As we all know, many of the new full-time officers (FTOs) have very ambitious manifestos which they are hoping to implement this year. Prior to this meeting, the last few Executive Committee’s haven’t had enough members to hit quorum- having enough members present makes the meeting valid. The main issue that was discussed was making sure that the Executive Committee could function during Covid and making it more effective as the constitutional convention is being carried out.
The President’s manifesto is one of the more radical to be seen and hit the ground running in this meeting by making a draft for changes to the Executive Meeting bylaws. These changes are to change the quorum rules to be more flexible, enable amendments to papers, make the publishing of the minutes of meetings more frequent and making the rules on contentiousness (disagreements) more workable. Another paper put forward by the President made future papers more inclusive as it ensures that future papers receive comments from part-time officers (PTOs) before being presented in the Agenda for meetings.
Max Kafula, the new VP for BME students, presented a paper that changed the name of his role from BME to BAME Officer to show the direction of greater inclusion he wishes to go on this year. The changes to the County College bylaws were also approved, a fair and due process was undertaken to produce those changes. Three trustees were approved by the Executive Committee. One student trustee, for a one year term and two further external trustees. Both of the external trustees were expected to take up their positions for a four-year term but the Committee decided this would preempt the democracy review. Instead, it was suggested that they could both have a one year term- this has been taken back to the candidates ahead of their appointment.
Atree Ghosh, the new VP for Union Development, brought a paper to adopt a policy and campaign for a larger block grant from the university. This also passed and there was a resolution to campaign for an increased block grant that allows the Students Union to increase what they can offer to students. There was also resolve to offer greater transparency with the block grant situation and show the members how the block grant is spent.
It will be interesting to see what future meetings of the Executive Committee hold going into the year as the new team deal with trying to deliver their manifestos while also doing all they can to maintain the student experience in a Covid world. There is expected to be ongoing discussion surrounding elected trustees and hopefully over the current lack of scrutiny officers. We’ll keep you updated on any news!
