Dear all,

I’d be grateful if you could circulate the information below.

Firtsly, please advise members that the WML door is being altered (work scheduled for 21st and 22nd January). While the change is long awaited, the work is at rather short notice so I was unable to warn you much in advance. Once completed, exit as well as entry will need a Uni card. The door opening mechanism will be lighter and easier for all and will be automated for some.

Secondly, the Thomas Smith exhibition in the Old Library will be open on Friday 22nd January 3-4pm, Wednesday 27th 3-4pm and Friday 29th 12-1pm. All members of College will be welcome. Please call at the WML office during these times to gain entry. There will other Old Library exhibitions to which all members will be invited. Small groups of visitors are welcome at other times too and anyone interested can contact Mrs Begg for more information.

Hi All,

Here is a collection of College vacation arrangements from various places, for easy reference. If you live in college accommodation please take particular care to read section (1).

Many of the closure dates are entered on the MCR Calendar, at http://qmcr.org.uk/events

1. ACCOMMODATION
2. CATERING
3. LIBRARY
4. MAIN SITE CLOSURES

Merry Christmas, Duncan.

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1) ACCOMMODATION:

If you’re going home for more than a few days over the break, please remember to

• take care of any perishables in your room or kitchen which might reach their expiry date while you’re away.
• shut off radiators / heaters, provided that this won’t risk flooding if the pipes freeze.
• leave your accommodation tidy! wash any dirty laundry, and wipe kitchen surfaces clean (this means you Norwich Street)
• shut off all lights and electrical appliances.
• make sure that no taps are left dripping.

All of this is fairly common sense, although every year a few people neglect these things, and interesting new life forms take shape during their absence.

Note that housekeeping staff will be on holiday from Thurs. 24th Dec until Sunday 3rd January inclusive.

2) CATERING:

The Kitchens will be closed from 1pm on Weds. 23rd December, reopening for breakfast on Tues. 5th January.

During the rest of the vacation (Dec. 10th -> Weds. 6th January) meal times are as follows:

Breakfast: 8:30am -> 9:00am Monday -> Friday Lunch: 12:30pm -> 1:15pm (closing 15 minutes early on 23rd Dec.) Dinner: 6:00pm -> 6:45pm

3) LIBRARY:

The War Memorial Library will close at 10pm on Friday, 4th of December. From the 5th until the 11th of January it will be open from 9am to 10pm daily, except for the following closures:

• 12pm Thurs. 24th Dec -> 9am Tues. 29th Dec.
• 12pm Thurs. 31st Dec -> 9am Fri. 1st Jan.

4) MAIN SITE CLOSURES:

The College gates will be shut and no porters will be on duty for the period

• 5pm Dec. 24th -> 7:00am Dec. 29th and
• 5pm Dec. 31st -> 7:00am Jan. 1st.

It will still be possible to get into the College through the card operated gates, such as the bicycle entrance next to the Porters’ lodge.

The existing Lapwing wi-fi access points in communal areas in Queens’ now also offer the “eduroam” wi-fi service. Most of the university has similar eduroam coverage.

The eduroam wi-fi service is an international exchange agreement between universities to permit each other’s members wi-fi access to the internet.

See http://www.eduroam.org/ and http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/wireless-lapwing/eduroam/

If you are satisfied with the current Lapwing wi-fi service, then you need not bother to find out more about eduroam: stop reading now.

The advantages that eduroam offers over Lapwing are:

1. eduroam works with many models of mobile phone etc that Lapwing does not work with (iPhone, iPod Touch, Nokia N-series, Blackberry, etc);

2. No need to log on via a web-browser: the laptop/phone automatically goes online as soon as it comes within range of an eduroam access point;

3. The eduroam wi-fi session is encrypted whereas the Lapwing wi-fi session is unencrypted and anybody can eavesdrop;

4. There is much less port-blocking in eduroam than in Lapwing, so that, for example, instant messengers will work in eduroam.

5. eduroam is available at many universities world-wide, available to you by virtue of your Cambridge membership, whereas Lapwing is a Cambridge-only solution.

The downside of eduroam is that the pre-configuration of your PC/phone necessary to enable it to recognise an eduroam connection is technologically challenging and not for the faint-hearted. The instructions are at http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/wireless-lapwing/eduroam/localusers.html

Dear all,

I have a couple pieces of food related news plus a reminder about paying for stuff on Cashless. Please DO NOT buy tickets for events marked as KBT QGN unless you have been told by me that you can – these events are College Guest Nights and it causes a huge hassle if you buy tickets when you’re not supposed to.

News: 1. I’ve asked if the buttery could be kept open one or two nights per week (Mondays and/or Tuesdays). They’re willing to trial this if enough people express interest, because it’s quite expensive for them to stay open after 7pm. 2. We have the possibility of a Christmas Vacation Formal on Dec 22nd. Again, this will only go ahead if people are actually around and want to attend.

I’ve made a little poll for both of these questions which I’d be very happy if you could fill out http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dGhmbHVTX3hTTVpPRHlacUpCcmV3d2c6MA

As always if the link doesn’t work, please copy & paste.

Best, Theresa

Weds. Oct 28th

Dear Colleagues, Our electrician has identified the required part but even with a courier service the replacement will not arrive until tomorrow, Thursday 29th October. It will be fitted on arrival (expected mid morning). A spare has also been ordered to obviate a repeat of the same problem. Unfortunately, I will have to close the WML again overnight as from 6pm we will be unstaffed. I regret this action, but have no choice and assure you all that normal service will resume asap.

Tues. Oct 27th

Disaster has just struck. The electronic strike on the WML door has broken and University cards will not enable access. We can keep the door open during staffed hours, but will have to close at 6pm tonight, when I leave, and won’t open until 9am tomorrow. Emergency repairs will be made asap, but please warn students about the problem. We are really sorry to have to close early at such short notice, and do not know how soon the problem can be fixed. It has utmost priority.

Hello all,

The MCR is making a day trip to Ely this Sunday! Plan is to meet at Queens’ Plodge at 10 AM or the Rail Station at 10:30 AM, from where we will be catching the train to Ely. In Ely, we plan to visit Ely Cathedral, Oliver Cromwell’s house, and the town itself, stopping for lunch at a pub along the way. Bring your student ID and money for train ticket (~7 pounds, roundtrip–cheaper if you have a rail card), admission to the Cromwell house (4 pounds), and lunch. Admission to the cathedral is free on Sundays, but they also do tours which are ~5-10 pounds. The group will probably be returning to Cambridge around 3pm, though it will be possible to leave earlier, if needed.

If you haven’t already signed up, please do so at http://tinyurl.com/qmcr-ely ,so that we have an idea of how many are coming.

Cheers, Stella and Duncan