The Queen's College Record 2023

A YEAR IN THE MCR
Kevin Myers (above)
President;
Elliott Kensett
Victualler
On every metric available, this has been an incredible year
for the MCR. With the largest Committee in recent memory
(maxing out at 18 people), we were able to help the MCR
reach and surpass the levels of activity it saw before the
pandemic. Socially, engagement with the MCR was at a
near all-time high. With a dedicated team of Social
Secretaries and Entz Reps, we hosted over 50 events per
term. As measured by keycard entrance to the MCR, this
incredible number of events led to the greatest engagement
with the physical space of the MCR in years. Furthermore,
our flagship event, the annual Summer Dinner, where MCR
members can come together with their guests to celebrate
the end of a fantastic year at Queen’s, saw a nearly 30%
increase in membership attendance.
Reports and College Activities
Outside of these major wins in rebuilding the community, we made long-overdue
strides in improving the physical space of the MCR. Under the supervision of our
Victualler, Elliott Kensett, the MCR Room Improvements Subcommittee was hard at
work all year, selecting items to purchase for the room and bringing the space to life.
Some of the most important improvements of the year came in fixing the speaker
system in the MCR, purchasing a new foosball table, and transforming the storage
room into a study room, fully equipped with shelving, lamps, chairs, and a desk.
Of note, this study room is currently the only bookable room in College in which
an individual MCR member can privately take a phone call, providing an essential
service to MCR members.
The MCR Committee was also hard at work advocating for the needs of the MCR
to the College. Working off our collegial relationship with the folks running Queen’s,
we were able to reopen the MCR as a 24-hr space, partner with the Bursar & JCR
on a rent proposal that saw Queen’s increase rents by the second lowest amount
of any college, grant MCR membership to 4 th year Classicists (the last category of
4 th year BA students who previously did not have MCR access), and settle a yearslong
dispute over the incredibly important sexual consent and diversity workshops.
After several years of disagreements within the MCR over whether we should have
these workshops and if we have the authority to compel members to attend, we
were able to work with the College to ensure that the workshops will be included
as a part of the College’s Freshers’ Week induction presentation, paid for by the
College. Including these workshops during induction guarantees that this vital set
of lessons will be communicated to our MCR members for years to come. Further,
the tenuous financial position of the MCR has historically made investments in large
capital purchases impossible and the hosting of large-scale events unfeasible.
College Record 2023 | The Queen’s College 51