[HDNG]CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' UNION:[EHDNG][PARA][GRPH]P4[EGRPH][STAT][BULL] 5 sabbatical [BULL] Turnout at last ballot: 32% [BULL] NUS member Yes[ESTAT][PARA][ITAL]The colleges' JCRs have really plugged the gap that students' unions usually fill and CUSU (which, to be fair is good at what it does) is a bit of a stranded fish. Its facilities don't reflect Cambridge's stature and, as far as most students are aware, CUSU's activities are limited to the publication of various handbooks [EITAL](Societies Guide, Diary, termly paper, Sex Guide and Green Guide)[ITAL] [EITAL]weekly 'Wallpaper' for JCR noticeboards, [ITAL]and lashings of political hackery. However, even the politics is limited, because most students get all the politics they need through their own JCR. But JCRs lack any party political element, and CUSU provides that party atmosphere. On the quiet, CUSU does all sorts of valiant representation and welfare work in the University, [EITAL]trains and advises JCR officers and co-ordinates more societies than there are days in the academic year. Colleges affiliate to CUSU and NUS if they choose to - look at the separate college entries to check on individual arrangements.[HDNG]SU FACILITIES:[EHDNG][PARA]CUSU facilities include; cheap photocopier, fax, stationery, condoms; minibus and video camera hire. Practically speaking, it aims at providing for JCRs who then provide amenities for individual students.[BOLD][HDNG]CLUBS (NON SPORTING):[EHDNG][EBOLD][PARA]Here's a list of Cambridge's special societies (not including the academic ones, the 'standard' ones listed at the back of [PUSH]push[EPUSH], or those based in colleges): ready, steady, oh my god...[PARA]Aartvark (life-drawing); Act-Ecology; AFS Returnees; Air Squadron; Alternative SPS (odd); Amateur Dramatics; Amnesty International; Anglo-Japanese; Anti-Bloodsports; Anti-Nazi League; Astronomical; Backgammon; Baha'i; Ballet; Bangladesh; Bankers; Beethoven; Black Caucus; Bone Marrow Campaign; Brass Band; Bridge; British Medical Association; Buddhism and Meditation; Bungy Jumping; Cambridge Forum; Cambridge Union Society; Cambridge Union Society Boycott; Campaign against Nestle; Campaign for Humane Teaching; Campus Children's Holidays; Canadian; Canal (boating and barges); Caving; Change Ringers (bells); Choice (access to HE); Chocolate; Christian Graduate; Christian Musical; Christians in Science; Cobblers; Cognitive Science; Comic (the paper variety not stand-up); Community Church; Computer; Contact (helping the elderly); Critical Justice (jurisprudence); C S Lewis (religion through the writer's works); Cyprus; Decorating; Detective Fiction; Dionysian (love); Diplomacy (game); Dippers; Down to Earth; Dr Who; Duke of Edinburgh Award; English Country Dance; English Speaking Union; Environment Action; Esperanto; European Theatre Group (international touring company); Explorers and Travellers; Film Unit; First Aid; Fisher Society (Catholic); Fitzwilliam Museum; Footlights (comedy); Free (libertarian); French; French and Saunders; Friends of the Earth; Gamelan (gongs); Garden Project; German; Gilbert and Sullivan;Global Consciousness; Go (game); Greek; Grimsoc (professional Northerners); Holistic Medicine; Hong Kong and China Affairs; Humanist; Imfundo (South African Educational Trust); India; Inner Temple (legal); Inter Disciplinary Environment Group; International; Irish; Israel; Jews and Christians; Jomsborg the New (fantasy); Jugglers; Kettle's Yard (visual arts); Kukudd; Lady Margaret Players; Light Entertainment; Link Africa; Linkline; Literary; Lysander Spooner (libertarian); Mah-Jong; Malaysia and Singapore; Marlowe Dramatic (professional theatre and director); Massage; Matchbox Peoples (don't ask); Mauritian; Men's Group; Methodist; Middle East; Montiverdi Ensemble; Motorcycle ; Mummers; Mystical; Natural History; NIMPH (Nothing In My Pigeon Hole); Nocturnal Promotions (alternative); Norman Moore Centre (environmental info); Norwegian; Opera; Operation Raleigh; Overlanders (rough travel); Oxbridge Rejects; Oxfam; Pakistan; Palestine Solidarity; Palestinian; Parkside Christian Fellowship; Pottery; Preston (drama); Pro-Choice; Progressive Jewish; Pro-Life (anti-abortion); Psychical Research; Quakers; Quorum; Rabbit's Ears (origami); Railway; Republic of China; Robert Hall (Baptist); Rock and Roll Society; Role-playing; St John Ambulance; Save The Children's Fund; Science Fiction; Scientists for Global responsibility; Scottish; Scouts and Guides; Seres (Chinese magazine); Sheila and Her Dog (relapse into childhood); Sheridan (drama); Shirley (arts and literature); Slavonic and East European; Space; Sri Lanka; Strathsprey and Reel (Scottish dancing); Stretched Drawers (art); Student Birders; Student Christian Council (network of Christian groups); Student Christian Movement (politics and Christianity); Support for the Homeless; Survival (tribal rights); Target Schools Campaign (state education access); Third World First; Tibet Support; Tiddlywinks; Tolkien; Tory Reform Group; Traffic Research; Transcendental Meditation; Trinity Foot Bagels; Turf (horse-racing); Turkish; 20th Century Christian Music; UNICEF; United Nations; Up Shit Creek Without a Paddle (ignore exams); URC; Viva Cabaret; Virtue without Terror (poetry); Welsh; Wine; Yoga; Young Europeans.[HDNG]OTHER ORGANISATIONS:[EHDNG][PARA][BOLD]Drama:[EBOLD] [ITAL]As previously mentioned, (see above) there is a thespian epidemic at loose in Cambridge. It is second only to sport in the number of degrees it swallows in its desire to consume every waking hour of those who fall prey to its virus. It's hardly possible to eat a meal without being asked to buy a theatre ticket for some nude version of Shakespeare or a musical adaptation of Oedipus Rex.[EITAL] Just like in the real world, to put on a show, students have to grovel and scrounge for funding, usually from the 20 or so theatre groups, which is more angels than most heavenly hosts can boast. Opportunities, both treading on the boards and backstage, are abundant and many perfectly ordinary freshers go home to their parents at Xmas as fully fledged luvvies. MMWAAH![PARA][PARA][BOLD]Media:[EBOLD] The award-winning 'Varsity', is the first student newspaper to have gone into full colour and now produces an annual Year Book too. CUSU publishes 'Wallpaper', weekly. There are endless magazines which rise and die, some surviving longer than others. College magazines, which are usually no more than crude gossipy muck-rakers, 'Spark' (Arts), 'Quorum' (Politics) and 'Corridor' (feminist) deserve a mention. Cambridge University Radio broadcasts from Churchill to a very small area although expansion is in the air waves.[PARA][PARA][BOLD]Cambridge Union Society:[EBOLD] The 2nd oldest university debating society (after Oxford) and a right-wing stronghold. With a few student facilities (bar, cafe, reading room, etc) [ITAL]the Union can lay some claim to having scuppered CUSU. But the Union's on a rocky road itself these days, not attracting speakers of quite the same calibre any more and membership flagging (partly 'cos it costs a packet to join)[EITAL]. [ITAL]The Cambridge Union Boycott Society looks on, grinning[EITAL].[PARA][PARA][BOLD]Rag: [EBOLD]Colleges compete in raising money for the University's charity Rag. With competition spurring them on, they raised a total of รบ100,000 last year. [ITAL]A notch on the bedpost for the free market?[EITAL][PARA][PARA][BOLD]Student Community Action:[EBOLD] You'll notice from the list above that there's a number of Cambridge clubs with a conscience. Some of these and other organisations - in all about 50 - do voluntary work in all sectors of the community. [ITAL]Unlike at many universities, this is not a public relations exercise to improve local feeling towards students. That relationship is already fairly good, it's a genuine and high profile attempt to do something about local problems.[EITAL][PARA][PARA][BOLD]Music:[EBOLD] Cambridge offers the perfect chance to get together and make sweet music, mostly of the classical variety with the Chamber Orchestra (CUCO), the Music Society (CUMS) or in any of the many college orchestras, choirs, etc. Contemporary musicians, ie poppers and rockers, either form bands the usual way or use the Musicians Directory to find each other. If they're any good or know the student ents officer concerned or both, student bands can reckon on a gig or 2 at college bops. Jazz is also pretty big, [ITAL]but not like it was in the late fifties, daddio[EITAL]. And the list goes on, opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, Christian singers, brass bands, bells, gongs, guitars, nose flutes and so on and on and...[HDNG]RELIGIOUS:[EHDNG][PARA][ITAL]Religion is fashionable at Cambridge and at some time, most students either play the role of the converter or the convertible and often both.[EITAL] It's not enough to say Anglican Christianity is the norm (although it's true that most colleges have a CofE or inter-denominational chapel and chaplain - Corpus Christi has a mosque). Even this takes every form from incense swingers to rockin' vicars. Every denomination of Christianity is here with Catholics close behind the Anglicans in the spiritual charts and virtually no religion unrepresented (including a few religious orders started by students wanting to avoid poll tax). Try the following for some communal God squadding: The Christian Union (Anglican); the Fisher Society (Catholic); the Methodists; the Islamic Society (linked to local mosque); not 1, but 2 Jewish societies, Progressive and Orthodox (with a synagogue, rabbi and kosher restaurant of their own) and so on. There are local places of worship for Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.[HDNG]PAID WORK:[EHDNG][PARA]It's actually against the University statutes (the 2,372 commandments God forgot to give to Moses) to do a job during term time and technically, students can be rusticated for it (ooh, painful, madam). During vacations, the University can't stop them but with far too many students for the number of local jobs, circumstance can. The tourist trade offers the only hope.
