meeting in bid to win a seat on the ruling body, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

And they threatened to stage a sit-in at the meeting -- defused when Faculty Association president Sean O'Connell, who had been invited to join the board, left without taking his seat.

The protest was sparked by an invitation to the Faculty Association, which represents lecturers, to sit on the board -- a move the Staff Association said broke the law governing the board's make-up.

Dr. O'Connell did not take his seat at the Tuesday meeting, the first of the new session, after the protest.

Around half a dozen members of the Staff Association, whose members include middle management teaching staff, computer, clerical engineering, library and security employees, turned up at the first meeting of the new session to register their complaint at being excluded.

Staff Association chairman Jon Carey said: "The feeling is, if we're going to have one area in the College being represented, we have to have all.

"That's the basic feeling -- I just wanted to make sure that the board was aware of the concerns of the support staff.'' And he insisted that calling the demonstration a protest was too strong -- and added that the Staff Association's action was "nothing out of the ordinary''.

Mr. Carey added that the Staff Association wanted to be fully involved as the College moved forward -- possibly to university college status -- and was concerned that support staff received proper funding for training for new responsibilities.