UPDATES: Kate Kennedy coverage

Breaking news of the Kate Kennedy Club’s split and the formation of the Kate Kennedy Fellowship

These are live updates of the unfolding Kate Kennedy Club/ Fellowship saga. For the full news story, click here.

8pm –  The Stand interviewed Tom Pye, the President of the Kate Kennedy Club. Below is the transcript.

“When did you first hear about the KKF?

In the open forum for the Kate Kennedy Club last Monday, from someone that said the SRC was debating a motion on the Club. Via text. The KK meet every Monday and Alistair Moffatt, the Rector, requested that he attend as a life member. I was under the distinct impression that he was there as a mediator between the club and the University.

So, Alistair was at the KKC monday meeting just to hear what members wanted to say?

Yes, exactly, yes.

At a KK open forum, members have the right to express their opinions on any matters that they’d like. This was an opportunity to relate those views to the Rector as their representative, because at the end of the day we are all students as well as KK members, and that is what I believed to be the case, and I didn’t find out anything about the KKF until I was in the middle of this open forum of discussion

What is the status of the May Ball? Many students will be anxious to know if there will even be one, let alone two.

At present, as we said in our press release, we believe that the Kate Kennedy Club May Ball will go ahead on May 6th as was planned, and we look forward to welcoming as many students who may wish to come, as we have done every year. We hope it will be an absolutely fantastic event

Can we ask about the procession? who controls or owns the items that are used in the procession?

They are looked after and owned by what is known as the Kate Kennedy Trust. The Kate Kennedy Trust and the Kate Kennedy Procession Committee- which are two very distinct bodies from each other, and two very distinct bodies from the club – are solely concerned with the running and the facilitating of the procession each year. The Trust is a registered charity which is set up to look after and maintain the carriages, the costumes, the wigs everything that makes up the procession as the students know it. What I need to add, and what i assume you are trying to get at is where the trust stands on this matter.

In his press statement, the Chairman of the Trust [see below] is unaware of any trustees that have made any comment for support as a trustee [of the Fellowship].

Can we see that press statement?

Yes. Now, if they have done so as private individuals that is one thing, but any claim that there is ‘support of key trustees’, and let me emphasise the word key there, every trustee on that trust holds an equal vote and the trust is yet to meet and debate this issue, and will not do so until 13th March where it will also meet with the Procession Committee.

How many trustees are there?

Twelve.

Had there been discussion within the club itself to amend the constitution over the mention of women would lead to being kicked out?

That doesn’t stand as a motion anyway.

So in the constitution, there’s nothing about that?

The idea that the proposal for the admission of women is an absolute forfeit of your membership to the club is absolutely untrue…it’s not a contingent of your resignation. We have people who resigned from the club, including another guy that evening, who did not use certain terms ‘I wish to admit women to the Club’ as a symbol of his resignation. And again, I point back to the start of this interview that again, this was an open forum and I made it perfectly clear as president that everyone had the right to speak freely and they can talk about whatever they want. We have in the past had debates about female membership at open forums which did not result in resignations.

Thank you.”

6pm – EXCLUSIVE: Below is the full press statement from the Chair of the Kate Kennedy Trust (the body that owns the Procession items). This was handed to the Rector on Friday to distribute but has not been released to the press for ‘unknown reasons’ (?!).

“The Kate Kennedy Trust was recognised as a Scottish charity on 31 May 1997. As such, it submits an annual Report and audited accounts to OSCR annually. The Trust is managed by just twelve Trustees, six ex officio Trustees, who are members of the Kate Kennedy Club, and six individual Trustees, who hold office for five years each, but may be reappointed for a further term in office. The six ex officio Trustees are the President of the Kate Kennedy Club, the Keeper of Costumes, the Keeper of Coaches, the Marshal of the Procession, the Treasurer and the Life Members Convenor. The six individual Trustees are Dr Frank Quinault, Mr John Matthews, Mrs Anne Tynte-Irvine, Col Martin Passmore, Dr David Sinclair and Mr Graeme Scott (all of whom live in Fife). I am the current Chair of the Trust, a position that is voted for annually.

The Trust is the legal owner of all the costumes and coaches that are used in the Kate Kennedy Procession, and is responsible for their upkeep and proper storage. Since its creation, the Trust has assumed responsibility for ensuring that the Kate Kennedy Procession takes place on an annual basis and from 2003 has worked very closely with the Kate Kennedy Procession Committee.

The Trustees have yet to meet to discuss the formation of the Kate Kennedy Fellowship, but they will do so on Tuesday, 13 March. Personally, I know of no Trustee who has given their support to the KK Fellowship, but if that is indeed the case, I would point out that such support represents that of the individual and not of the Trust as a whole.

The Trust is fully committed to ensuring the survival of the Kate Kennedy Procession for future generations, knowing the pleasure that it brings to many and the way in which it unites town and gown. This will very much guide its discussions and the decisions that are made on 13 March.

Martin Passmore

Chair

The Kate Kennedy Trust”

 

Wednesday

11pm – After the emergency secret SRC meeting to endorse the KKF, the SSC (Student Services Committee) has begun to feel a bit left out.

The SSC has now recommended changes to the Student’s Association Laws which would require publicity and 24 hour notice before an emergency meeting could be held. 

While the 24 hour policy is already in effect, there has been some criticism over how well the SRC publiciced its emergency meeting. 

The recommendation would still allow for closed meetings to be held. The idea is that these meetings would be private, but known to the student population (we’re just as confused by all this, but it looks like things will be a bit more transparent). 

The Students’ Association Board will make the final decision on Tuesday. 

Tuesday 

9pm – Monday night, Pat Mathewson and Sunny Moodie welcomed St Andrews students into Lower College Hall to discuss the future of the Kate Kennedy Fellowship (name pending).  Upon entering, it was obvious that the format of the evening was unusual:  it was not the question and answer session many attendants were expecting, but rather a very dynamic and interactive workshop for those present to help form the new society. 

 

The assembly was challenged to answer questions posed by the two managers, and to fill in gaps, including the involvement of post grads and first years, and the ideal number of fellows to be admitted.  Pat and Sunny both stressed the inclusivity of this new society, and its exciting newness, stating “this is just a little bit crazy”.  As of yet, no part of the KKF has been clarified (save, of course, the inclusion of women, and upholding of the university’s “beautiful” traditions*).  It is still an idea, constantly changing and evolving-striving to become the best version of itself it can be, and the most representative body of the University as a whole.   

*Some kind soul mercifully crossed this phrase out of the opening paragraph of the drafted constitution. 

 

11am – Nothing KK-esque happened on Sunday as far as we’re aware. So instead we watched the rugby (The Stand is in mourning for the next week). We’ll soon have a summary of the emergency SSC meeting that was called, so bear with us. It’s also the Fellowship meeting (see below) tonight at 7pm in Lower College Hall, if you’re keen.

 

Monday (27th of Feb)

 

10am – This is dragging on a bit. Not much news, except emergency SSC meeting called for 5pm (Student Services Committee – Mermaids, Debates, STAR etc). If anyone has any REAL (non KK-related) news they think we should be covering in St Andrews, please email The Stand.

Friday

9:30pm  – KK Debate now finished. KK were a no-show but pretty packed debate. STAR radio have a recording for you lovely people here (if you’re actually still following this story…)

4pm – According to five members who were present at the emergency SRC (Student Representative Council) meeting on Monday night, below is an accurate summary of some of the main points raised in that meeting:

1. Sam Fowles sees this issue as wider than just women’s rights. He stated that it would allow the SRC to have “influence” (input?) over the new group, which would therefore allow them to “steer” it in the right direction. 

2. Patrick O’Hare, President of the Students’ Association, questioned how the Fellowship would remain accountable. It was suggested that Pat and Sunny, along with Sam Fowles, the Association Chair, and Kate Andrews, the appointed Rectors Assessor, could sit on the committee to select Fellows. 

3. According to the minutes, Sam already knew of Pat and Sunny’s plans to split, yet kept, Patrick (Association President), in the dark for about a week. Patrick wasn’t the only one to raise concerns about Sam withholding information from the SRC. Many other members weren’t happy with the secretive, rushed nature of the emergency meeting, in which they had felt pushed them into voting for the Fellowship.

 

9am – All quiet… for the moment!

Thursday

9:30pm – The beautiful people at Bubble TV recorded the press conference and here it is! 

7:35pm – Scrap that! Kate Andrews, the Rectors Assessor, is taking a question. Sunny and Pat also taking questions. The KK Fellowship can now be reached at [email protected]. 

Kate Andrews, (one of the movers and shakers it seems behind this enterprise) says that Lady Katherine Erskine, President of the Processions Committee, has fully supported the Fellowship. Lady Erskine’s statement (see below) isn’t quite as clear as that.

When questioned about who is going to hold the May Ball, Moodie expressed the belief that the “great opportunity of the Fellowship is that the entire student body can come together to organise that ball.” 

7:30pm – Press conference starting. The St Andrews student press is out in force. Pat and Sunny are just letting everyone know about the debate tomorrow night and that there will be a meeting on Monday night at 7pm in Lower College Hall open to everyone. “No questions at this time.”

7pm – In Lower College Hall in Sallies Quad. Sunny and Pat and their team are busy working on a press statement. Feels like the ‘situation room’.

4pm  – We mentioned in our original newsstand article that Lady Erskine (chairperson of the KK Procession) had given her support to the Fellowship. We now have her press release. In it, Lady Erskine reveals that she has,

“consulted with several members of the Kate Kennedy Procession Committee and all are in agreement that we support changes to make membership of the Kate Kennedy Club fully inclusive and reflective of the whole student population of the university if the desire for these changes has come from within the club.”

This is the lady (get it?) in charge of the all those whigs, carriages and shields that we look forward to every year in the Procession. However, it’s not clear if all of the committee is in agreement or just all of the “several members” she consulted with. Additionally, is her support for Club reform or the KK Fellowship? She’s a wily one, she is! This looks like it could get even messier. Bald Benjamin Franklins and horseless carriages could be the hallmark of this year’s procession…

14:00pm – The comedian, Josie Long gave us a comment for the KK story: “I do not fully understand what this is or why it is important.” That seems to sum up how a lot of people feel.

12:30pm – A member of The Stand team (must be an International Relations student) has compared all these endorsements to a new country asking established states to recognise its sovereignty… We told him to go back to his corner of the room.

12:00pm – UPDATE: St Andrews’ Lord Rector, Alastair Moffat (see our list of crazy past rectors here) has announced that he is endorsing the KK Fellowship and resigning as a Life Member of old Kate Kennedy Club. We’re not sure if this is actually possible (he was a member and will alway have been a member), but it’s happened anyway! All aboard the gender-bias bandwagon…

10:00am –  BREAKING: St Andrews’ Kate Kennedy Fellowship (of the Ring?) has now become an issue for the Scottish Parliament it seems. Today, MSPs will be debating the following: 

“That the Scottish Parliament welcomes the establishment of the Kate Kennedy Fellowship at the University of St Andrews; further understands that the Fellowship is a new group established by students Patt Mathewson and Sunny Moodie who are members of the existing male-only Kate Kennedy Club; notes that the two students were ejected from the club after their motion to extend membership rights to females was rejected; recognises that Kate Kennedy Fellowship mission is to carry on Club’s traditions of charitable work and town-gown relations in St Andrews, but without excluding female students from any activities; considers this new open minded approach to charitable work to be in keeping with ordinary society; welcomes the end of gender discrimination in one of the oldest and most valued traditions at the University, and understands that the Kate Kennedy Club will continue to exist as a male-only organisation alongside the new Kate Kennedy Fellowship to which every student at St Andrews will be admitted with immediate effect.”

 

09:00am – We did an interview with Pat and Sunny, which you can see here. In it, Sunny urges all students to “shout your support [of the KK Fellowship} from the rooftops”. Please be careful if your house has a slate roof. 

Wednesday

23:00pm  –The Stand went to gauge student opinion on the Fellowship (of the Ring?) and the KK split. Here’s what we found.

21:00pm – EXCLUSIVE: The Union Debating Society are hosting an emergency debate on Thursday evening in Lower Parliament Hall (8pm). The motion for the debate will be, This House Would Pledge its Allegiance to the Kate Kennedy Fellowship. It’s free and The Stand has been told there will be port!

20:00pm – Our friends at the St Andrews Memes Facebook page are coming out with some cracking KK memes. Here are The Stand‘s favorites so far…

18:00pm – The Stand‘s roving reporter managed to take this rather moving photo after the ‘funeral’ procession had left the grounds of the Cathedral.

17:40pm – Spotted: The entire KK were spotted walking down the streets of St Andrews in full funeral attire. They were carrying pink and red flowers, and were presumably heading towards the grave of James Irvine, the Principal who supported the foundation of the Kate Kennedy club in 1926. Is this the symbolic death-knell of the KK? 

16:00pm – Check your Saintmail! St Andrews’ Principal, Professor Louise Richardson, has sent a Dumbledore-esque email to every student at the University giving her official endorsement of the Kate Kennedy Fellowship (of the Ring?). In her message, Prof. Richardson points out that one of her first acts as Principal in 2009 was to dissociate the University from the KK and withdraw support for the traditional Procession. Prof. Richardson alludes to the new KK fellowship’s backing by chairperson of the Procession, Lady Erskine, by ending her message with “as we celebrate our 600^th Anniversary I look forward to the biggest, best and most inclusive Kate Kennedy Procession ever.” The stand is waiting for a comment from the old KK.

14:00 – We’re back up… sort of. Technical difficulties being resolved. In the mean time, the Old KK’s press statement was read out to Bubble TV (complete with BBC News 24 music). Check it out!

12:30pm – Our website has crashed from too many hits! Gaaaaah!

9:30am  – The Stand‘s updates are restarted as the old KK Club release a press statement about how they will continue to function as before and that they hoped “that the University will not attempt to prevent us from putting on [the] special events that the townsfolk and students have enjoyed for over eighty-five years.” Guns at dawn! So it looks like there will be two KKs after all! This is going to be messy. Two processions? Two May Balls? 

1:30am – We can hear Lady Katherine’s bell in Sallies Chapel being rung to mark the start of a new era in tartan trousers AND skirts. The stand team are off to bed. For the full story, click here. Good night.

1:00am – LATEST NEWS: The two rebel KK members, Pat Mathewson and Sunny Moodie, are now the two founding members of the Kate Kennedy Fellowship. This means they have been officially expelled from the KK and the Fellowship is going ahead no matter the outcome, with full recognition and support from the Students’ Association and the University. The next step for the old KK will be to decide whether they want to disband and become members of the Kate Kennedy Fellowship. Their alternative is to be reduced to nothing more than another gentleman’s club, since the Fellowship has now taken over the official principles and traditions of the KK. For the full statement recorded by STAR, click here.

Stay tuned to The Stand for more updates with regard to the old KK’s reaction to this latest development.

12:10am – Three roving stand reporters wandered over to the KK’s emergency meeting to ask some questions. All that could be spotted were a couple of red gowns and glowing cigarettes in the dark. As soon as the intrepid reporters approached, the gowned figures scuttled back inside. The stand was then asked to leave…

11:30pm – By accepting female members, the KK will be able to dictate the constitution of the ‘Fellowship (of the Ring)’ – this is becoming very political!

11:00pm – The Stand now know that the University and the Students’ Association were fully expecting the KK to expel the two ‘rebels’ and therefore make the Club redundant. However, members of the Club had got wind of the scheme and are now contemplating accepting female members. THE TABLES HAVE TURNED! 

10:30pm – Former Kate Kennedy member and current Lord Rector, Alastair Moffat, sat in on the Club’s meeting, but at 10:30pm he came out to say that after two and a half hours there was still no conclusion (and he wanted to go home). KK AGMs are notorious for how long they go on (last year’s was 24hrs – a record). Goodness knows how long it will take them to decide whether or not to dissolve themselves! 

10:15pm – So, the most public event the KK put on is the Kate Kennedy Procession (a fancy-dress carnival right in St Andrews). The Stand can reveal that Lady Erskine, who is Chairperson of the Procession and all those wigs and gowns that go with it, has backed the ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ (we can’t wait till they set off for Mordor).

10:00pm – The Stand discovers more details about the ‘Fellowship (of the Ring)’. Apparently the Kate Kennedy Trust – the governing body of the KK made up of old members – has backed the University’s proposal to have a more inclusive KK. 

9:00pm – Smugness gone. Rival publications have posted ‘breaking news’ but without full information. Now we’re all in the same boat. 

8:30pm – The Stand have been summoned by the Students’ Association to a ‘secret’ press conference in the Mansfield Building. ‘Tense’ would be an understatement. Everybody is on their phones/computers. We are sitting back feeling smug.

 

7:00pm – The timing of this motion becomes clear. The two ‘rebel’ members have managed to get University and Students’ Association backing to form a parallel organisation called the Kate Kennedy Fellowship if the KK ejects them. This ‘fellowship’ (of the ring?) would perform the three main functions of the KK – maintaining the traditions of the University and town of St Andrews, upholding relations between the two and raising money for local charities. This ‘fellowship’ would be open to every student at St Andrews (regardless of sex) but there would still be interviews as far as we understand.

6:00pm – The Stand discovers that two members of the KK have brought forward a motion to admit women into the club (with the expectation that they will be expelled)..

 

Photos © www.katekennedyclub.org.uk; Ben kenny; Lauren Hepburn