Post 35 – 24/06/23 – The Summer Ball – Part 1 | Smoke & Mirrors
For those of you that belong to this group’s sister group, Forum – WNTT or belong to the Facebook Group Englefield Green Chat, you may have seen a version of this post there. It’s been extended a little as new information has come in.
We have therefore decided to split into a two-parter but it may very well become three…
So were you disturbed by this year’s Summer Ball?
For the first time ever, this event significantly disturbed me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely been aware of both the Summer Ball and also the Freshers’ Ball in the past but the noise from this event really impacted me. I eventually fell asleep sometime around 0200/ 0230 listening to a heavy bass line.
The real problem though was I was woken at 0500 by some of the party goers walking home and then couldn’t get back to sleep. I reckon I had less than 3 hours sleep that night and needless to say the following day was a write off.
RHUL claims to be responsible neighbours. And on face value, that would appear to be the case. They have a website and marketing message that says as much. They even distributed letters to some of us advising of upcoming events which does seem pretty responsible. (Please see below a copy.)
But are they really? Could you or I write a letter to our neighbours advising them of a future party with a 06:00 finish and expect them to be OK with it? Could we play loud music into the small hours that we would know some would find excessive? Could we excuse the behaviour of some of our well oiled guests as they depart? I would be uncomfortable doing this to my neighbours, as I am sure most of us would. And if we did host an event like this twice a year, I am pretty sure we would be getting a visit from someone asking us to stop.
I didn’t receive a letter this time but a copy was shared with me during the course of the evening through the Forum group. The noise I thought was excessive so I thought I would try one of the numbers supplied. I picked the Campus Security Team as reportedly the mobile number was not being answered.
When I got through I asked if the music could be turned down. It was explained that that was not possible. The lady then took down my name and number and told me that if I had a complaint, to contact the university. She then hung up. (She seemed under a lot of pressure; I imagine I was not the first person to have called.) Needless to say I didn’t think that much of that response. (I also logged a complaint as per our reporting procedure.)
I have since read that letter a few times. And on face value it is very responsible: but in my eyes I think it is actually just a neat piece of marketing. If you drill into it line by line and start to ask questions you may see what I mean. I’ll pick up on a couple of them starting with the list of phone numbers.
- ‘If you feel sound levels on the night are excessive, please call one of the following numbers.’
It would appear that the organisers (I need to be explicit here, the organisers are in fact RH Student Union and not RHUL) have supplied these numbers knowing that if a resident were to call about noise no action on the evening would be taken – A number that is not answered with a handy disclaimer that the ‘site sometimes struggles with poor mobile phone signal’. A Security Team that hasn’t the ability to do anything. The 24/7 Environmental Health Team (the CCTV monitoring station in Addlestone) has no ability to supply any remedial action either – that stopped long ago.
If you want to report a noise complaint, so that the data recorded in the correct place (say to determine future licensing), it would in fact be best to email safer.runnymede@runnymede.gov.uk so that complaints were all recorded in one place and could be tracked.
And I would even go as far to say, if I were to be particularly cynical, that one of the aims of this letter is to create a smoke & mirrors effect with regard to complaints that would benefit the organiser being permitted to have similar events in the future.
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And another….
- ‘We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Resident Associations of both Egham and Englefield Green for their continued support and understanding, and apologise if this annual event unduly impacts your evening.’
This sentence is untrue: the Resident Associations of both Egham & Englefield Green don’t offer their support and understanding.
By communicating this misleading statement here, the reader would quite understandably believe that if their Residents Associations support it, then they, the resident, should support it too. The gravitas that the support of the Resident Associations provides is unquestionable. The chair of EGVRA, and committee members from the ERA are embarrassed by the inclusion of this sentence in this letter and the bad light that it has cast on their organisations. Cue a bit more smoke.
And I could go on.
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In the second part, we will touch upon what actually happened. Was the volume knob turned up? Was the wind blowing in the wrong direction? Or was it something else?
We will also discuss some of the suggestions that have been put forward that could negate this event’s impact on the community and also to the reasons why they probably would not be embraced.
Best wishes,
We Need To Talk About Royal Holloway