Update: 3rd April 2009 Mission (probably) accomplished! As expected there was a strong backlash against the forced closure of the Guild Hair Salon. At the end of March, well over 1000 signatures had been collected using this on-line petition and from a paper version. Carol presented them to the Guild Council, who offered an alternative room within the Guild for the salon to move into. The plan remains to be approved by the University, so the petitions are still active. Please show your valued support by adding your signature. ________________________ Original petitio text: Letter to Jennifer Lorbie, Guild President (University of Birmingham): Dear Guild President, I am writing to voice the concerns of a great number of students and staff at the University. We are against the forced closure of the Guild Hairdressers, which has been serving the campus with properly priced, convenient and friendly hairdressing for 50 years, a winning combination which the other salons just dont offer. We protest against the effective dismissal of Carol Owen who has been faithfully serving the University for the last 17 years. Furthermore, replacing the salon with a computer cluster seems unnecessary since these are already prevalent across the campus and the new wireless network removes a lot of the demand for computer clusters. Despite a total lack of advertising, and not even being mentioned on the Guild webpage, the salon is visited by around 30-40 customers daily in term time. This shows that the Hairdressers is so important that word-of-mouth alone keeps the salon thronging and it is certainly in demand. Although this petition was launched near the end of term, we have quickly raised well over 1000 signatures (see attached documentation) and hope this will alert you to the number of people who oppose the closure. Yours sincerely, Patrons of the Guild Hairdressers Petition initiator : Dr Mark Redwood (Biosciences) ************** We have a chance to SAVE OUR SALON. 1000 signatures before the end of term will show the Guild President, how many of us want to keep the Guild Hairdressers. Please alert any and all.