Students at UCL could vote to overturn the controversial military ban passed last year.

A motion submitted to the union’s Welcome General Meeting calls for the union “to allow military organisations such as the OTC to attend UCL Union events, including the fresher’s fayre, and advertise on the premises and on the website.”

Military organisations were banned from UCL Union premises in a controversial union general meeting at the end of the last academic year, sparking national outrage.

Motion proposer Mandy Smith has been working hard to advertise the WGM, to be held on Wednesday October 8^th at 5.30pm in the Bloomsbury Theatre.

She said: “I think our success depends on turnout. I assume the WGM might be better attended than the AGM, as politically active freshers come along.

“I’ve also set up a group on Facebook: ‘OTC on campus? Join the debate.’ Hopefully we can recreate the heat at the time of the original motion and channel it into the WGM.”

But opposition to military presence on campus remains strong, with anti-war students staging a ‘die-in’ protest in the college quad last week, in front of an OTC recruitment stand. UCL management had allowed the stall as the ban only covers union premises.

Following widespread allegations that the ban was only passed due to voting irregularities at the summer AGM, UCL Union has invested in a more robust voting system this time around.

Charlie Clinton, UCL Union Communications and Services Officer, said: “The new voting system is an electronic touchpad system. Everyone will be given a pad when they enter the room, which will be signed out and taken off them when they leave.

“As well as allowing voting to happen almost instantaneously and accurately, this has the added effect of ensuring we know for a fact at any given time how many people are present in the room, and so whether or not we are quorate.”

He added: “The Union welcomes all motions submitted by our members, and we look forward to the coming debate.”

Tags: military ban, UCL Union, voting, WGM

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 02:01 and is filed under News, Sidebar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.