The Oxford Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre has received a £10,000 grant from the Lottery, enabling it to resume group meetings and continue providing services to residents of Oxford.

The award winning support service was set up as a pilot scheme last year. The group aimed to provide support for the victims of the 500 sexual offences, including 111 rapes, reported to the Oxfordshire police in 2011-12. Phone lines allow for completely anonymous calls between a few minutes or up to an hour long. Specially trained volunteers provide support that is “non-directive” and “non-judgemental”, meaning that no views will be imposed on the caller, whose decisions will be respected.

Women are offered the opportunity to meet up with others who have had similar experiences. Oxford University RAG and Oxford Brookes RAG both provided financial support in July. Fundraising activities including a bungee jump, RAG Ball, dodgeball tournament, drinks events and charity formals, all contributed towards the donation. Manager Natalie Brook said, “The generosity of students is hugely appreciated.

OSARCC relies on the support of individuals and local businesses to ensure specialist services for survivors of sexual violence are maintained”One female Oxford student, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke about her experience of rape in College. “It can be quite a subtle thing, you can agree to make out but that doesn’t mean anything more, consent can be given but can then be taken away. Sometimes the other person just doesn’t give you the time or chance to voice your opposition, or you feel an obligation after being bought drinks or spending time with them.”

She added, “Many women have an image of rape as only what happens down a dark alleyway with a stranger, this isn’t the case, especially not in student life.”Speaking about the Lottery grant, Brook said, “Specialist services for female survivors of sexual violence are rare and underfunded in Oxfordshire, despite the number of people accessing our services increasing year on year, so we are delighted to announce a continuation of the service for the next year.”

OUSU Women’s Officer, Suzanne Holsomback said, “OSARCC is important to OUSU and Oxford Students because Natalie Brook and Lisa Ward, OSARCC’s Service Manager and Volunteer Coordinator, provide expertise and wisdom in thinking through how to end sexual violence in the university. In addition, Lisa co-facilitated two Sexual Consent Facilitators Training sessions with me before Michaelmas Term. Most importantly, OSARCC provides exceptional support to students and supporters of students who are experiencing the effects of sexual violence.”

Volunteers undergo specialised training and are involved for at least 18 months. Confidentiality is emphasised. For example, the organisation’s website features a guide to clearing web browsing history and additionally an ‘escape to Google’ button to maintain discretion.

Another female student told Cherwell, “Anonymity is crucial. I’ve had experiences when I’ve been terrified to name names, there’s a disproportionate burden of proof on the victim. People should be able to say something occurred without going into any more detail than they want to go into. I’ve never felt able to talk to College about the events or how they continue to affect me.

The Oxford Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre has received a £10,000 grant from the Lottery, enabling it to resume group meetings and continue providing services to residents of Oxford.The award winning support service was set up as a pilot scheme last year.

The group aimed to provide support for the victims of the 500 sexual offences, including 111 rapes, reported to the Oxfordshire police in 2011-12. Phone lines allow for completely anonymous calls between a few minutes or up to an hour long. Specially trained volunteers provide support that is “non-directive” and “non-judgemental”, meaning that no views will be imposed on the caller, whose decisions will be respected. Women are offered the opportunity to meet up with others who have had similar experiences.

Oxford University RAG and Oxford Brookes RAG both provided financial support in July. Fundraising activities including a bungee jump, RAG Ball, dodgeball tournament, drinks events and charity formals, all contributed towards the donation. Manager Natalie Brook said, “The generosity of students is hugely appreciated. OSARCC relies on the support of individuals and local businesses to ensure specialist services for survivors of sexual violence are maintained” 

One female Oxford student, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke about her experience of rape in College. “It can be quite a subtle thing, you can agree to make out but that doesn’t mean anything more, consent can be given but can then be taken away. Sometimes the other person just doesn’t give you the time or chance to voice your opposition, or you feel an obligation after being bought drinks or spending time with them.”

She added, “Many women have an image of rape as only what happens down a dark alleyway with a stranger, this isn’t the case, especially not in student life.”

Speaking about the Lottery grant, Brook said, “Specialist services for female survivors of sexual violence are rare and underfunded in Oxfordshire, despite the number of people accessing our services increasing year on year, so we are delighted to announce a continuation of the service for the next year.”

OUSU Women’s Officer, Suzanne Holsomback said, “OSARCC is important to OUSU and Oxford Students because Natalie Brook and Lisa Ward, OSARCC’s Service Manager and Volunteer Coordinator, provide expertise and wisdom in thinking through how to end sexual violence in the university. In addition, Lisa co-facilitated two Sexual Consent Facilitators Training sessions with me before Michaelmas Term. Most importantly, OSARCC provides exceptional support to students and supporters of students who are experiencing the effects of sexual violence.”

Volunteers undergo specialised training and are involved for at least 18 months. Confidentiality is emphasised. For example, the organisation’s website features a guide to clearing web browsing history and additionally an ‘escape to Google’ button to maintain discretion.

Another female student told Cherwell, “Anonymity is crucial. I’ve had experiences when I’ve been terrified to name names, there’s a disproportionate burden of proof on the victim. People should be able to say something occurred without going into any more detail than they want to go into. I’ve never felt able to talk to College about the events or how they continue to affect me.

The Christ Church Regatta may be cancelled due to dangerous river conditions. Recent heavy rainfalls led to extended periods when the river was out-of-bounds to rowers. As Christ Church Regatta is an event specifically for novices, lack of training on the water could also prevent rowers from gaining crucial experience before the event.

The Regatta is due to take place from Wednesday to Sunday of 7th Week. The river has been “red-flagged” since Sunday, although this term has seen the flag conditions change regularly. This has seriously disrupted training schedules. 

A red flag, issued by the Oxford University Rowing Club, prohibits any crews from taking to the river. The flags relate to the speed of the river flow, based mainly on the number open at the Iffley and Hinksey Weirs. 

Some rowers have also linked the high water levels to the construction of a dam at Otley Mill, claiming that the locks had to remain open to accomodate this development.

Tom Preston, Secretary of the St John’s Boat Club, told Cherwell, “the problem is that the ground around Oxford, and especially upstream, is saturated from a summer of rain. So any rain we do get quite rapidly pushes the water levels and the flag up. I think it’s too early to say whether it will be cancelled either way but any heavy rain will make it more likely.”

A statement by the Oxford University Lightweight Rowing Club urged Boat Clubs not to give up, saying. “With water levels on the Isis increasingly unpredictable it’s important to give your novices (and senior squads) as many chances to race as possible. 

They added, ‘Don’t let the weather rob your freshers of any racing this term – in the past decade Christ Church has been wholly or partially cancelled on at least 4 occasions, while Nephthys Regatta has gone ahead in full every time.”

Joe Larvin, Captain of Boats at St John’s, told Cherwell “If Christ Church is cancelled that would be a real shame. John’s novices have replaced all the sessions they are missing on the water with ergs so have work just as hard, if not harder, then all the other years so they really deserve a chance to race.”

“The only positive is that hopefully lots of them won’t want to stop rowing after this term as they’ll want to get a taste of racing and take part in torpids. This will increase the competition for seats in M1 and M2 but I really do hope that they can get some form of racing this term.”

Former St John’s cox Will Todman, commented, “Competitions are the most exciting thing about rowing and if fewer people take it up as a result of this, then that is a real shame for Oxford rowing.”

An OUSU motion, which suggested the acronym LGBTQ should henceforward be referred to by OUSU as BGLQT, failed to pass. The motion, proposed by Merton student Martin Lester in 3rd week stated that “Sexualities, just as gender and nationality options, should be alphabetically ordered.”

The motion noted that “People of all sexualities are equal in rights, and not limited to ‘heterosexual’ and homosexual’”. It continued, “In a variety of material produced by OUSU, including its website and the Fresher’s Guide 2012, there are references to ‘LGBTQ’. The alphabetical ordering of ‘LGBTQ’ is ‘BGLQT’. OUSU material should present sexualities in alphabetical order.

The motion resolved “To support such a change in material produced by OUSU”, and “To mandate the Vice-President (Welfare & Equal Opportunities) and LGBTQ Officer to effect such a change.’

At the meeting, Lester drew attention to the fact that, in the previous council, a motion had been passed to support a change in the University’s online postgraduate application forms that would switch gender options “male” and “female” over, as “Gender, just as nationality options, should be alphabetically ordered.’

He argued that, at present, the LGBTQ ordering of sexualities was “not consistent” with this, and that it was “hypocritical” to ask the University to change the ordering on its forms without addressing the order of LGBTQ. 

However, OUSU LGBTQ rep Jess Pumphrey asked, “Have you spoken to anyone in the LGBTQ movement about this?” One student present at the meeting added, “Have you considered that changing the order makes it look like the word ‘bigot’?”

Pumphrey continued, “I have spoken to the LGBTQ community and they’re saying this is silly: we didn’t ask for this. The ordering is not arbitrary, it signifies the whole community as a solid banner.”

Lester disagreed, saying, “I think it’s humourous to claim that the term is standardised. If we’re serious about consistency then we must be consistent in gender ordering.” Pumphrey added, “There’s a difference between the ordering of LGBTQ and the ordering of options on a form. LGBTQ is a solid thing, it’s an acronym.” The motion then failed to pass.

Pumphrey, not commenting in their role as OUSU LGBTQ rep, later told Cherwell, “I opposed this motion on behalf of the LGBTQ community. “LGBTQ” is not an arbitrary jumble of letters – it is an identifiable brand that students, especially new students, will look for in its current form. It is a quite different matter from form options, where “female or male” and “male or female” are equally clear, and both have the same meaning.”

Andrew Hall, LGBTQ rep at St Anne’s and Secretary of LGBTQsoc, commented, “As LGBTQ is such an established term used by all relevant charities and organisations – it makes absolutely no sense to change the acronym.” Edward Nickell, equalities representative at Exeter College, agreed, adding, “plus, it just rolls off the tongue better.’

Members of the Oxford University Royal Navy Unit have been supporting the Royal British Legion by selling poppies in Oxford along with other volunteers. 

The unit visited Oxford railway station on Thursday to collect money for the Legion’s Poppy Appeal.

The Unit, which drills every Thursday during term time, is made up of 51 students from Oxford University, Oxford Brookes and Reading University. It has been going since 1994, and is based in Falklands House on Oxpens Road.

Sub Lt. Patrick Vickers, who took part, told Cherwell “I believe we sold in the region of 1000 poppies. How much we raised is unconfirmed but I am hoping for between £1500 and £2000.

“There was a huge drive this year to have members of the armed forces selling poppies throughout London. We decided that it made more sense for us to sell poppies in Oxford as it made better use of our resources and we were able to promote Remembrance Day in our own city.

“I was very pleased with the Unit’s efforts, all working together as a team to help one another out and maintain a continuous 12 hour watch. I was able to have a minimum of two personnel collecting throughout the day and at the peak times, at least six.”

Each year approximately 45 million poppies are distributed to raise money for the Royal British Legion.

The organization, which was founded in 1921, provides life-long care and support to serving members of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force, reservists, veterans of all ages and their families.

JCRs are considering motions to boycott Sky TV for charging them the full £6,000 subscription, denying them a charitable status discount. 

The public license fee charged by Sky is contested by JCRs because they maintain that their charitable status is valid, despite Sky judging otherwise. 

St Hugh’s and Wadham are currently subscribed to Sky and are leading a movement by JCRs to boycott the TV provider in order to make it reconsider its position. 

St Hugh’s President Sara Polakova called for an emergency meeting last Sunday to discuss the issue with the JCR, emailing students to say, “The JCR Committee will put forward alternative and cheaper packages from other providers to be put in place of Sky. Every package including Sky will be debated upon and pros/cons will be discussed with the JCR members present.”

She urged students to attend, stating, “Even if you don’t watch Sky there is over 6,000 pounds of the JCR being debated over, so make an appearance.”

Sophie Jamieson, a third year student at St Hugh’s commented, “The atmosphere was fraught at Sunday’s meeting, with some of the contributors to the debate getting pretty aggressive. Although people argued that Sky wasn’t just for football fans, at times it seemed a battle of St Hugh’s Football Club versus the rest of the JCR. The use of the JCR TV at peak times is almost monopolised by sports fans, so in my opinion not having Sky Sports would be great, as then the TV would be available for back to back screenings of Great British Bake Off.”

Praful Nargund, a member of St Hugh’s football team, highlighted the popularity of watching TV in the JCR, telling Cherwell, “There should be some sports provision and in fact the JCR has agreed with this sentiment, having voted to guarantee that there will be an alternative package by 0th week of Hilary or to go back to Sky if nothing is found. I’ve spoken to the JCR and it appears that they’ve made some progress in finding similar, but cheaper packages.”

In Wadham, previous JCR motions to change the provider have been defeated. SU President of Wadham Jahnavi Emmanuel noted “Last term, our SU defeated another motion to switch to another provider” and stated, “The SU will continue to pay for it as long as its members want the service.”

Oscar Boyd, St Anne’s JCR President, expressed solidarity, stating, “Anne’s doesn’t have Sky and cannot afford it because Sky is not offering the charity rate. However, we are keen to offer support to all the colleges and agree with the boycott and commit to action if it occurs.”

Corpus Christi also suffered from the changes in Sky’s pricing policy. The Treasurer was unanimously mandated at a JCR meeting last year to resubscribe to Sky. However when it was found that they were not able to get a charitable discount, the JCR decided they were unable to afford it. 

Former director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, has been delivering a series of lectures at St Peter’s College this week on the theme of ‘Policy, rhetoric, and public bewilderment – The Cloud of Unknowing’. 

Thompson, who is Visiting Professor in Rhetoric and the Art of Public Persuasion, stepped down from his role at the BBC in September 2012, and is due to start work as CEO of The New York Times on Monday.

He is the first to take up this professorship which is hosted by Humanitas. Humanitas comprises a series of visiting professorships at Oxford and Cambridge enabling high-profile scholars and experts to speak about issues in the arts and social sciences. 

Former BBC Radio 4 controller and Master of St Peter’s Mark Damazer said he was “thrilled” to host Thompson, adding, “It is a very real and personal pleasure.”

BBC Trust chairman and Chancellor of Oxford University Chris Patten, as well as Sir Roger Bannister and current BBC Radio 4 controller Gwyneth Williams attended the inaugural lecture on Monday. 

Thompson used this first lecture to highlight the way in which public language, driven by media and technology, has become more focused on reductive and combative phrases, referring to examples like Sarah Palin’s coining of the term “death panels” in the debate over healthcare form in the US.

He discussed how this made explaining evermore complicated issues, and therefore enacting political reform, increasingly difficult. This concern was revisited in his second lecture where he talked about the tricky relationship between the public and the authority of science, highlighting the climate change debate as an example.

Proceedings at the first lecture were overshadowed by the ongoing controversy surrounding child abuse claims made against the late presenter Jimmy Savile, over which the BBC has come under considerable criticism in recent weeks. 

In a statement delivered after his speech Mr Thompson expressed “shock and sadness” and reiterated his non-involvement, saying, “Despite what you all may have read in the papers I had heard none of the stories about Jimmy Savile.” He insisted that the BBC was “doing exactly the right thing” in launching inquiries and said he was a “very strong supporter” of them. A subsequent audience question on the matter was met with widespread disapproval by other audience members, and politely declined by Damazer, who asserted that it was “[his] decision, not Mark’s”.

In his third lecture, in which he talked about the moral rhetoric surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Thompson said there was a “dangerously wide” gap between people and policy makers, and called for a “new and different education” to provide the public with the “civic literacy” to engage with issues. 

The last event is a symposium chaired by journalist Andrew Marr, where Mr Thompson will be joined by Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, former head of the civil service Gus O’ Donnell, and universities minister David Willetts.

A Twitter map made by a team from Oxford University predicted the outcome of the US election. Dr Mark Graham and his team from the Oxford Internet Institute collected 30 million tweets referring to Obama and Romney between 1 October and 1 November. The map displayed a total of 132,771 tweets mentioning Obama and 120,637 referring to Romney.

Graham commented, “I doubted that they would accurately predict that Obama would win in Texas, or that Romney would win in Massachusetts. But the overall outcome was accurate. They also reveal that many internet users in California, Texas, and much of the country prefer talking about Obama to talking about Romney.”

He added, “The point of the work wasn’t to predict the election, but rather to understand the geography of online election-related information. It turned out that the number of references to Obama as opposed to Romney are surprisingly similar to their actual poll numbers.

The recent JCR presidential elections at St John’s have been branded ‘farcical’ as nominations were re-opened after both candidates for the position obtained too few votes in an election that was originally declared invalid.

Harry Kind obtained 29% of the vote and Shyam Thakerar 31% but RON (‘Re-Open Nominations’) emerged victorious with 40%.

Both candidates have expressed disappointment at the outcome with Kind commenting, “I wasn’t expecting us both to be RONed at all: I thought both Shyam and I were similarly matched in the campaign and that he definitely would have made a great JCR President. I’m not really sure why it happened.” He attributed some responsibility, however, to their concern for the environment, telling Cherwell, “Both Shyam and I ran low key campaigns – neither of us wanted to waste out the environment by putting posters everywhere – so it may have been that because people hadn’t seen much of us, they just didn’t vote for either of us.”

Although he admitted that only 20-30 people attended the hustings, Kind maintained that he had the chance to get his views across to the masses, commenting, “The videos [of the hustings] were watched at least a hundred times on Youtube.”

As Kind had previously run for President and Vice President unsuccessfully and had subsequently been RONed in his campaign for Academic and Access, some John’s students thought that this would be an easy victory for Thakerar. Thakerar has stressed that despite the setback, he is still keen to get involved with JCR politics, telling Cherwell, “Losing the election was obviously disappointing, but I still believe that the JCR can benefit from my policies and I am determined to run again for the opportunity to implement them.”

The elections were also originally declared invalid owing to an electoral discrepancy.

In an e-mail sent to the JCR following the election, Uche Ukachi, the current President, wrote, “I regret to inform you that the results of the elections tonight are invalid. This is because of the discrepancy between the number of people who voted and ballot papers. The difference would have been of high importance to the outcome.”

However an electoral tribunal subsequently ruled that the discrepancies were “within error and the voting scrutiny process was fair with minimal potential for multiple votes” leading to the original results standing.

When contacted, Ukachi defended his actions, claiming, “I might have generated some confusion by announcing the invalidation rather than suspension but we could not in good conscience announce results without first finding out why we were out by nine votes.”

The reaction from students has been mixed. Kind told Cherwell that, “I think most would rather us have a JCR President than not.” On the other hand, Fergus Butler-Gallie opined that “The only people who can be bothered to stand in the annual farces that are JCR elections are third rate hacks with nothing better to do, No wonder that even those (only 40% or so) who bothered to turn out chose RON by a pretty sizeable margin.”

Kind, however, suggested that this was unfair on JCR politics and that “Perhaps having previously run for positions made me look like a power-crazed hack in it for the glory, but I think if that were actually the case, I’d go for some shiny position in the Union.”

Ukachi added, “Only active engagement with JCR affairs would have generated those results. As far as I am aware, there was no RON Campaign and the result reflects the vote of the student population.”

Last week, the Oxford University Harry Potter Society welcomed new members to the club through a ‘Sorting Ceremony’ at Harris Manchester College. This was the second annual sorting and has been deemed by the committee as “a huge success overall”, with 100 people attending.

The ceremony was accompanied by background music from the film soundtracks. Overall, 41 students were sorted into Ravenclaw, 23 into Gryffindor, 15 into Hufflepuff and 17 into Slytherin.

The Harry Potter society was founded last Hilary term with 25 paid members and others paying to attend individual events. So far this year, the society has gained 50 paid members and an extensive mailing list.

During the evening, the sorting hat sang a song before allocating students to one of the four houses. Unless students knew what House they would like to join, or had been assigned one by the Harry Potter website, Pottermore, society members were required to complete an Oxford University House Test for which they had to submit their answers to the committee prior to the sorting. 

Questions involved several scenarios such as cheating in a maths test, finding a lost wallet in the street or being publicly accused by a child of stealing his toy.  Students were sorted into Houses according to their answers.

Following the sorting, a Harry Potter pub quiz was held with the winners being deemed the ‘Oxford University Harry Potter Champions’ and receiving horcrux bookmarks. Teams included “The Beaters”, “The Quizengamot”, and “Yer a quizard, Harry”, with the competitors having faced questions on all things Harry Potter related, caption competitions and a drinking “potions” round.

The sorting was only one of several events held by the society this last week. Other events included a costumed Halloween Film Screening of  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and a meeting for the Molly Weasley Club, a crafts club for which students are currently getting together to knit house scarves.

Thomas Reynolds, speaking about the society, commented, “It is going from strength to strength and we’re all very excited for the sold-out Yule Ball coming up later this term. We’ve got a really full term card and there is something for everyone, from knitting, to films, to bar crawls. We now have a mailing list of over 700 people, which is very exciting. We look forward to working with the Quidditch Society as well, as they welcome Reading for a match this term.”

Some students are sceptical as to the value of such clubs. One LMH first year asked: “How did these people get into this university?”

Another countered, “If someone started a COD society, people wouldn’t say that it’s weird, so why do they about a Harry Potter society? This is Oxford, we’re all nerds so why should anyone else care about people being enthusiastic about their interests?”

Self declared student of ‘Muggle Studies’, Lara Sherwood, said “The society provide the chance to channel your inner Muggle during the stressful Oxford academic term and an opportunity to meet like-minded Potterheads.”

Harry Potter fans can also look forward to Hacked Off Film’s immersive screening of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Exeter College’s Dining Hall on Friday of 7th week.  This event will present a ‘Hogwarts’ experience to students, who will be able to interact with the actors as if they were at Hogwarts, dress up and eat chocolate frogs.