An under-reported University Sporting Issue- BUCS

This is not a rugby specific story but there appears to be no general sports section so I figured I'd put it here and if there were interest in it I might politely ask an Admin to sticky it.

BUCS stands for British Universities and Colleges Sport and is the governing body for University and inter-University sporting competition in the UK. There are other smaller leagues for specific groups, but BUCS is the major one and runs leagues and cups.

From [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Universities_and_Colleges_Sport ]Wikipedia[/url]-

"BUCS is a membership organisation for 162 universities and colleges in the UK. It coordinates competitions and leagues for the 2.3 million students attending university. In the 2012/13 season over 5000 teams will compete in 16 league sports. University sports clubs can affiliate to BUCS through their Athletic Union or students' union when no separate AU exists. BUCS has the biggest domestic sporting programme in Europe."

Currently, due to a mixture of things listed below, most medical schools affiliated with a University have a separate team competing for them in BUCS to the main University team. Sometimes, for a mixture of reasons, these teams are actually better than the University teams- at Imperial College, despite having less than 1/4 of the total students, until very recently the Medical Rugby team was dominant over IC and the Netball team for the medical school is in a much higher league than the University one and just won a triple of Varsity against IC as well as the Cups in LUSL (a London specific BUCS competition) and their Conference Cup for BUCS in South-East England. The reasons that Medical Schools traditionally have separate teams are listed below:

- medical schools have existed as separate entities with separate sporting teams long before some of the Universities they now belong to even existed
-Medical students in general, because of the length and vocational nature of their course, identify more strongly with their Med School than their University
- The vocational nature of medicine sees clinical students predominantly at hospital with far less predictable structure which requires different flexibility in training
- Student Union identity is strongly linked to sports clubs and other societies. Medical schools have separate MedSoc groups or sometimes Student Unions (as with Imperial College School of Medicine where we have a sabbatical officer as well) because their pastoral and educational needs are inherently different and incompatible with undergraduates on other courses. The identity and long-term future of these vital separate institutions are linked with separate sports clubs
- The support (educational and financial) given by Alumni is predominantly in memory to their old medical schools which have now been amalgamated (i.e. University Hospital and the Royal Free into UCL's med school and St Mary's and Charing Cross into Imperial's). They have reduced support for these new medical schools but still some due to the links to their old medical school which are based on the differences between medical school and university. None of the St Mary's and Charing Cross doctors I know, and in my role and familial status I know a lot, feel any affiliation to or interest in supporting Imperial College as an entity
- Being able to do hobbies you enjoy without needless pressure (such as playing sport with your friends rather than strangers with whom you share little) is indicated as a protector against stress and medicine, particularly in later years, is a stressful course. At ICSM we actually actively look at people's social involvements as stress prevention when admitting new students as it is seen as so important to health and avoiding drop-out on the course
- I could go on, but I fear this is getting boring now.


In a recent review, BUCS decided that medical teams could not be separate from their Institution teams. They said that it was unfair as students at a University with a medical school could choose between 2 teams to represent. This seems an utterly moronic statement to me as I do not see how that is unfair or something that should be discouraged in any way, but hey. Unless tehy thought that the best players would play for both teams and thus add to both Institutions points, but that would be a) physically impossible given that BUCS matches all happen at the same time and b) irrelevant as the Institutions are seen as separate anyway. We have heavy suspicions that one particular individual with huge clout at BUCS' administration level and an even bigger vested interest in removing medical clubs has orchestrated the entire affair but saying so in more detail without firmer proof probably counts as libel which I'd ideally like to avoid. Written below is a letter from all the London Medical schools plus Cardiff Med School on the issue. Please read it. I do not expect everyone to share the views of the medical school community, but it would be interesting to see what counter-arguments come up as well as fostering debate and exposing people to an issue that I know has not been widely publicised anywhere!

"Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm writing on behalf of five medical school student unions to inform you of an issue that may be of interest to you.
RE: A grave concern for medical school sporting heritage.

BUCS (British University and Colleges Sport) is the national governing body for Higher Education sport in the United Kingdom. Its vision is simple: “To enhance the student experience through sport”, and they work within three main themes: “Performance, Participation and Competition”. We are writing today to express grave concern that BUCS is not only going against its charitable objectives, but also threatens sporting heritage and history.

A brief history of medical student sport
London hospital sport has long been on the map of sporting competition. For example, the United Hospital (UH) Rugby cup, which is fought between all the London medical schools, is acknowledged by the RFU museum as being the oldest rugby competition in the world. Furthermore, the UH football trophy is older than the FA cup. To this day, the UH competitions, which exist in a number of other sports also, continue to be played and are highlights in the medical student’s sporting calendar. Also, UH representative teams drawn from the London schools play a number of competitive fixtures each season against top-flight teams.
In the mid-1990s, a number of medical schools merged with neighbouring universities due to government policy change. With these mergers, the historic schools maintained certain amounts of autonomy and to this day compete as separate sporting teams. This is not purely based on history, however. Medical students have a greatly different course structure to other students, and are often based on separate campuses. Access to medical school sports teams by such students offers a much more flexible and rewarding experience than the disadvantage they would suffer as part of wider sports teams. For examples, medical students are often placed in remote hospitals which limit their availability for training which will affect their positions in squads or remove their opportunity completely.
The current issue

Over a year ago, BUCS reviewed their criteria for membership upon the inclusion of Further Education Colleges into their leagues. In doing so they acknowledged that 5 medical schools (Barts and The London; Imperial; Guy’s, King’s and St. Thomas’; Royal Free, University College and Middlesex; Cardiff) were currently competing as separate members to their partner universities and viewed this as an “administrative anomaly”. This was deemed as being unfair, despite no complaints being voiced by any BUCS member whatsoever, and the affected institutions being founding members of BUCS. BUCS released two options to the affected institutions.
Neither option is suitable, with one being in direct conflict with a number of institution’s equal opportunities policies. This highlights the complete lack of consultation and total void of knowledge of the sporting structures at the respective colleges on the part of BUCS.
If these changes are enforced, there will be a dramatic loss of participation with the inevitable loss of a number of teams. Furthermore, some top flight BUCS teams (competing in Premiership or Division 1 Leagues) will suffer irreparable damage and may eventually have to change their make-up completely. We believe this is in direct conflict with BUCS’ core vision to enhance the student experience through sport. Furthermore, it can be seen to detriment their values of participation, performance and competition by directly decreasing participation, lowering standards of performance due to organisational change and decreasing competition by the loss of numerous sports teams. There is also the danger of abolition of some of the world’s most historic sports teams. Guy’s Hospital RFC, for example, is acknowledged as the oldest rugby club in the world. BUCS say the protection of these teams lies with the universities and its members. However, the BUCS leagues are where these teams thrive, and by curtailing this vital avenue of competition, there are profound fears for their sustainability.
It is important to remember that BUCS is a membership organisation and we feel that the wants of its members are being ignored. The changes will not just affect the medical schools. It will hugely impact upon the partner institutions as well as all the other teams that compete in the leagues and tournaments nationally. There has been no demand from the members to create such disruption, so we have to question why BUCS is forcing the issue.

Your support is appreciated

As a group, we have attempted to reach compromise with BUCS, but to no avail. We fear the CEO and Head of Sport do not understand fully the impact that this move will have. Furthermore, we presented a compromise motion at the BUCS advisory board, but this proposal was not even considered due to the continued perseverance from BUCS that the original proposals are fair.

Sadly our negotiations with BUCS have come to an end. We will continue to challenge them over the coming months, however feel that the next steps are to raise public awareness of this issue. We hope that you are interested in publishing an article regarding the BUCS issue. Please feel free to contact us for more information regarding our efforts and activities. Furthermore if you would like to obtain a statement from BUCS, we have included the contacts of their key players as given below.

Karen Rothery
CEO
karen.rothery@bucs.org.uk
Mark Brian
Head of Sports Programmes
Mark.Brian@bucs.org.uk
British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS)
20 – 24 Kings Bench Street
London
SE1 0QX


It might also be of interest to you that ULU Medgroup (encompassing all 5 Medical School SUs) have decided to hold a protest at the BUCS Offices on Tuesday 19th March at 2pm. The address is SE1 0QX.

We appreciate any help that you can offer us. If you need any more information, don't hesitate to get in touch.

BW,

Dave Smith and Luke Turner
UH MedGroup Co-Chairs
david.j.smith07@imperial.ac.uk
m0600220@sgul.ac.uk

Andrew Smith
Barts and The London Students’ Association President

Shiv Vohra
Imperial College School of Medicine Students' Union President

Dheeraj Khiatani
Guys, King’s and St. Thomas’ Co-President

Gareth Chan
RUMS Medical Students’ Union President




Katherine Bettany
Editor in Chief
The Medical Student Newspaper "

Sorry this was so long!

CJ

Are not most medical school sports clubs organised through the national association of medics sports?

Or is BUCS membership required to compete in the national leeague structure.

In essence, why is BUCS needed at all for Medics sports - the medical student population and medical society funds should be enough to support their own organising entity?

NAMS is a separate entity but that only sees competition occurring between medical schools- there are not really enough teams there to make a league so it works as a Cup, quite a small one at that, and the quality between medical school teams differs vastly, so there are some trouncings. It isn't a substitute for BUCS in the same way that the British and Irish Cup isn't a substitute for RFU Leagues

Why does BUCS get to decide on entry to the national league levels?

BUCS is the national league at University level. It is also the decider for University level British representation at Internationals

When did BUSA become BUCS?

Can't you just play for both teams? I seem to remember at Exeter there was a medics team and some of them also played for the full University team.

Bathman_in_London wrote:When did BUSA become BUCS?

Can't you just play for both teams? I seem to remember at Exeter there was a medics team and some of them also played for the full University team.

2008. It depends which option is taken, technically, but no. The first option would see there be no medic teams and the second means you could only pick one for your duration at medschool and it would have to be the medic team. They are specifically blocking the suggestion you make, and actively refused to consider any other options though several were suggested by BUCS member Universities