Union General Meeting :: Wednesday, Week 5 :: 2pm :: Jean Monnet

bluedolphin

UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK STUDENTS’ UNION

Agenda

Meeting: Union General Meeting
Date:2008-02-25
Venue: Jean Monnet, DG016
Time : 14.00
Quorum: 200
1 Apologies

2 Minutes of Previous Meetings (Date: 2008-10-08)

3 Matters Arising

4 Audited Accounts

5 Ratification of Auditors

6 Officers Reports

6.1 Questions for Officers

7 Ratification of Unopposed Officers

8 Items for Discussion

Third Level Fees
• Discussion about the upcoming review to be published by the Minister for Education and the action for the Union to take.
9 Motions & Resolutions

9.1 Amendment to Article 38.3 relating to the Union’s accounts
The Union shall amend the Article 38.3 in order that the accounts shall be drawn up to the 30th of September each year in light of the University’s financial calendar.

9.2 Pursuant to Articles 5.3, 5.4 and 5.10 of ULSU Constitution outlining policy subsidiarity of the Union, it is proposed that this meeting sanction the consumption, but explicitly not the sale, of alcohol in the Union Building.

9.3 Pursuant to Articles 5.1 and 6.1.1 of the Constitution under which this meeting is held, the meeting requests UL Students’ Union to ballot members by way of a multiple choice referendum on alternatives, in order of preference in the manner of Article 44.1 pertaining to elections, to exchequer funded 3rd level tuition fees before Minister O’Keeffe’s April deadline, so as to constructively engage the Department of Education and Science in a manner of maturity not heretofore displayed by and singular or pluralistic body affected by the issue in accordance with Article 2.1 and Article 5.3.1. The status quo not to be option.

9.4 UL Students’ Union, pursuant to Art 2.1 of the Union’s Constitution adopts the following policy:
1. To adopt an approach of mass campaigning and mobilisation to defeat the threat of third level fees.
2. To organise a referendum on whether the Union should organise a 24 hour shutdown of the University. The shutdown would take place in advance of the cabinet meeting that will decide on fees in April. The shutdown should consist of a mass student strike with protests and other anti-fees activities on campus.
3. To campaign in favour of the proposal of a 24 hours shutdown as described above to be adopted through the referendum.
4. To seek the active support of the university staff and their trade unions for this shutdown and campaign.
5. To campaign among other student unions for this shutdown to be part of a co-ordinated shutdown of all third-level institutions nationally.


10 Policy Review

AOB

bluedolphin

*BUMP*

ninty9er

YES on 9.3
:D

stirs the Monnet contents

sceptre

Did you propose 9.3 Derek? I like it.

I'm assuming the last "and" in 9.3 is "any".

ninty9er

sceptre wrote: »

Did you propose 9.3 Derek? I like it.

I'm assuming the last "and" in 9.3 is "any".

I did and you assume correctly.

1huge1

Have to be honest, I was terribly confused on 9.3 even though they explained it so many times.

klong

So what happened? I think it was quorate anyway, an achievement in itself!

ninty9er

Cheers for coming.

9.3 did not need an amendment as it is the same without "The status quo not to be an option" tagged on the end of it.

The motion called for next most favourable alternatives to exchequer funding (i.e No Fees) so therefore "Free Fees" cannot be an option.

That was the position at the beginning, and was after the amendment, which was wholly unnecessary.

1huge1

What I couldn't get my head around was all the people who voted for Pa to go in and demand no fee's striaght off and not the alternatives.

oppenheimer1

I hope 9.3 passed with the following phrase removed. "not heretofore displayed by and singular or pluralistic body affected by the issue"... what a pointless and antagonistic statement. I thought all student unions and bodies were in this together, this kind of sniping at other organisations (I would assume this refers to the USI) does no one any good. United we stand, divided we fall etc...

sceptre

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

(I would assume this refers to the USI)

I rather suspect that it refers to the door-kickers. Nothing to do with USI.

DJCR

sceptre wrote: »

I rather suspect that it refers to the door-kickers. Nothing to do with USI.

That was my understanding to..... it was related to the FEE movement!!

shabouwcaw

yeah, went to my first (and most likely last) UGM yesterday. that amendment to 9.3 that was passed makes the entire motion completely pointless tbh. yes, it does give people the choice of saying "NO I WONT PAY FEES WAAAA WAAA WAAA" if they want to, but the fact that the choice is there displays a fundamental ignorance of the proportional representation system.

the arguement used was that having "no fees" as a choice would give people the chance to say that the didnt want fees, and then their second preference votes would decide the alternative. which is quite frankly BS.

basic economics will tell us that people do not want to pay for something if they dont have to, therefore nearly everyone will put down "no fees" as the number 1 preference. it will reach the quota almost immediately. it is only the subsequent votes that will have their 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices examined.

everyone knows that the majority of people dont want to pay for education, rightly or wrongly, people dont like letting go of their hard earned cash. so having "no fees" as an option is a complete waste of however many votes are needed to reach the quota. thats a large group of people who will not have a say in the alternatives that could be conceived.

inb4 "why didnt you say it at the UGM". because i did (maybe not as eloquently, but nonetheless), and no one cared :rolleyes:

ninty9er

shabouwcaw wrote: »

yeah, went to my first (and most likely last) UGM yesterday. that amendment to 9.3 that was passed makes the entire motion completely pointless tbh. yes, it does give people the choice of saying "NO I WONT PAY FEES WAAAA WAAA WAAA" if they want to, but the fact that the choice is there displays a fundamental ignorance of the proportional representation system.

the arguement used was that having "no fees" as a choice would give people the chance to say that the didnt want fees, and then their second preference votes would decide the alternative. which is quite frankly BS.

basic economics will tell us that people do not want to pay for something if they dont have to, therefore nearly everyone will put down "no fees" as the number 1 preference. it will reach the quota almost immediately. it is only the subsequent votes that will have their 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices examined.

everyone knows that the majority of people dont want to pay for education, rightly or wrongly, people dont like letting go of their hard earned cash. so having "no fees" as an option is a complete waste of however many votes are needed to reach the quota. thats a large group of people who will not have a say in the alternatives that could be conceived.

inb4 "why didnt you say it at the UGM". because i did (maybe not as eloquently, but nonetheless), and no one cared :rolleyes:

Singular was FEE, pluralistic was USI (which has hampered efforts by UL to get involved because we don't see fit to hand them €60k every year).

And "No fees" falls under the definition of exchequer funding, so therefore as the motion calls for alternatives, "No fees" can not legitimately be placed on the ballot paper.

I know the amendment attempted to negate this, but whether the amendment passed or failed the motion is still the same, which only about 4 people recognised out of the 250 in attendance. The discussion that was had was completely pointless and the motion should just have been put as it was submitted.

thattequilagirl

That is not the kind of UGM you want to put on if you intend to get quorum any time in the future...

The most ridiculous part for me was the fact that the Union had to withdraw the motion because it was proposing the status quo, which no one had managed to work out before it was put on the agenda!

ninty9er

thattequilagirl wrote: »

That is not the kind of UGM you want to put on if you intend to get quorum any time in the future...

The most ridiculous part for me was the fact that the Union had to withdraw the motion because it was proposing the status quo, which no one had managed to work out before it was put on the agenda!

9.2 Was put forward by a number of students. Once it was signed by 15 people there was no reason for it not to be on the agenda. The spirit of the motion (following ratification of the agenda by Class Reps) was found to something that could be accommodated with the permission of the Secretary General and Sabbats. The motion didn't read like that, but it's what it was asking for.

Procedure has to be followed even if I think it's a bit ridiculous that someone has to propose and someone has to second the striking of a motion.

The people that were interested turned up. ANYBODY could have turned up. ANY STUDENT could propose a motion, ANY STUDENT could vote. Apart from the confusion around "The status quo not to be an option" and some ridiculous comments, The meeting ran very well, and most importantly for student services provided by the Union, the financial year end was changed. These are boring issues, but they need to be addressed. It's just a pity that students fail to recognise their own importance in the running of the Union.

bluedolphin

thattequilagirl wrote: »

That is not the kind of UGM you want to put on if you intend to get quorum any time in the future...

The most ridiculous part for me was the fact that the Union had to withdraw the motion because it was proposing the status quo, which no one had managed to work out before it was put on the agenda!

Point of clarification on this. Once a motion has been submitted with five proposers and ten seconders, no body can decide NOT to put it on the agenda. With regard to the intent of the motion it actually went further than the current Union Alcohol Guidelines Policy in that it did not stipulate that there had to be explicit permission or food served to have alcohol, therefore it was amending current policy and General Meeting is the only forum (bar referendum) at which students can do this who aren't class reps or who haven't asked their class reps to do so (for this particular policy as CRC ratified it).

The students submitted the motion without knowing about the Alcohol Guidelines Policy; I'd rather not get into the debate about who's fault that particular problem is, but once it has been submitted you can't just omit it from the agenda because of some sort of oversight on anyone's behalf. Imagine if the Union did just do that and the proposers had met with sabbats/exec 15 mins before the meeting and said, 'yeah sure take that off there will ya? found out about the policy"...there'd be uproar.

There is a certain set procedure which must be followed. It's called the Constitution, and whether actually sticking to it is being 'boring' then, to be quite honest, tough luck. The Constitution isn't there to hold things down during the good times, it's there to keep things together when things start to go wrong. There's no ifs and buts if it's written in black and white.

DJCR

bluedolphin wrote: »

it's written in black and white.

+ on Alota lotta pages.....


And by god don't we know that BD!!! :D:D:D:D