C4 Legends
30/11/2006

C4 Legends is an event where all former Sabbatical officers are invited back to see where the Union is now and see what they helped create.

During the day past officers receive a 'State of the Union' address from the President, before separating into a series of workshops and breakout sessions where they will hear the problems faced in the year by the current Sabbs and the Union draws on the knowledge that the former Sabbs have to try and work out ways to address these problems.

The evening is a chance for the Union to thank those former officers and a formal dinner takes place before a celebration in the Union building for the work that the former Sabbs have undertaken and contributed to where the Union stands now.

Are you a former Sabb? Do you know who your Sabbs were? If so please contact us at Sabbaticals@FriendsofCCSU.org.uk so we can add you to our list and make sure you are at the next C4 Legends event.

The first C4 Legends day was held on 2nd July 2005 and the event is scheduled as being bi-annual, although the second one is now scheduled for summer 2009. Below you will find the "State of the Union Address" given by the Union President at the first event:



“State Of The Union Address”

Written by Greame Wise (President 2003 – 2004)
Delivered by James Dunn (President 2004 – 2005)


Good afternoon everyone,

It is my honour and privilege to welcome you all here today, back to the union which every one of you played your part in building. When you were involved, you knew the union had a future, but you could only hope that that future would be great. Just look around you. This is a union we can be proud of.

We are no longer a small organisation struggling for recognition; we are a powerful voice for the students of Christ Church.

We are no longer fighting for survival on the financial brink; we are a union which has surplus and security.

We no longer try too hard to be respectable, but we are respected because we hold true to our beliefs and our principles.

Before this year is over, we will no longer be a college, we will be a university, but we will always be C4.

I am so proud to be the President of this union, and I am so grateful to have the chance to give this speech, not just to tell you that the state of the union is strong, but that we are only strong because of you. We are strong because of your tireless work, we are strong because of your dedication, and we are strong thanks to the strength of your ideas and inspiration over forty years. On behalf of all the present students, I want to thank you.

This afternoon I’m going to tell you all about the union that you built. I’m going to tell you about our history, I’m going to celebrate our present, and I’m going to offer a vision for our future.

In 1964, student representation was hard work. Money would have been tight, the rules of the college even tighter. The union was based in Erasmus, in what is now a classroom called Eg01. Humble beginnings you might think, but it is clear that even then the concept of the union having a home of its own was vital. I know I wouldn’t be without it today. Representation and communication were the foundations of the student community. See from this copy of Insight, at that time the student newspaper, how C4 was a big hitter at the NUS national conference. The conference was even held in Margate that year.

I’ve been digging around in the college archive recently, and I’ve seen many of these magazines. I’m amazed at the standard, which today’s full time media sabbaticals work hard to meet. But just think how important this magazine would have been: with just 380 students in the college, it would probably have been read by almost every student. Communication was the key then: I believe that communication with our students is still the key to our success.

I want to share something with you that astounds me. In another edition of Insight from this year the editorial complains about lack of interest in the union elections. They weren’t happy that the turnout was only 78 percent! If only we could have that kind of involvement now: just think how strong we would be.

We have a very special guest from this era. I want to offer a special welcome to Peter Jenkins, our second ever President from 1962. I’m sure Peter will be able to tell us all about the union’s beginnings, and we must take this rare opportunity to listen and learn about our history.

If the sixties were about a student community finding its feet, then the seventies were about that community baring its teeth. A new age of militancy was dawning, and the President from 1972, Dominic Goddard, could not have been popular with the college.

I want to tell you a story about a student called Ivan Herring. Ivan was your average teaching student, he studied, he went on placement and he got involved in the union. This was, of course, until he was expelled just days from the end of term without even having a hearing!

This was evidently too much for the union President. They called for a sit-in, a direct action protest against the decision to expel Ivan. A general meeting debated the call for a sit-in, and finally approved the motion after three hours of furious debate. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything that tells us whether they won or not. I don’t know what happened to Ivan Herring: maybe one of our former sabbaticals can tell us. What I do know is that a seed was planted, where real student casework became a major political issue. An issue about fairness, an issue about the standards students can expect from their college.

That tradition lives on today.

We still fight for the best standards at Christ Church. We want the best services, we want the best teaching, and we demand fairness and equality for our members. And our methods may not have changed as much as you might think. Just this year we threatened to sit-in over library opening hours. That got the problem sorted I can tell you!

And when this year an international student from Christ Church called Sangar Rafiki, was put into a detention centre and threatened with deportation, all because of an administrative error, his union was there for him. We wrote to MPs, we wrote to Ministers and even the Home Secretary. And this is what makes this union better at representation than most unions in Britain today: most unions don’t understand that student politics is about students’ lives.

Sangar Rafiki is the Ivan Herring of today. Fortunately, I can tell you what happened to Sangar Rafiki: he is staying in this country to finish his degree at Christ Church.

The union of the seventies also fought for their independence, for a constitutional and financial settlement that allowed them the freedom to organise and campaign as they wanted. In 1972, the union issued a declaration that it would become autonomous from the college.

The debate with the college about the status of the union had been opened, and it would prove to be a long and difficult struggle. In 1975, after the governing body resolved that the union’s demands of greater freedom would not be met, the union council called for an occupation of the central building.

Today, we have a modern, mature, Constitution. Today, we decide our own expenditure without any interference from the college. Today, we employ the staff that we think we need, we run the campaigns we want to run, and we deliver the services we want to deliver.

We are proud of our freedom and our autonomy in this decade, just as we are proud of the courageous and principled resolve of the officers of the 1970’s.

And if the seventies were about the union baring its teeth, then the eighties were about the union growing tall to its adult height.

During the eighties we moved to the building we are sitting in today. A major project, that won awards and was hailed as a pioneer by the department for education, this has been the home of C4 since 1985. Today, with an £180,000 refurbishment behind us, we feel in this building how the class of 85 must have felt moving into their new home. This is now a comfortable, invigorating and welcoming place again, and it is still alive with activity.

If representation and communication were the foundations of our community, then sports and ENTS are the pillars that stand on those foundations. But it would mean nothing if it didn’t happen between the pillars in this room. This building has recently been the venue for some of our most exciting and innovative ENTS, like “X-Factor C4” and “I’m a student – get me out of here!”. This building has been the place where our sports teams come to celebrate their victories and drown their losses. This building, for twenty years, has come to represent the very heart of the Christ Church community.

This building is just one product of our eighties period of growth and development. It was a period in which we gained an additional sabbatical officer, in which we built up substantial reserves and started to take on professional staff support. This was a time in which the union became more professional and more diverse, and without this, we never would have added maturity to our radicalism: we would never be where we are today.

And in the nineties we added vision to that maturity. Most of the former officers with us today are of this era. Most of you probably don’t really know how important your work has been to the shape of the union in the new century. Let me tell you a little about your legacy.

You had a vision that we would stand on our own two feet; with a budget that matches our dedication and our abilities. Year after year, you demanded financial recognition from the college. Today, we have a block grant double the amount of what is was in the year two thousand.

You had a vision that we could provide outstanding ENTS, managed by a professional member of staff. We now employ that staff member, and we deliver some of the most extraordinary events in the country, against a budget that shouldn’t allow us to achieve what we do. You pioneered a bigger and better summer ball, and today we still follow the same formula.

You had a vision that the union would be able to provide the best facilities for sport and societies that we could, and you delivered a sports and societies sabbatical officer to carry out this work. Our sports federation now has over seven hundred members and is more successful than ever before. You might also like to know that we’ve won two Rugby varsity matches on the trot against UKC. Not bad going for the tiny budget we have compared to the national average.

You had a vision of a union which could provide a decent welfare and education service, and you repeatedly demanded it from the college. Today, we have a full time welfare and education sabbatical officer, and we can deal with over one hundred pieces of major casework every year. That’s a hundred students defended that couldn’t be defended before.

This year, we sent more students to lobby Parliament on education funding than all the other students’ unions in the southeast combined. That’s the interests of thousands of students defended, where we couldn’t have done it before.

You had a vision that the union would have continuity and organisational memory. You put constitutional reform on the agenda and worked hard to make the college understand its importance. Today, two of the new sabbaticals are entering their second year of office and we employ five excellent permanent staff.

Every person in this room had a vision of a better union. Your vision is becoming a reality: we are becoming a union that doesn’t just deliver for our members, but forms the centre of their student experience.

And in all our present work, and despite all our present success, we still have a vision of a better union. We have a vision of a union that is genuinely open and accessible to its members, we have a vision of a culture that is truly voluntary, and a vision of a union that is an active and powerful agent for student rights.

I want to talk about one of the experiences I’ve had as President that inspires me the most. I need you to imagine the scene. It’s half past eight on a cold, wet November morning. The Vice-President Welfare and Education had been up most of the night, preparing student questionnaires for the institutional audit of the college. Minutes later, twenty volunteers came into the room to collect the questionnaires and take them to students around the college. These people were from the ENTS crew, the technical crew, they were council officers, they were DJs and sports people. These quite ordinary students were doing an extraordinary thing: they became active volunteers in their union’s campaign.

This taught me the most important lesson I’ve learnt this year: politics isn’t something you talk about – it’s something you do. Representation isn’t something we do for students; it’s something we help students do for themselves. And direct action doesn’t have to be an occupation of the administration block – direct action is ordinary students handing out questionnaires because they believe in a set of common principles and values.

And this is what makes C4 greater than any other students’ union I know. If you go into other unions, you’ll find they’re all talking about customer service, quality enhancement, and a commitment to excellence. These aren’t values: they’re buzz words. Its management speak, and you know I hate that.

This union still has values: collectivism, democracy, passion, ambition.

We choose representation as our priority, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Because that is the challenge that we are willing to accept, unwilling to postpone, and because it is the challenge we intend to win.

This year, for the first time, we put our campaign priorities to the student vote, and 750 students voted in that ballot. We have opened a discussion forum on our website, we have listened to student opinion, and we have acted as a true student voice.

I truly believe that nothing happens without communication. Our future lies in direct democracy, reaching out to all our thousands of members, and never losing sight of our values. Only by ensuring this can we meet the challenges of the future. University title will bring an expectation of university level facilities and opportunities. Having that university spread across four campuses will make it harder than ever to develop a student community. Without a student community, we would lose something of what C4 is all about. But the union is already on the case. The future for students is uncertain, with the threat of top-up fees, student hardship, student apathy, and new threats to our autonomy. But one thing is certain: this union’s resolve will stay as strong as ever.

And I can’t really say any more than that. We will continue to grow, we will continue to fight for our members, and we will continue to have a great time doing it. I just want to take a few minutes to relive some of the memories that we hold dear as a union.

And so I believe we are heading for a bold and exciting future. This is nothing less than our inheritance from the union officers of the past. It will be a future where the union continues to develop, a future in which our students’ rights continue to be promoted and defended, but also a future in which we never forget where we’re coming from.

Thank you for listening, and have a great day.