“Live from the AGM, it’s Tuesday Night!”
6:30pm: The AGM is set to begin but we haven’t hit quorum.
6:40pm: We still haven’t hit quorum. There is free pizza though. They even had vegan pizza available.
6:45pm: President Shannon Zimmerman announces we’re waiting on quorum and if you have friends near by, give them a ringle (also known as a telephone call).So far at the AGM, I see Chris Saulnier and Neil Bailey, both mingling with a slice in hand. Kurin and Blake are both seated in the audience. Lovett is seated amidst fellow DSUSOers and Wedge is working the room. Leforte is seated at the front of the room at the Executive table.
I missed Karl Dempsey in my initial scan. Dempsey is chatting up the current president, Zimmerman.
6:53pm: We still haven’t hit quorum. There is a solid crew here though. Current BOG member Adam Harris has arrived, past VPEd and pundit Mark Coffin is wearing a charming lavender button up and William Horne, past Senate hopeful and active DSUSO and SustainDAL member has joined Lovett et al.
7:00pm: I’ve now noticed CS student and active punditry.ca commenter John Doucette is on the scene, as is Christian Browne and Henry Whitfield. Eric Snow has yet to sit down or take off his backpack. I think he knows the disbanding of this meeting is only a few minutes away.
7:10pm: We just hit quorum. Hurray! The Chair is introducing himself and the procedure of the evening.
7:11pm: We will go to the first item on the agenda. Acceptance.
The agenda is as follows…
- Roll Call
- Acceptance of the Agenda
- Business of the Executive (President, VPI, VPFO, VPED, VPSL)
- Question and Answer Period
- New Business (Constitutional Amendments)
- Announcements
Voting works by coloured paper, lime for yes, fushcia for no, tangerine for abstain.
7:15pm: Eric Snow moves to accept the agenda. Shannon Zimmerman seconds. Greg Debogorski shows up! He calls a point of information and asks for the chair to read the agenda. Again.
7:17pm: All vote to accept except Debo, who votes no and wants it noted.
7:18pm: Shannon is giving her report on the business of the president
- Makes it clear she couldn’t have done this on her own.
- Pretty incredible year.
- Senate has approved, in principle, the student rankings of professors becoming public.
- Executive 1:1 meetings have helped build stronger bonds between her and VPs.
- CASA policy was approved at plenary.
Paul Forrest, Leforte’s manager, has just arrived.
- Project Hero is taking place now. It’s a program where tuition is given for free to student who have lost parents in combat.
- Student Experience Committee is finally becoming more useful.
7:25pm: Shannon shows us a slideshow of the successes the DSU has had. Pictures of the Premier and Minister of Education meeting with ANSSA are on the screen. More pictures of CASA meeting with members of cabinet like Justin Trudeau (what, no Ben Mulroney?).
Shannon has been excited about her year and she encourages questions during Q&A. She thanks you for her awesome year.
7:27pm: Mark begins the report of the Vice President (Internal).
He has knocked over the mic four times.
He’s happy everyone is here because it means we can have an AGM. He’s written a list of things he wants to talk about. It includes societies, grants, communication, food bank, sexton campus, and the promotion of diversity. It’s basically his portfolio.
Societies: Two society fairs were held this year and the DSU ratified 187 societies. Now he’s talking about communication and tiger society. The new DSU website will encompass more effective ways to ratify and communicate.
Grants: They gave away 60, 000 in grants this year. More than last year. Apparently the grant system needs to be improved so that students can change the world.
Communications: The website. He wants you to have a reason to be on the DSU website. They tried to put those reasons front and center. He shows us some photos of what the new website may look like. It’s all in latin.
Food Bank: New renovation. They have a floor now and managed to mouse-proof the food bank. They have increased food deliveries to once a week. It makes him wonder, though, what is the demand? They are working with FeedNS so they can track it better.
Promotion of Diversity: Diversity can be defined in many ways and the promotion of that transcends what the DSU does or what the societies do (I don’t understand this sentence). Diversity week, however, begins next week and the DSU Execs did the Hfx pride parade. They are also creating a homophobia prevention group. They are working in partnership with the university for accessibility and gender neutral washrooms opened up.
Sexton: Congrats guys, you’ve got an ATM coming. It says on the screen that “classes for females are now being held” but I think it means fitness classes.
Leadership: Brains for Change took place and was a conference with more than 100 students. This new program saw 80% of the students rank the services the DSU gives as “good or excellent”
Mark says thanks guys, it was an honor.
7:40pm: Doyle begins his report.
Sponsorship Policy: Raising for students.
(He’s moving really quickly)
Sponsorship is different from grants, they are looking to see advertising and promotion in return.
- Supernova
- Dalhousie Contingent of the Price Parade
- Dalhousie Eco-Marathon
- Dalhousie Water Polo Society
- Dalhousie Women’s Society
Board of Operations: A committee overseeing the financials and operations. Tim Hill, legal council, also helps out here. Doyle is talking about the Board of Ops but it is really boring. He’s talking about the room they moved in being more conversation friendly. Kudos, friend.
Health Plan: Students will have a more sound concept of what the health plan is and how to opt out.
@rr: Paul Forrest looks quite handsome. Tight, grey hollister long sleeve and he has removed his loafers in efforts to become more at home.
Other Accomplishments: Internet Cafe in the lobby, Booster seat available, electronic marquee(sic) outside, and there are also single use washrooms.
Doyle says his thank yous and wants everyone to give a round of applause to the full time staff.
7:50pm: Rob Leforte steps up to the plate and says “Howdy!” He says that brevity is the soul of awesomeness.
Provincial Election 2009: Produced television commercials with ANSSA and reached 1.7 million impressions among other things.
Student Advocacy: reports of higher incidences of international students being accused of AI violations. formed a working group on int’l issues and academic integrity. Pushed a greater recognition of intellectual honesty and academic integrity.
Late Night Study Space: The Killam is now open until 3am until April 24th. We need to use this time to show the university we need longer study space hours and availability.
Speaker Series: October: Dr. Laura Murray on Copyright // January: Michel Chikwanine, Child Soldier to Child Activist // March: Dr. James Orbinski, former President of Doctors without Borders
Rob mentions they partnered with WUSC on the January speaker, however, he doesn’t remember what the charity WUSC was working for was. He says “I don’t know, but it’s great”.
ANSSA: Tution freeze will be maintained until 2011. Rob likes pictures, too.
Rob just said he has a strong relationship with Shannon, then giggled.
CASA: Parliament lobbying March 6th-12th. Unanimous vote to resubmit order of reference on PSE Access to Senate Social Affairs and Science and Technology Committee… Rob says “I know, lingo.”
Rob is surprised by the end of his presentation. “Is that all I have?”
8:00pm: Kris begins his presentation and stands up to hold the mic. Rock star, baby.
There is a chicken on his first slide.
He says its been a great round two.
Orientation: They sold out. Woop. over 1500 students. Over 150 student leaders. Capacity was becoming an issue in this building. They may have turned away 10-20 students at certain events.
(Mark Coffin is giggling beside me. My heart is swooning.)
Fall Fest: Moderatly successful. Bands played, comedians came, *sniffle*, *snort*, “I’m sick, it’s my last year, common”.
The crowd has significantly depleated. I am debating calling quorum.
8:07pm: Kris says the university is trying to do Homecoming wrong. There will, however, be a stronger connection. Kris is being blunt and not sugar coating – he doesn’t care – and says the university is just trying to get money out of the alumni.
8:10pm: Techball went well. Munro day did too. They had two injuries (which he is saying because they didn’t get sued.)
Student Appreciation Night: All the tickets were given out, almost all the tickets were used. Kris is being very candid.
Paul Forrest just gonged Kris’ report.
Kris says he’s almost done.
Res Charity Game: Risley won. $20 000 for the IWK.
Dal’s got Talent: Nights where attendance has reached capacity. It’s been hugely successful.
Society Assistance: I missed it… I was laughing at the comments… keep it up.
Athletics: It’s been a work in progress, but the position as “Athletics Commissioner” has been in place but underutilized.
Ongoing projects: DSU STORM (magazine) only happened once. It’s on hold. Facebook advertising has been great this year. (Basically, Kris is an expert creeper and you pay him to stalk your photos).
8:18pm: Question and Answer
Glen Kruger: CASA was founded on the princple of one vote per school, as a break from the CFS which is a shit hole. (direct quote). CASA has now moved towards a more size/money based vote allocation. Dalhousie voted in favour of that, and that seemingly gives Dal a lesser vote and therefore, WHY?
Shannon and Rob are bickering.
Shannon: The whole discussion has been at CASA for a while. When it came to a vote, we said yes, because there is a sunset clause that says at the end of the year, they would revisit the formula. If you don’t try new things, they become stagnent. This was an attempt at something new. For a year, there would be data on how it worked and if it helped/hurt Dalhousie and CASA. – In fact, Dalhousie is one of the largest CASA schools but that did not play a large role for her deicison.
Rob will add that this is a place where Shannon and he disagreed initially, “Glen, you were there!”. Between the summer and fall meetings, Rob began to agree when the sunset clause was put in place. It was an opportunity to let CASA grow.
8:23pm: Rob Leforte asked a question about Shannon’s report she gave on First Nations to CASA. I think this is an attempt to incorporate something Rob forgot in his report.
8:24pm: No more questions? Wtf? Shortest Q&A in DSU history.
8:25pm: Eric Snow becomes the cutest geek alive but shrilling “yay!” when hearing that we’re now moving to the constitutional amendments.
Constitutional Amendments:
The only major aspect of the portion we’re talking about now is that Vice President (Education) will now be called Vice President (Academic and External).
8:28pm: Eric Snow is starting shit, as per us.
8:29pm: The motion to accept the amendments has been made and seconded.
8:30pm: That motion carries.
The next motion is to change the spelling of the word “honoraria”.
8:31pm: The motion carries.
8:31pm: Debogorski returns! The party regains momentum.
8:31pm: The new motion includes lots of deletions that will be moved to regulations.
8:33pm: Lisa Buchanan says that if we delete all of this and then council doesn’t vote to put it into regulations, where does it go?
8:33pm: Chair says thats too bad, but its the way it’s gotta go.
8:34pm: Mark Coffin tried to reroute the system, but Zimmerman crushed his dream.
8:34pm: Chair calls the question. The motion passes. Debo abstains.
8:35pm: The membership of council is changing in this motion.
8:36pm: I think the Chair just called a point of information on behalf of the room…
8:37pm: Friendly amendment that Schulich School of Law was spelled wrong.
8:38pm: Question from the floor about the way which group gets to nominate a certain group that they claim to represent.
8:39pm: Shannon says the only group this concerns is the Faculty of Management.
8:39pm: Eric is tearing shit up, again, as per us. He says that this wording change makes it more clear, nothing major changes, and the only thing it really concerns is that unless contested, the previous year dictates future years.
8:43pm: Motion carries.
8:44pm: Pundit corner is established. Mark Coffin, Eric Snow, Lisa Buchanan, Janet Conrad and myself are all seated together. I will point out at 6:35pm I sat alone.
8:45pm: Another motion carries regarding financial wording.
8:45pm: Kris is shit talking Eric but Eric is not concerned. The elections are being fixed up here. It’s great change.
8:45pm: Motion carries.
8:46pm: General meetings are being reworded here.
8:46pm: Question: What is the point of having a general meeting? This seems to remove an avenue of democracy.
8:47pm: The spirit behind this change, Eric says, is not to prevent motions being forward but rather to fix that at general meetings, we don’t always get a full breadth of student representation. In terms of setting this policy, bringing it to council is a much better way to set policy formally.
8:49pm: Greg is talking… he is circling the drain of calling quorum… it’s making me nervous… he’s saying that general meetings are not any better than council. No one comes to either.
8:50pm: Glen Kruger steps up… constitutions are meant to guide the next 50 presidents, not the next one, and to change something for the next year, or because of past years, is a bad idea. He has a hard time believing that this is a valid change. He has a big problem with this, especially since there is a big pull for regulations rather than by-laws, and he feels like this is beefing up council and stripping power from the AGM.
8:52pm: Some random guy in the audience just called quorum. AWESOME. We’re taking a 15 minute recess.
8:57pm: The meeting as been adjourned. They’ll call another meeting at some point so that our constitution actually makes sense, rather than half new/half old.
I wonder, is it the weather, or the woeful lack of advertisement that is keeping people away? The meeting is overdue to begin, but still there is no agenda posted on the DSU website…
What you need is 500 really angry people to liven things up a little.
Yeah, I think what the DSU needs is a nice bottle of wine, some candles to get that romantic lighting… violins are played out, maybe get butterfly guy instead… just the DSU and SMAC, forbidden love.
OMG OMG OMG THE AGENDA PASSED OMG WE HAVE NOW OFFICIALLY ACCOMPLISHED MORE THAN BOTH AGMS LAST YEAR PUT TOGETHER.
for the love of beer – pass the constitutional amendments this go round! do you know the formatting involved? or the amount of time spent by some lovely people just to start to make that beast make sense? pass it!
hi sarah.
can someone note how cute paul forrest looks!
The shirt Mark is wearing is indeed quite lovely…
Anyone else notice Glenn Blake and his sweet new haircut? I’m a fan!
@the ex dsu policy wonk
<3
Duely noted
The “Classes for females” are indeed fitness classes but they are open to female students only. We are hoping to set up coed classes as well but it will be contingent on the successful attendance of the new class being offered.
“brevity is the soul of awesomeness” (Rob Leforte, 2010)
Dear Rob,
Thank you for being such a an engaging public speaker.
@RR: Good from far, but not so good up close? haha
back off Henry.. get your own paul forrest!
By “It’s all in latin”, I assume you meant it was the lorem ipsum text. Otherwise, I feel it won’t be successful at engaging students with the possible exception of the Classics department.
What’s the word on non-Union members (i.e. me) getting into the meeting this year?
@Lisa Buchanan You’re good to go, its basically empty.
@rr Woah bear… Will I make it out of the room alive? ha
@Henry
Sweet. I’ll be there in time for the constitutional amendments!
is shannon high?
High on stealing all of Rob’s material..
*All* homecoming events are about getting money from alumni, the thing is you have to do a bunch of other stuff to attract alumni and achieve that goal.
Dear Shannon,
Wtf? pull it together girl!
i think ben wedge should win the green award..
@rr
You’re only saying that because he’s wearing a green shirt.
i concur eric snow
If no amendments get passed tonight due to time constraints… I blame Osmond.
someone note rob leforte’s striped socks
where did the pizza come from?
@Sandy Magic Pizza Land? Quite delicious.
Ha
This AGM… well.. its… productive?
It’s a twilight zone type experience… No butterfly comments yet though; Who will be this year’s “Butterfly Guy..”
Any idea’s people?
@Sandy Sodexho.
New drinking game:
Slam one back every time Eric Snow utters the phrase “particularly in relation to”.
@Unwon Voter That would be worse than putting one back every time Pierre McGuire called someone a ‘monster’
Quorum anyone?
*Looks around*
Hmmm….
Spelling mistakes are the de facto seal of office for the DSU. It’s how you know it’s a legitimate document and not a forgery.
@Its A Numbers Game…
Don’t call it. Eric Snow will actually explode into a million pieces. Seriously.
That was some pretty sheisty tactics from the Snow, Coffin et al corner.
They tried to make ALL resolutions passed in an AGM non-binding on council. These are dark days in the union.
If they are succesful in passing this resolution, democracy ends within our union. Complete oligarchy of power begins. There will no longer be any sort of check or balance to the insiders. Not even AGM’s.
The insiders are knowingly evil and conniving.
@Eric Snow
but I’m in the DSU
I thought that was a good move for the long term future of the Union though. We shouldn’t be artificially reaching quorum and then making changes knowing that it isn’t being met.
Besides, now we get more pizza!
I disagree completely with the notion that AGMs are the last remaining vestige of democracy within the union, and that without them we enter a totalitarian regime. Council is by definition a representative democracy. Council members and executives are elected by their constituents. Nothing has been done to eliminate the ability to recall councillors or executives, and no one has eliminated referenda, which are an example of direct democracy.
I think the DSU’s AGMs are actually a threat to democracy. Representation in them is not proportional or fair; it’s “people who show up”, whether they be councillors or people who want to push an agenda on the DSU. AGMs are the pillars of a squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease-ocracy. It would be like letting the people who are demonstrating in Washington make the final decision on healthcare. “Being angry” shouldn’t give someone more of a say in a student union than anyone else.
And it goes both ways – I’m not just talking about the times when SMAC or NSPIRG try to push their own agenda at the meetings. Every other year, a bunch of councillors and whoever they can convince to come out struggle to hit 75 people and THEN pass things. How is that democracy?
At first glance, I hated the idea too – somehow it seems like we’re taking power from students and giving it to Council. But that’s not really what’s happening; if anything, we’re taking power away from mobs and insiders.
I think if you want to further increase democracy in the union, don’t waste your breath defending AGMs. Get behind Debogorski and his PRD system.
@Gregorian
I actually kind of agree with this. I’m not sure how I feel about this motion it makes me uneasy.
Vice President (Education) will now be called Vice President (Academic and External)
Nooooooo!
DSU: You’re meddling with powers you could not possibly comprehend.
For over a thousand generations, the Jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic… before the dark times… before the empire.
Greg: The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
“classes for females” on Sexton
Bwahahahahahahaha. I almost spit my drink out all over my computer. Intentional or non-intentional omission (forgetting “fitness”? comeonnnnnn) that was probably one of the most hilarious things I’ve read all day (and I say this as a former female Sexton student… “former” referring to being on Sexton Campus. Not the female part).
@Sarah Amyotte
it was no Tony’s
@Jacqueline
The Sextant ran an article about a gay guy on Sexton this semester, so transgender is the logical next step.
Yes folks, Sexton has women, and homosexuals. It’s like we’re moving into the 18th century or something. Maybe next we’ll get a toaster and microwave that we can use at the same time!