FELIX

"For example, a pint of Stella now costs £2.40, whereas before it was £2.20, resulting in a rise of 9% (9.09 both recurring, to be precise – we are at Imperial after all)."

Surely a rise of 9% results in a new price of £2.40... not the other way around?

@Wiggo: That's what I meant/thought I said. As in, it now costs £2.40. Before the change in price it was £2.20. So it's changed from £2.20 to £2.40. Sorry if it wasn't clear! I think I need a pint now...

fulham wetherspoons to replace the union?

Another price hike?
Year on year, the union insist on squeezing already desperate student finances. Why this time? The last hike took in the VAT increase, inflation, and a failed summer ball. To try and justify a raise of nearly 10% as inflation or cost related is ridiculous. On top of the addition of entry fees (which will presumably go up as well) the union is becoming an unpopular option for a night out. It's shooting itself in the foot and driving us away by being unable to compete with external, commercial operations (which still manage to turn a profit!).
Bring on more external nights out like Rugby and Hockey's forays to Vintage and Save the Cheerleader at Sports Cafe. Everyone except the union wins at these type of events; cheaper drinks for students and a better atmosphere with more money going directly to the clubs. They seem to be doing very little to keep us coming back, so why should we?
Rant over.

fucked.

There was a price rise last year, 20% over 2 years is not acceptable.

It's like £2.20 for Blackthorn now.

This is truly a sad day.

Stefan Bauer? I don't think so

Come on Tim, you work with the guy (well sort of)

I'll happily pay £2.40 for a decent lager, which Stella 4% is not. 568 might claim to be the longest bar in town, but it's sadly got the shortest drinks menu. They need to give us what we all want --> cheap wine.

blatant profiteering from the Union again. They're using the removal of the 'entry' charge (which only applies to a few people, and I've always been able to avoid it when I've gone on days it applies for) as an excuse to charge us all more for drinks, and make more money out of us.

Fleecing your members is not what a Students' Union is meant to be about ICU, and its best you don't forget that.

I love it when people complain about price rises. Ever heard of inflation, idiots?

Thanks for pointing out the naming mess-up. I'll put my hands up and admit it was an honest mistake! It's been corrected now.

The beer is still cheaper than every other Students' Union in London that I know of.

People can talk about "externals being cheaper" but are these external bars supporting struggling Imperial Students by giving them jobs? Are these external bars funding Clubs and Societies? And are these external bars providing a safe environment for students to drink? (What other bar sobers up drunk students, takes them home and ensures they don't end up with criminal convictions if they do stupid things??).

And as for the comments from Jack Hewitt. If you want to hear about fleecing people, look at the s**t way you ran RAG. You fleeced helpless people by raising a stupidly small sum of money for charity. Thats the real travesty.

So how much did the bar make last year with prices at £2.20? Lots.

If they were a little more transparent making the accounts available we'd know this is unnecessary profiteering. At least the lack of transparency prevents the student reps from stopping the Sabbs enjoy fresher's week.

Bob Rachet:
LSU has cheaper drinks when they have offers on, which is every night of the week.
Kings is £8 a pitcher on sports nights.
The first two that sprang to mind; I'm guessing you haven't been to many other unions?

Bars are legally required to provide a safe environment in which to drink.
External bars are funding other societies; those with the drive and ambition to get out there and use them. They still turn a tidy profit on the nights we host there, we get money too and students get cheaper drinks, all the while undercutting the union.

a) If you organised a one night only event with lots of people turning out, you probably can negotiate cheaper drinks than standard Union drinks. that's not exactly a huge surprise (although this is in theory because our union is more responsible about drinking than most bars... right?!).

b) I believe there are mechanisms for transparency to see the accounts, but they are published.

c) Remember that shiny new Metric and 568 bar that just got built.... they were really expensive.

I'm not saying the increase in price is quite proportional to a better service/increased inflation, but I wouldn't call it an outrage. Maybe the £2 a pint i remember fondly for so many years was untenable.

Who the f*** is Bob Rachet? Never heard of him! Clearly not in the bar very often

So, just to set the record straight: The old bar supplier wanted to increase their cost price to us by about 30%. This would have had to be passed on to the customers (ie, students!). We switched to the next cheapest supplier, which means the prices had to increase by only 10%....

As a point of interest, this year's Summer Ball actually sold out and made a small profit.

My god...
Could it be...

THE OFFICE IS SLIGHTLY TIDY?!

Something to consider:

In the 4 years I was at Imperial the cost of a beer went from £2.00 to now £2.40; a total rise of 16%. On average duty and tax account for about £1 on a pint. Duty has gone up at 2% above the rate of inflation every year thanks to the beer duty escalator. The average rate of inflation has been around 4% during this time. So that's 6% a year for 4 years bringing the total cost of just duty increases to about 35p. Add on to this the increased duty on petrol to deliver the beer, raising inflation on breweries raw materials and higher staff costs and the addition of 40p on a pint doesn't seem that unreasonable. The problem is that the beer prices should have been incrementally increased rather than jumping up causing outcry.

Even just the rise of duty accounts for the change in price so where can the money be saved? Unless the union can somehow convince suppliers to lower the costs (which to their credit it seems they have) or cut funding to clubs and societies.

ULU- £1.50 pint. + more girls
ICU- £2.40 pint.


So yes, Bob Ratchett, no-one does cheaper beer?

This is OUTRAGEOUS!

A 20p increase on our beer!
It costs me a MASSIVE £2.40 for a pint.

If it increases by a single penny I'm going to boycott the Union to start visiting pubs around the local area instead and pay the more reasonable and less "profiteering" £4.20 per pint!


p.s. Who would in their right mind drink wine in the Union!?
Go back to France "Dale Cooper", where you belong.

Good short summary article btw, shame about some of the idiotic comments.

But then again I LOVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
#FreedomOfSpeechFTW #UnlikeChina #Oup

My opinion on the matter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grtSw4aOkxo

@John Winters. You can sit in the DPFS's office and look at the accounts. They are as barely available as possible to the point at which they're for all practical purposes not available.

@Paul. An increase of 30% on the cost of sale does result a 10% increase on the sale price, assuming the usual ~65% GP is being maintained. The cost of sale isn't the only component to the required sale price. Either you've just passed on a 30% increase in cost or have found a better offer but decided to profiteer anyway. I'll wait for the annual report to find to how much the union made last year, it seems to be the only time us mere students get to see something of substance.

@Thomas Allen. Fantastic!

Colin: "In the 4 years I was at Imperial the cost of a beer went from £2.00 to now £2.40; a total rise of 16%."

Really Colin? Studying biology were you?

Fair play. That was a pretty schoolboy mistake. The point still stands though that the increase barely covers the rising tax and duty.

long gone are the days when Pink Floyd and Queen played the union for 30p a ticket