🚀 go-pugleaf

 rosalind@logcam.co.uk (Rosalind Barden) writes :

|When Mike states that 'lots of "ladies" attended the dinner', this is
|not quite accurate.

Sorry, "lots" was perhaps an exaggeration, but I was pleased that quite
a number of ladies did attend.

|There were few women at the conference and all those that I spoke to were
|angry that women can still be treated this way.

It was not only the ladies who were angry; I think the vast majority of
the gentlemen at the conference felt this way too.  I should point out
that the club membership committee are completely in favour of granting
full membership to ladies.  Unfortunately the last vote was disrupted by
a group of (young) male members who wished to keep ladies out.  I am
confident that ladies will be granted full membership in the near future.
I should point out however that a number of lady associate members do not
want full membership granted to ladies as their membership fees would
increase ten-fold.  That is beside the point of course -- it's the principle
of the thing.

|A group of us attended the dinner only because an apology was made to the
|conference for any offence which the venue might have cause and because
|Mike Hinchey undertook to write to the club on behalf of the conference
|to protest .....

I will write to the club before Monday and post a copy of the letter to
this newsgroup.  This newsgroup is for the discussion of matters related
to Z and the Z User Group.  I hope that it will not become a forum for
political matters, regardless of how strongly we all feel about this matter.

Neither I, nor the Z User Group committee in any way support the club's
position in relation to the membership of ladies.

|By the way Mike, could you supply me with the name and address of the
|person to contact at the club as I wish to write expressing my feelings.

Certainly Rosalind.  If you and anyone else wants to write in addition to
the letter that I will send on behalf of the ZUG committee and ZUM'92,
then I suggest that you write to :

        Mr. D. Gwynne,
        Membership Secretary,
        United Oxford & Cambridge University Club,
        71 - 77 Pall Mall,
        LONDON
        SW1Y 5HD

Again, I regret any offence caused to anyone (female or male) attending
the meeting.  When we booked the club, we essentially had nowhere else
to host the dinner, and were sure the the last vote to admit ladies would
have gone through.  The booking was made with the best of intentions, and
certainly was not indented to cause offence to the ladies who attended ZUM'92.

-- Mike Hinchey.