Students at Corpus Christi will have their say on whether they want their JCR to reaffiliate with CUSU in the coming days, as the College gears us for their annual referendum on their relationship with the University’s central students’ union.

Voting will be open between 9am on Tuesday 15th November and 10 pm on Wednesday 16th November, meaning the result will come soon after that of Selwyn College’s referendum on the same issue.

The referendum follows a debate held last Tuesday, at which CUSU President Amatey Doku spoke in favour of affiliation.

Like the vote at Selwyn, Corpus Christi’s referendum is born out of constitutional necessity rather than a concerted campaign for disaffiliation, as there was a Peterhouse, where students rejected the possibility of a ‘Pexit’.

Both Corpus’ JCR and MCR have been disaffiliated since 2010, when the two combination rooms respectively voted 71 per cent and 86 per cent in favour of splitting from CUSU.

Each year, the College debates and holds a vote on the issue but has thus far remained adrift of the central students’ union, owing perhaps in part to the fact that a vote to reaffiliate will require at least a 40 per cent turn out – for comparison, last year’s university-wide referendum on NUS membership set a record for turnout in a CUSU referendum with 28.76 per cent.

Corpus JCR President Flis O’Toole addressed the issue of the College’s relationship with CUSU when she spoke to CamFM and Varsity’s The Sunday Review programme a fortnight ago.

“The relationship between us and CUSU – how much we can take – depends on each sabbatical committee’s opinions on the relationship between CUSU and disaffiliated colleges”, she said.

According to O’Toole, last year’s sabbatical officers, led by CUSU President Priscilla Mensah, “took a particularly tough stance”, while “this year’s sabbatical team seem a bit more relaxed.

“For instance, they offered us the consent workshop training, whereas last year’s team didn’t want to offer us consent workshop training”, she explained.

Despite their college being disaffiliated, Corpus students (like students at any disaffiliated college) remain affiliated members of CUSU, even though Corpus don’t pay affiliation fees – a fact to which O’Toole attributes CUSU’s willingness to work with the College’s JCR on some things.

Is CUSU affiliation worth it?

However, in the context of the complex way in which CUSU raises funds from Cambridge’s various colleges (dictated by a system that may soon be changed), disaffiliation has not – it seems – meant a clean financial break between CUSU and Corpus Christi College.

“We still get condoms from CUSU, and that’s because college gives a certain amount of money”, explained O’Toole to The Sunday Review, “not affiliation fees but college gives a certain amount of money, so that means that we can ask them to give the condoms to us for free.

“It’s more to the JCR that we don’t get the support, with rent negotiation – that’s a service that the JCRs can get from CUSU, and that’s not a service that we get.”

However, where the line is drawn with regard to cooperation between Corpus and CUSU remains unclear. “I know access officers can get support, and I don’t know to what extent our access officer is involved in university-wide things,” said O’Toole. “We do the shadowing scheme, so I think there is some connection to CUSU.”