SU Council Motions, Mon 13th November 2006

abelard

Blush_01 wrote:

How did the whole thing go?

Smoothly. The healthy body image was deferred to the next council as the seconder of the motion couldn't make it to council. The motions on the donation of software and the monitoring of tutorial both passed without a word spoke against them. There were also elections for the position of union secretary and also for seats on academic council.

Miss GAAfia

Harmless Council, and predictable enough. Although I was very dissapointed at how voting proceeded for the Academic Council seats that were contested. There was little or no order in the room during the process. A lot of people didn't even know what/who they were voting for. Not impressed.

The movement of the positive body image motion and the deferral of the bebo motion during the week should ensure a packed agenda for next Council. Hurrah....with the exams en route....lovely :rolleyes:

Also, although I absolutely encourage all students to attend Council, I feel it necessary to add that some people are attending Council and heckling people (particularly the chair!) when they don't have speaking rights. This needs to be dealt with, it's not on, and it intimidates many people from speaking.....

abelard

Miss GAAfia wrote:

Harmless Council, and predictable ......

Aaaaugh....she awakens!

Miss GAAfia

Be gentle with me.....I'm a newbie. I have yet to fully understand this world you all inhabit. But yes, I awaken......*yawn*....not for long though...I'm all hacked out. All Academic Council positions are up on newswire btw.

gubbie

Miss GAAfia wrote:

Be gentle with me.....I'm a newbie. I have yet to fully understand this world you all inhabit. But yes, I awaken......*yawn*....not for long though...I'm all hacked out. All Academic Council positions are up on newswire btw.

Its wierd... its like I can hear your voice when you say these things...

Edited to say it was the quickest council ever! Only an hour and 3 quarters. Tis the brilliant job of a brilliant chair

And one more thing-it was the first council I was ever at that there was no hard lefties... twas wierd

Stepherunie

Ah it almost makes me feel like I was there.......

Next council should be interesting considering the motions that are now on notice for it.

pretty*monster

I was very dissappointed that people voted against one minute speeches from Academic Council candidates.

/likes to make informed choices

Council's gotten fierce boring.

The_Minister

Miss GAAfia wrote:

Be gentle with me.....I'm a newbie. I have yet to fully understand this world you all inhabit. But yes, I awaken......*yawn*....not for long though...I'm all hacked out. All Academic Council positions are up on newswire btw.

I was wondering when you'd show up on Boards.

dajaffa

FYI, Colin Scally, aka *censored* was elected Secretary, Morgan wouldn't hold Vice-Sec elections until next council...

abelard

dajaffa wrote:

*censored*

Oh there's no need for that really. 'Tis me.

Stabshauptmann

I was dissapointed that there were no motions worth debating. The two potentially good ones were postponed till next week

panda100

Miss GAAfia wrote:

Harmless Council, and predictable enough. Although I was very dissapointed at how voting proceeded for the Academic Council seats that were contested. There was little or no order in the room during the process. A lot of people didn't even know what/who they were voting for. Not impressed.

The movement of the positive body image motion and the deferral of the bebo motion during the week should ensure a packed agenda for next Council. Hurrah....with the exams en route....lovely :rolleyes:

Also, although I absolutely encourage all students to attend Council, I feel it necessary to add that some people are attending Council and heckling people (particularly the chair!) when they don't have speaking rights. This needs to be dealt with, it's not on, and it intimidates many people from speaking.....

Couldnt agree more with this post. The voting for acedemic council in arts was an absolute joke. Nobody knew most of the candidates and nobody could make an informed descision on the matter. Candidates should definatly have been allowed to speak.
As for heckling the chair I told Pierce to shut up on many occasions but to know consequence:) It does make council very uncomfortable for us newbs who find it difficult to speak up at the best of times. Those who heckle should be ejected out of council immediatly. It makes council very difficult to follow for the rest of us.

Also on the matter of my motion it was a blessing in disguise that Chris wasnt able to attend yesterdays council as it gives me an opportunity to rewrite and tweak the motion a bit.
I really took on board what Elmyra and Blush in particular have been saying to me this week and I do realise that the motion in its current form isnt going to be effective for what I want to achieve. The idea of the motion though will stilll be kept very much alive in the fact that it is the unions duty to promote a positive body image by not just using certain types of shapes and figures in their publications.

On an another note I thought Dans speech on getting students to vote was important for class reps to hear.It certainly made me want to help out with that campaign.

panda100

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

I was dissapointed that there were no motions worth debating. The two potentially good ones were postponed till next week

Well there was one real good debate in the forum after between venus and pigeonbutler...

singingstranger

gubbie wrote:

Edited to say it was the quickest council ever! Only an hour and 3 quarters. Tis the brilliant job of a brilliant chair

God, I'd have killed for 100-minute Councils when I was in the job. I can't remember how short the shortest was last year but certainly I don't think I ever went under 9 A4 pages of size 10 minutes. Here's hoping Colin (congrats to whom, btw!) has a reasonably easy job doing this lot of minutes. Bit bizarre that a Vice-Sec election wasn't held though, last year when I moved upwards Michael held the Vice-Sec election straight away given the immediate nature of the vacancy.

cast_iron

Miss GAAfia wrote:

I feel it necessary to add that some people are attending Council and heckling people (particularly the chair!) when they don't have speaking rights. This needs to be dealt with, it's not on, and it intimidates many people from speaking.....

It's the Chair's responsibility to ensure Council is run smoothly. If he cannot maintain order, he should ensure that there is adequate personnel on hand to evict those causing disturbance.
If he fails to do this, he is not doing his job!

panda100

cast_iron wrote:

It's the Chair's responsibility to ensure Council is run smoothly. If he cannot maintain order, he should ensure that there is adequate personnel on hand to evict those causing disturbance.
If he fails to do this, he is not doing his job!

I agree the chair and vice chairs are not strict enough at the moment.

singingstranger

cast_iron wrote:

It's the Chair's responsibility to ensure Council is run smoothly. If he cannot maintain order, he should ensure that there is adequate personnel on hand to evict those causing disturbance.
If he fails to do this, he is not doing his job!

Frankly, though, even at that there's nothing that can be done. You can't forcibly remove someone from a meeting; and even when a Councillor is ruled out of order three times and has their speaking rights removed (as is allowed for in Standing Orders of Council) they still can't be stopped from heckling or anything else. The only possibility is to move that Council moves into a private session but even at that, that's not the Chair's prerogative to decide and it still doesn't look after a Councillor who wants to heckle. I recall it happening last year when at the last meeting of Council last year (April 19th) Conor McGowan was ruled out of order five times and lost his speaking rights but continued to heckle and nothing could be done about it.

Sadly there will always just be those who will throw their toys out of the pram and cry just to get attention to the detriment of the running of Council and the representation of the 22,000 members of UCDSU.

cast_iron

singingstranger wrote:

Frankly, though, even at that there's nothing that can be done. You can't forcibly remove someone from a meeting;

I've not attended any meetings so can't comment on how bad it actually is.

While you may not be able to physically throw someone out, that doesn't mean you can do nothing.
Services could be asked to standby and ask for student cards of those who refuse to leave. Refusal to do so could result in a reprimand from the Vice President. I doubt they will be strangers, so someone will know them.

singingstranger wrote:

The only possibility is to move that Council moves into a private session but even at that, that's not the Chair's prerogative to decide and it still doesn't look after a Councillor who wants to heckle.

Maybe the chair cannot make the ruling himself, but he should ensure that whatever necessary is done to ensure a relatively smooth council.

singingstranger wrote:

Sadly there will always just be those who will throw their toys out of the pram and cry just to get attention to the detriment of the running of Council and the representation of the 22,000 members of UCDSU.

Sadly indeed, but letting them away with it is just as bad.

singingstranger

cast_iron wrote:

While you may not be able to physically throw someone out, that doesn't mean you can do nothing.
Services could be asked to standby and ask for student cards of those who refuse to leave. Refusal to do so could result in a reprimand from the Vice President. I doubt they will be strangers, so someone will know them.

See, this is the main problem with the scenario - UCDSU, holding a Council meeting, is pretty much parallel to a Society holding an event. The only problem is that you can't in theory remove someone from the meeting because everyone is a member of this 'Society' and has business being present. To ask Services to throw someone out is pretty much like a group of friends going to the cinema and then asking the attendants to throw out another cinema-goer because they simply don't like them. I would be very, very surprised if Services would actually oblige in removing someone from the meeting - and if they did, then I'd be even more surprise if they didn't have a legitimate defence against any disciplinary action afterwards.

Sangre

Lets be realistic here. A person who is removed from the SU council meeting as a necessity for proceedings to continue, will have no further defence. Especially when they've been warned several times.

You have a right to attend these meetings, you don't have a right to disrupt proceedings. Hecklers are nearly always removed. This occurs in numerous every day scenarious e.g;

I've a right to atttend a public hearing in court, I sure as hell don't have a right to heckle the prosecutors.

singingstranger

Sangre wrote:

Hecklers are nearly always removed. This occurs in numerous every day scenarious e.g;

I've a right to atttend a public hearing in court, I sure as hell don't have a right to heckle the prosecutors.

With all due respect, Sangre, the difference here is that the court operates under the decree and runnings of actual law. There is a legal basis on which someone heckling the prosecutors can be removed from the courtroom, that is, contempt of court is an actual crime and warrants prosecution. The SU, one has to remember, operates under no legal basis other than the internal rules it lays down for itself. Of course nobody has the right to heckle, but in the Union's case there are no actual methods in which a removal can be enforced. In an ideal world Services would oblige and remove people but I can't see them taking orders on who to remove from a Joe Soap student who's chairing a meeting of a body which, after all, has no real power other than the running of its facilities and the opinions of its members.

Stabshauptmann

singingstranger wrote:

See, this is the main problem with the scenario - UCDSU, holding a Council meeting, is pretty much parallel to a Society holding an event. The only problem is that you can't in theory remove someone from the meeting because everyone is a member of this 'Society' and has business being present. To ask Services to throw someone out is pretty much like a group of friends going to the cinema and then asking the attendants to throw out another cinema-goer because they simply don't like them. I would be very, very surprised if Services would actually oblige in removing someone from the meeting - and if they did, then I'd be even more surprise if they didn't have a legitimate defence against any disciplinary action afterwards.

At a Dutch Soc event a member cause a great deal of trouble. I removed him from the meeting myself (non violently). More trouble was allegadly caused by this individual after the event in the student centre. He has been removed, without refund, from the society. I have talked with Butler and if this happens again I will use Services to remove said individual.

Stabshauptmann

singingstranger wrote:

Frankly, though, even at that there's nothing that can be done.

Its the exact same as a disruptive student in the class room, lots of things can be done

You can't forcibly remove someone from a meeting; and even when a Councillor is ruled out of order three times and has their speaking rights removed (as is allowed for in Standing Orders of Council) they still can't be stopped from heckling or anything else.

You can ban that person from future meetings and you can forcibly prevent them from entering.
The same way as they had stewards at Howard Marx (me for one), you can have stewards at council

Sadly there will always just be those who will throw their toys out of the pram and cry just to get attention to the detriment of the running of Council and the representation of the 22,000 members of UCDSU.

True, but that they must always get away with it is another matter.

One solution is for all the other councillors to roll up paper and throw it at the individual. Just one piece of paper - dont make it into a game or a "war". Obviously (s)he'll throw some back, but if you can often humiliate someone into shutting up. Thats what (s)he apparently did

panda100

singingstranger wrote:

. I recall it happening last year when at the last meeting of Council last year (April 19th) Conor McGowan was ruled out of order five times and lost his speaking rights but continued to heckle and nothing could be done about it.
.

Coner did it and continued to do it cos he knew he could get away with it. If you know you can get away with something and enjoy doing it then why stop? If people are shown a firm hand by council from the start then people will think twice about disrupting further council meetings.

Miss GAAfia

It is clear that more direction and disclipine needs to come from the chair. It's not good enough at the moment. We shouldn't be afraid to put a bit of order on proceedings. I'm already sick of the behaviour of some people at Council. After two councils. Bah!*

*(still bitter over the fact that there are no timetables up. Entertain my rant people.)

Sangre

Either change the laws/rules or organise a few people to act as stewards to remove anyone. Simple really.

Said removed person will never have any comeback, either based on the rules or for fear of looking like a tosser.

cast_iron

Sangre wrote:

Either change the laws/rules or organise a few people to act as stewards to remove anyone. Simple really.

Said removed person will never have any comeback, either based on the rules or for fear of looking like a tosser.

Exactly.

A feeble arguement that nothing can be done doesn't really wash.

dajaffa

C the problem is that the SU is kinda like a society that u HAVE to join. Your membership can't be revoked + the next year if u wills have to pay yours dues again if u're in UCD, u can't leave or be kicked out. The only way would be to have council just for ppl who are councillors + not let other ppl attend but I don't think that's a route that should or will be taken. I think for most ppl being ruled out of order by the chair will quieten them, but there'll always be the couple of knobs who still disturb things.

I have a solution, you'll find out what it is in due course

cast_iron

dajaffa wrote:

C the problem is that the SU is kinda like a society that u HAVE to join. Your membership can't be revoked + the next year if u wills have to pay yours dues again if u're in UCD, u can't leave or be kicked out.

I think you are unnecessarily confusing the issue. Nobody here is talking about revoking membership of the SU.
What is simply being said is that people who continually disrupt proceedings be banned from SU council meetings.

dajaffa wrote:

I think for most ppl being ruled out of order by the chair will quieten them, but there'll always be the couple of knobs who still disturb things.

Agreed.

Sangre

Lets try this on a legal point.

Your ability to hold your SU meetins on private property (essentially) is permissible because you have an express (or implied) license to hold the meeting in the room from UCD. (A license is basiclly an agreement that makes something legal that otherwise would be trespass).

No doubt services have express authority from UCD to be able to revoke any licenses on campus (the reason why they can move you or kick you off campus).

Therefore asking services to attend and requesting them to remove someone would not in anyway relate to the SU or its governing rule as UCD had simply revoke its license for a heckler to be present in a certain location. Just because you asked them won't affect it as ultimately services could deny your request. The removal was based on their authority, not yours.

(I really hate hecklers)