologyJohn 11:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

"...of not allowing non-Christians to become members, and requiring leadership to be chosen through fully democratic elections rather than being proposed by the previous leaders then being voted on by the society alongside any 'independent proposals' for the same positions."

These statements lack clarity and could be misleading. The statement starting "rather than" may make readers assume that what is stated is what BUECU did. The "rather than" statement does seem to contradict what was proposed to Guild Council (http://www.bugs.bham.ac.uk/getinvolved/guild_council/Papers/Papers260106/pdfs/04dMotion%20-%20BUECU%20Constitution.pdf, and its appendix http://www.bugs.bham.ac.uk/getinvolved/guild_council/Papers/Papers260106/pdfs/04eMotion%20-%20BUECU%20Constitution%20Appendix.pdf) and, to a lesser extent, what Matthew Crouch said to Guild Council (Page 10 of the Minutes: http://www.bugs.bham.ac.uk/getinvolved/guild_council/Papers/Papers230206/pdfs/01%20Guild%20Council%2026%2001%202006.pdf)

I don't quite understand why you think that those documents indicate that that's not what BUECU did. The latter two actually state that that's exactly what BUECU do - the BUECU constitution, which you referred to, states that in 12:4:

"BUECU members who are not proposed by the BUECU Executive Committee and wish to be considered may have their name displayed under the title 'Independent Proposals.'

And Matt Crouch's first speech before the guild council also supposed this, staing:

"Secondly, the guild executive have expressed concern that our nominations procedure is not fair or transparent because we do not allow any member to stand for election. In fact this is not the case, although the BUECU exec approach and nominate some candidates, any other member of the society may stand against these individuals in any election, if they so wish."

That said, this policy is relatively new to BUECU, only included as part of the altering of the constitution that was sparked as a result of this event (but not all parts of it were caused by it - I'm not sure whether it was or not.). That means that this section is mildly inaccurate in that it implies that the long established policy involved independent nominations, which is actually only a relatively recent innovation, albeit one which both brought the CU closer to the guilds position and which occured prior to the guilds final decision. I'll think about how to modify it without making it unnecessarily lengthy or complex. TheologyJohn 11:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

"About both of these there was broad consensus among the members of the Evangelical Christian Union that they were undesirable given the religious beliefs of the society."

This statement lacks evidence. Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words It could just as easily be said that there was a broad consensus that the Guild's action was in fact desirable, given a) the religious beliefs of the society, b) that the Guild is a secular educational establishment and c) the Guild is not a Church. (One could argue that this statement is more valid as it is evidenced by Guild Council's rejection of the proposal, but it would remain a one-sided statement.)

That's a completely fair point, and as the original writer of that point, I'm not sure quite why I wrote it - it's clearly not really suitable. I've thus removed it, replacing it with a statement about BUECU as an entity and their feelings about their religious beliefs and the election of leaders.TheologyJohn 11:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

"However, the guild held that this was a compulsory requirement for all societies under the constitution of BUGS. As a result of this, BUGS derecognised the Evangelical Christian Union and seized their funds, claiming that they would be repaid upon certain conditions (i.e. that the money go to UCCF for use on Birmingham students, rather than directly to the derecognised society as they ruled that they were a self appointed group of friends and thus shouldn't directly receive the money)."

It is inaccurate and biased to say the Guild seized the ex-society's funds.

Firstly, as BUECU was a Guild Society, the Guild always held the society's funds. Banking is one of the free services the Guild offers student groups, and due to charity law all affiliated societies must bank through the Guild. It could be more accuate to say that the Guild froze those assets.

Secondly, the Guild would have to consider where funds go if ANY society were derecognised. They can't just hand it out to a bunch of people without a good reason.

I suppose 'seized the societies funds' (or however it's phrased in the article) could be replaced with 'froze the funds, which BUECU was required to keep in the .' Of course the guild would have to consider where funds go if any society were derecognised, and can't hand it out to a bunch of people without good reason - but in this case, the guild DID HAVE good reason (i.e. the funds were almost entirely donated by individuals or charities towards the work of BUECU, not the Guild), and only stated their (apparently always held) intention of giving the funds back to BUECU via UCCF after BUECU threatened legal action (and then stalled over giving back the money - does anyone know if it's yet materialised?)TheologyJohn 11:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The use of language throughout doesn't help; we have double negatives ("not allowing non-Christians"), repeatedly changing between "BUGS" and "the guild" while the rest of the article, including its title, almost exclusively and more accurately refers a capitalised "Guild", use of over-sensational terms such as funds being "seized" and "claiming" they'd give it back, and awkward grammar.

Agreed re much of the language, even though I wrote a substantial part of it. Several users from different biases have edited this section recently, leading to an increasingly more balanced and accurate section I suspect, but I suspect it also means that the writing is somewhat awkward. (esp as I, for one, was to be honest far too lazy and rushed to make my corrections good grammar.)TheologyJohn 11:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Rather than implement these changes I thought it would be best to articulate them and flag up the section to the Wikipedia community. I agree with Cls14 that its mention would add to the article, but I hope I have outlined why I feel what is currently written is not acurrate, neutral, or entirely relevant at this time.

After making some of the alterations you suggested, and on other cases substantiating the articles accuracy on this page, I have left the community a day short of a month to criticise my claims of accuracy, and in the absense of any response I have removed the accuracy warning. I have also paragraphed and tidied up a bit of the language, hoping to make it a bit easier to read. The language may well need some more tidying. I think this article is particularly relevent at present, in that the CU is one of several around the country considering legal action against their SU's, which has made front pages in national newspapers etc.TheologyJohn 18:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Controversies

Sooner or later someone will want to remove the 'Controversy' section. Everything in it is true and I've referenced properly so please do not remove it or you are defeating the point of Wikipedia. Thanks. Cls14 23:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I just modified the controversies section dealing with BUECU. Firstly, I tried to make it clear what the position of BUECU is re 'democratic elections'. The thing I edited implied that the former exec forced the CU to take whatever group they demanded - that's inaccurate. What actually happens is the exec, consulting the rest of the CU, propose a set of exec members. Members are given time to object, in which case the exec will consider the objections, or to choose to run as independents against the . Although it is unlikely that any independent would get in, given the religious beliefs of most members of the society concerning leadership and the fact that their status as independent proposals would be stated on the ballot paper, it is not the case that individuals cannot run against the Exec's nominations, and it was not the case when BUECU was derecognised (although it was until the december before they were derecognised).

I also removed "However, six other Christian societies (two of them evangelical) have no problem accepting the rules" (which occured after the correct statement that BUECU found it contrary to their religious beliefs to ), because these societies are not comparable, but the article implies that they are. I'm not sure which the six that are referred to are - four of them (AngSoc, MethSoc, CathSoc, and the Navigators) are actually run by specific staff so the problems with leaders do not arise (and the problem with leadership was ultimately the problem with membership, since membership only actually matters for voting priveliges.) Fusion, which I assume is referred to as one of the other evangelical societies (the other is presumably the Navigators) disagrees with UCCF on many many issues (religious and otherwise), which is a matter of great controversy in evangelical circles, and results (among other things) with the two organisations never working together. It is therefore not fair to lump a UCCF Christian Union's religious beliefs in with those of fusion - although they both retain the name evangelical, they also mean VERY different things by that. I don't have a problem with it being pointed out that other Christian societies don't have a problem with adhering to the guild rules, as long as these things are made clear. (I don't know what the sixth Christian society to which the article referred was supposed to be, since there are a few that pop to mind that might be referred to as such. All those that I can think of, though, are both a) unique, incomparable cases, and b) run by staff rather than student leaders anyway.)TheologyJohn 19:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The six are Ang Soc, Cath Soc, Meth Soc, Adventist Soc, Fusion and Navigators with the last two being evangelical. Don't know anything about Adventist but the first three have chaplains and Navs has staff. Fusion is largely student run though and has none of the rules, and the beliefs of individuals in it are largely similar to those of BUECU, although most of the other views are vastly different, which is the conflict with BUECU being fundamentalist and Fusion being neo-evangelical. I guess it's a complicated issue to whether it's a result of religious beliefs or Christian politics which I don't know the answer. Probably an irrelevent comment though, although the origninal one debatably broke the NPOV rule.James Bowes 23:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Ooh James I don't believe I let you get away with contrasting between BUECU as 'fundamentalist' and Fusion as 'neo-evangelical'. BUECU is a diverse group, which does include some 'fundamentalists' by most meaningful definitions (including probably the one you linked to), but mostly includes the heirs of the 'neo-evangelical' movement dominated by figures like John Stott etc. The contrast between neo-evangelical and fundamentalist is generally regarded as long dead, anyway, with neo-evangelicals having won to such an extent that for the most part all of these organisations are dominated by neo-evangelicals - including BUECU (although it tolerates fundamentalists, and tends to be more conservative than Fusion and thus is more likely to attract them, but one can hardly say that BUECU is fundamentalist by any definition other than something like the casual "someone who is more religious than this speaker happens to approve of"). Not that we're going to include that in the article likely, but it might be relevant to future discussions.TheologyJohn 14:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Theology John is re-adding deliberate false information and removing the flag for this. I tried to make it more accurate but he changed it as he didn't want the truth about his cult outed. I suppose he does work for them...147.188.21.112 14:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I have countered with evidence all the specific criticisms of the current article. I have willingly agreed to alter the article by taking out points in BUECU's favour in response to comments on the talk page. Before removing the flag, I countered the criticisms that were made of the section in the talk page in support of the flag, and then waited for a month to see if anyone criticised the section anymore, before removing it, assuming that no-one had any further criticisms to make of it.

I do not work for BUECU, I work as a volunteer with UCCF, and *part* of that involves supporting BUECU - while anyone with friends in that context would find it hard not to be affected by ones relationship towards them, I have openly declared this relationship while seeking to be NPOV in the wikipedian way.

A childish attack upon my good faith without ANY SUPPORTING evidence, and an unsubstantiated claim that BUECU is a cult, really is not on. Just what is the 'false information' that I'm deliberately adding (ie. adding knowing that it's false, I assume your claim is)? If you can provide any evidence that any of this is false, then post it on the talk page - I have removed facts that are positive towards BUECU in response to comments on the talk page, and would be happy to do so again.

My suspicion is that you are the troll that has recently been vandalising this section of the site. If so, a mere look at the page history would be sufficient to demonstrate that this is lies. However, since this may not be the case, I have had to back up my argument here.

If you actually have any evidence to support the claims you're making about BUECU and the event concerned, I suggest you consult the relevant wikipedia documents and provide it.TheologyJohn 14:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Redbrick

The Guild of Students publishes a weekly newspaper called Redbrick, which the president holds ultimate control over the contents of as executive editor and can censor it at any time. In 2006 a group of students established an alternative student newspaper and online discussion forum, The Radish.

The second statement requires citation, or probably should be removed. 82.10.216.25 15:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

President

A user has multiple times edited the name of the president on this site to Richard Morris from Gary Hughes. The BUGS website (http://www.bugs.bham.ac.uk/yourguild/exec06.asp) indicates that Gary Hughes is currently the president. I'm not sure why the name of the president is being changed, but I would request some kind of evident that the website is wrong if it is going to be changed from my re-revert to Gary Hughes.TheologyJohn 14:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)