There’s an east wind coming...

Hello all! Welcome back to a new term! Hopefully you’ve recharged over the Christmas break and are all ready to sit your exams, do your coursework, or laugh at the poor souls who do so while you get away scott free!

At Felix, over the Christmas break we’ve been working behind the scenes to bring you some improvements and are happy to announce the release of our new app and some updates to our website. Have a look around and see if you can notice what’s changed (although a lot of it isn’t design related).

For those of you who are experiencing the stress train, fear not, the Union is hosting the originally named “Stress Less” fortnight! Head over to the Wellbeing section (pages 8-9) to find out more. Stress is never a plesant issue and many students can sucumb to pressure during exam periods, especially in this terrible weather. If you do end up having any problems always remember that you can consult your personal tutor, the College counselling service or the helpful staff at the Union, all of whom will be happy to assist you.

There’s some exciting news this week, our hard working Sabbs apparently do more than spend all day dancing on a screen. Thanks to lots of work by out Sabbs and Professor Lord Robert Winston, the issues surrounding the potential problems faceb by international students in the face of the looming Immigration Bill will be explored in an inquiry by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. Talk about results!

Also this week we bring you news of College’s residential experience survey. It’s great to head that College has perked up a bit and has started to take more of an interest in the impacts it operations and decisions have on its student stakeholders, especially after last term’s debacle with the handing of communications concerning the cleaning provision in halls and the accomodation license.

The panel will discuss a wide-ranging number of topics to do with the Imperial College Residential Experience, presenting the results to the Provost’s board at the end of March. However there are some concerns regarding the length of the consultation. While we understand that it is necessary in order to bring needed change to the College Accomodation experience, we believe that decisions that have the potential to cause major upheaval to the accomodation system (and student welfare), should be taken over a longer period of time, with more stringent student, warden and welfare feedback. Regardless, we welcome the fact that College is staking some action to improve the student experience in ways that aren’t only focused on academia.

The remit of the review is wide ranging and is expected to also touch on provisions for students in private accomodation. If you feel that you would like to provide feeback (and are not furiously revising, go to http://tinyurl.com/icRER .