Sinéad Baker | Editor-at-Large
The annual mailout pack of society information that is posted to the residences of incoming freshers before they come to college has this year been halted by organisers. The material is now scheduled to be distributed to incoming students in an online format, however the exercise has resulted in many societies making a loss, as they have been asked to return printing costs.
The mailout, organised by The Hist and The Phil, allows other societies to buy inclusion on the basis of a contribution towards postage and packing.
The University Times understands that a reason for the halt cited by The Phil and the CSC was that the exercise also faced further logistical issues due to a change in the College’s registration system for incoming students, in which more strict data protection criteria have been introduced. The College did offer the Central Societies Committee (CSC) access to part of its database however it was reportedly found that this action would potentially encroach data protection laws. The same reason prevented the Students’ Union from doing their annual mailout of information about the union to these incoming students.
The mailout was also reportedly stopped partly due to the late withdrawal of several societies that had committed for this year, which would seemingly place the exercise in a loss making position, and because some materials due to be included had not arrived by the agreed date. Societies were told that sending the pack without these materials would have exposed the exercise to an even greater loss, and waiting for the arrival of these materials would mean the mailout would arrive after the students had come to College and thus the materials could not serve their intended purpose.
For these reasons, the organisers made the decision to pull out of mailing the packs before the postage money was lost. The Strategic Development Officer of the CSC, Mr Joe O’Gorman, has worked with the College so that the materials can be distributed to incoming freshers in an electronic format. Some societies are electing to hand out the materials from their stands on freshers week, and at Trinity Hall on the preceding Saturday.
Sarah Mortell, President of The Phil and one of the organisers of the mailout, emailed societies involved to express that “all of us acted in good faith and are extremely disappointed that the mailout cannot proceed”.
Photo by Andrew Murphy
Correction: 22:00, September 9, 2014
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the title of Sarah Mortell’s position within The Phil. She is president of the society.
