A motion to set aside £400 from CUSU Council’s free budget to enable up to five students to attend a Reclaim the Power camp was earlier this week passed by a significant majority at CUSU Council.

Reclaim the Power is a direct action group which seeks to fight for “social, environmental, and economic justice”. Their camp in July contains a programme “packed with chances to learn about the impact of the Hostile Environment, and ways we can take action against it.”

Responding to a concern that “not all students who want to are able to take action to mitigate climate change due to financial constraints”, the motion aimed to help those who might not have the means to attend the event. Those in application for the funding will need to informally declare that they would not otherwise have been able to attend the event.

The Council free budget for 2018/19 was set at £3,000, a £500 decrease from the 2017/18 figure. Those represented by CUSU can apply for use of the free budget throughout the year for political activities.

Reservations were voiced during the Council meeting concerning the use of CUSU funding for this particular external event. One Council member argued that many such events occur regularly and are not financially accessible to all, and that the case for setting aside funding for this specific event was not strong enough.

A CUSU Sabbatical Officer rejected the idea that this motion suggested that CUSU places particular causes above others, and supported the motion on the grounds that the CUSU free budget exists for the direct purpose of being used.

The motion’s proposer also highlighted the significance of CUSU sending students beyond the University and the “Cambridge bubble”.

Rather than adopting formal mechanisms to assess the wealth of those in application for the funding, the Council agreed that while application would be open to all, applicants would later need to confirm “on good faith” that they could not otherwise have attended the event.