The
Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) is required to hold a General Meeting twice a year
in which all members of the CSU (all Capilano students) may participate and
vote, and get a free lunch in exchange.
The
meeting was held in the Maple Building on Mar. 22. It is required that all CSU
board members are in attendance; however, two were absent, Saam Nasirpour, and
Parker Busswood, and their regrets were confirmed by the chair. By the time the
quorum of 40 was reached, half an hour of the scheduled time had passed. Former
CSU Chair Ben West was ratified as the external chairperson without opposition.
There were only a few items that took up the majority of the time in the
general meeting.
STIPEND
CONUNDRUM
A
proposal that was expected by many to cause contentious debate, CSU board
member, and student Senator David Clarkson attempted to amend the agenda to
include a motion that he did not submit by the deadline. The motion, which
Clarkson distributed printed copies of, proposed that “[Clarkson] be paid for
his duties in his capacity as a member of the Executive Committee for which he
has not previously received remuneration.”
While
the motion did not explicitly state it, the period in which he did not collect
his remuneration was all of June 2010 to May of 2011, a consecutive period of
12 months. He failed to submit his stipend request according to the CSU’s
remuneration policy, which requires that they be collected monthly. As a result,
the policy would have to be suspended at a general meeting for him to be able
to collect it.
Clarkson’s
written preamble to the resolution says that he was externally, or
“structurally prevented,” from collecting his stipend, due to how the
remuneration policy was written, until it was changed at the Nov. 2011 AGM.
However, this does not appear to be true, as he has been collecting his stipend
since July of 2011, and it didn’t appear to structurally prevent him at that
time. Most other board members had no problems collecting their stipend during that
period, except for Bahiyyih Galloway, for a period of three months. Galloway
accepted at that time that it was her own fault for not doing so.
Clarkson
attempted to have the motion be put on the agenda so that it would come before the
other resolutions that had been submitted on time. However, Kelsey Didlick,
another CSU board member, along with others present, were eager to move on to
items that were actually on the agenda, and urged those present to defeat the
motion.
“Every
item on the agenda today has been submitted two weeks in advance, and the
reason for that is to give everyone with membership the opportunity to be here
to vote an ample amount of time to consider the motions, so that you can feel
prepared,” said Didlick. “To be clear, I do sit on the board, and I know that it
was not submitted by the deadline, and that’s why it is not on the agenda
today. And so there’s no reason to amend the agenda, because if this member
would like to have his motion considered, he needs to submit it for the
following general meeting.”
West
ruled the motion to amend the agenda out of order, due to the policy that
requires agenda items to be submitted two weeks in advance.
This
matter also caused controversy during several CSU board meetings last summer,
along with the previous two AGMs. At that time, several executives took issue
with Clarkson attempting to collect stipends for such a significant time period
when the policy states that they must be collected monthly, and were
uncomfortable making a decision about it. Previously, the executive had
approved stipends that were a couple of days or weeks late, but not months (or
a year) late. Stipends are approved by fellow executives in an attempt to
ensure the work is completed properly, which helps keep the executive
accountable. The concern raised was that there is a difficulty in approving
responsibilities for pay periods from so long ago, as so many of those board
members are no longer on the board.
BUDGET
Subsequently,
Jordan Liden then went on to discuss the CSU's budget. “What we did was starting
about six or seven weeks ago; we met for about an hour for the budget. Prior to
that, I prepared since four yearly financial statements since 2008, so we
looked at past trends to allocate expenses from last year. There are no huge
changes from the year before. When we started looking at revenues, we predicted
they would be the same as last year,” said Liden.
Liden
believes that the budget will have to be amended in Fall 2012, just as it was
amended last fall: “If we project the revenue wrong, then that could make some
substantial changes. But we amended the budget in the fall last year, and that
worked out well,” Liden explained.
Much
of the discussion centred around a line item to buy a pool table, which the CSU
was to increase from $3,000 to $5,000, due to the cost of a quality table. Some
students felt that a foosball or air hockey table was more suitable; however,
the amendment for the increase passed.
ORGANIZATIONAL
REVIEW COMMITTEE (ORC)
At
the AGM in the spring of 2011, a resolution was passed to strike an
“Organizational Review Committee” which would examine the structure of the
organization and provide a report including recommendations to be voted (if
they recommended any) at the Spring 2012 AGM. Kelsey Didlick, the chair of the
ORC committee gave her report which, for the most part, stated that the
committee needed more time before any changes were made.
It
also recommended that the committee should become the internal responsibility
of the executives, instead of having a deadline for recommendations at an
upcoming general meeting, so that a proposal can be given the amount of time
that it needs.
Clarkson
expressed his opposition to the proposal from the committee, especially about a
lack of these deadlines, which could lead to less accountability on the part of
the board. He also suggested that the AGM pass a motion for the CSU to do a
third-party governance review, “so that the committee remain accountable to the
membership at-large.” However, this idea did not have traction, and it was
decided that the committee would only report back at the next AGM.
REMAINING
ITEMS
Several
other items remained on the agenda, including one that required any members who
wish to propose a resolution for a General Meeting to now have to get a
petition of 50 students. However, by that point, the meeting had lost quorum,
so the meeting was unable to vote on any remaining changes, effectively being
adjourned. The remaining items do not get carried over to the next meeting;
however, they can be put on the agenda by the board or by members.
//Victoria Fawkes, writer
//Victoria Fawkes, writer
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