Cork IV 2009 - Minutes

Here is a copy of Danny's Cork IV minutes that I just transcribed. He lost his USB stick, so we had to transcribe the printed out version.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this the final of the Cork Intervarsity 2009, sponsored by the Diocese of Cork, '100% satisfaction or we move you to another parish!'

You have come from far and wide, you have enjoyed several rounds of the finest debating this island has to offer, you have enjoyed our luxurious spreads of food and wine, you have made merry with our women, you have come, hopefully, no refunds on registration fee for that.

And now you get to experience an epic verbal battle the likes of which you have never seen, unless you're like me and you've been to like a million of these things already. We sincerely hope you enjoy the night while you can anyway folks, as initial rumbles from the tab room indicate that the post-final dissection of the tab will make for slightly more pleasant reading that the general clerical sex abuse report.

We'd like to give a big welcome to our former Convenor Tiernan, being rolled up to the podium in a wheelchair by former auditor Ross thanks to a break decision that had nothing to do with either of them having run this thing two years ago. If you, like them, are here tonight solely to bitch and moan about how things were run in his year, you'll notice lots of new faces on the committee this year. The 2009 Committee Models are a stylish take on many of the stereotypes you are already used to. Timeless classics include the token Kerryman, the token mentally unstable science geek, the token ginger, the token Eastern European, the token have a dozen law students, and last but not least, the token fresher.

The First Year Rep in particular is a vast improvement on the old but popular 'COSG' model, having fixed the ambiguous sexuality problem and now features much faster integration speeds into committee member's underpants. We also put a lot of work into our auditor, manufactured by the same Cobh-based Family Company that gave us the treasured 'Ferret' model. The 'Ferret Mark 2' is a budget version of the original designed for recessionary times. While the rage problems of the original 'Ferret' have been overcome in general, the Mark 2 is tragically prone to bouts of utter insanity and has so far been an utter disappointment compared with the previous model.

We're also continuing our gradual process of making the IV convenor smaller and smaller every year, so that hopefully by 2015 we'll have the IV convened by elves. Úna will be easy to spot however; she'll be running out the door soon enough in the Prada shoes, D&G handbag and the fur coat paid for by your reg fee.

We hope that our international teams are all enjoying the quality crash we've provided. Alaska B are delighted they can see Vladivostok A from their house and spend countless hours waving at them. As for myself, I've got the Dutch teams in my attic, the Austrians in my basement, the British in the backyard for 'strategic reasons' the Germans separated between two rooms just the way Maggie Thatcher would have wanted it, and the Israeli's in the nice piping hot.... baths.... what, what did you think I was going to say?

Yes, thankfully the Cork IV has gone ahead this year and has been a resounding success, and we didn't have to go with our backup location on the top deck of the QE2. We had all kinds of plans put in place and ready to go this year and thankfully we've only had to actually implement was to open several hundred boxes of pizza on the outskirts of the city so that the smell would drawn Derek Lande away. The man is harder to get rid of than genital warts, something he can probably agree with me upon. Another person who has been difficult to get rid of is a certain Mister Murphy, better known as Anthony Murphy B.A., M.A., D.LITT, CA CORK IV 2009. The intrepid Mister Murphy, despite having actually made his way out into the real world has now found himself dragged back through Narnia to Cork and agreed to act as CA in exchange for a pony, claiming that if Art Ward can get an elephant he should at least get an animal that has the same proportional penis size.

So to conclude before the wine goes flat, or they trigger the trapdoor beneath my feet, whichever comes first, the final will hopefully be entertaining for you unless the first prop speaker vomits all over the microphone, in which case it will definitely be entertaining."