Student Council Minutes: Monday 27Th October 2014

Student Council Minutes: Monday 27th October 2014

Meeting open at 6.06

Attendees and Apologies:

The chair confirmed that the guillotine will be called at 7.36.

The chair asked the Vice President to confirm that we were quorate, the Vice President confirmed that we had 44 elected representatives present and that we required 37 to be quorate and therefore we are quorate.

Confirmation of Minutes:

The minutes of the previous meeting on Monday 27th October were approved by council.

Matters Arising:

The Vice President reported that there were no matters arising to feedback from the last meeting.

Procedural Motion:

A Procedural motion proposed by Gareth Hughes chair of Student Council. Therefore it was necessary to elect a vice chair to temporarily chair proceedings whilst this procedural motion took place. Chris Lee was elected as Vice Chair for this item.

Name of Proposer: Gareth Hughes
The Union Notes:

1. That guest speakers can offer a strong insight into the university’s inner workings and can present opportunities for students.

The Union Believes:

1. That particular guest speakers have in the past spoken for a large amount of time. This detracts from the positive message of student voice.

The Union Resolves:

1. That the introduction of a five minute cap should be in place with an additional five minutes for questioning. This leaves more time for students to have their say and not push us close to the guillotine.
2. There should also be a maximum of two guest speakers per council to ensure there is plenty of time for student business and discussion.

Nobody wished to oppose the motion and therefore we proceeded straight to a vote with a clear majority being in favour of the motion and therefore the procedural motion was passed and would take effect from the next council meeting.

Gareth returned to his position of Chair.

New Library Fines Proposal:

Charlotte Everitt from the library talked about the new library fines.

The fines will not be increased they have remained the same rate for over ten years. The current fine system incorporates a £10 limit and the. Your account gets blocked. If you bring your account under the ten pounds you can unblock your account. The new proposal is that to unblock your account you have to pay the entire £10. At the moment they have a fine cap up to £140. Currently if you pay £25 off your fine they write off the rest. Some people keep the books for the entire year and pay the £25. This is unfair and the library want to change the cap to £50 that needs to be paid and the rest would be written off.

Questions:

Question by Adam Selby, people do graduate who do not pay their fines. The current president has unpaid library fines. You are targeting the wrong people.

Response, we try to chase everyone and we have not given up on these. Some people do slip the net but we aim for all people to pay their fines. If there are extenuating circumstances like, a student is poorly and it's confirmed by their tutor we will write any debts of this nature off.

Talk about BG Futures new developments:

Eve Stewart from BG futures came to talk about the new developments in BG Futures. To talk about what futures and careers can offer and the new developments in that department. Tomorrow they are having a year 9 career convention and it is one to all students here. It is based in Connies in conjunction with the schools and colleges liaison department and many employers will be present and they are expecting students to be there to ask about graduate opportunities. Another new venture is the BG futures steering group. They have a mixture of academic staff, slt, student union and are looking at the campus being an entrepreneurial campus. They are trying to embed entrepreneurialness into the curriculum. Future employers need you to add value and this will help our students do this. They are also introducing a mentoring scheme, it was launched at the futures networking group, and there are a huge range of mentors. If you would like a mentor please speak to your personal tutor and they can refer you to the scheme. You will meet your mentor 5-6 times and they are there to help you achieve your goals. They can help with confidence, help high flyers, you will be matched to a mentor to meet your needs.

There are also some Wednesday afternoon session coming up for students. One is about the route to be a teaching assistant or higher lever teaching assistant. If anyone is thinking of doing this we will be having a session. We will also be running a Wednesday afternoon sessions for students thinking of taking doctorates and master’s students. Dates and times will be published in the New Year.

Thinking of opening another futures building. In futures 1 they can only be there for 2 years and the follow in business space is difficult to find, so they are looking to develop another futures 2, for up to 15 business units, off campus this will be in conjunction with the chamber of commerce. This will be relative to the team entrepreneurship business degree and receive business coaching and have to actually run a business and be ran from BG futures 2.

They are also thinking about opening up an assessment and development centre at BG futures 2. For a lot of jobs companies will take prospective staff to assessment centres to see if they are the right person for the job, if we have one in house, it will help our current students as you can be shown all this.

Thinking of running city and guild courses which will be sold and bring money into BG.Eve is also a life coach and can coach results from the assessment centre back to people.

No questions were asked on this topic.

A vote was taken on the new library fines system as to whether the union should support its introduction and 31 elected reps voted in favour of the system highlighting a clear majority.

Formal business:

Motion of no confidence – Sports Officer Stevie Stallard:

The Vice President read on behalf of the proposer who wishes to remain anonymous.

Name of Proposer:
Reasons for the resolution of no confidence:
I am submitting a vote of no confidence towards Stevie Stallard as Sports Officer
Point1: The first point is in relation to his conduct towards BGSU Rugby; abusing his position, offering an individual the chance to get reduced membership to football if he ‘sacked off rugby’ despite this not being within his job role. This I feel is a direct abuse of power that he is not entitled to.
Point 2: I feel Stevie’s conduct on social media can be damaging to the union: One particular item is his comments about Lincoln Student’s Union’s night Quack: “Quack at Engine Shed on a Wednesday. Shit night, shit service, shit music, shit people.”. With the union trying to build a working relationship with Lincoln Students’ Union I feel it is very inappropriate for an elected officer of BGSU to bad mouth in such a manner. This is also counter-productive as the it was suggested that Stevie try and get sports/socs exec members into Engine Shed for free on these Wednesday nights, thus rewarding them for their hard work however this type of behaviour will of course damage these chances. This I believe breaks one whole exec responsibility directly: To be an ambassador for the Union working, professionally as a cohesive team of Executive, staff, students and trustees.
Point 3: Stevie spends the majority of his time running the football club, this is neither his job role and leads him also onto neglecting other teams, some of which such as the Rugby society he has openly criticised as a club.
Point 4: It is within whole executive responsibility’s to support the union in areas outside of an officers specific job role, Stevie has not been seen to do this be it through the Activity’s provided by the activity’s team during Freshers’ week or since. Also during Student Council during which he has often got up and left early despite their being formal business left to discuss with no genuine excuse.
Overall I don’t feel Stevie takes his responsibilities as a member of the BGSU Exec seriously, uses this to benefit himself and does not have the best interests of the entire BGSU Student body and believe a vote of no confidence is needed in order to allow someone else a chance to fulfil the role efficiently.

Following this Stevie responded to the proposal arguing that:

The reduced membership claim was not true. They paid insurance and affiliation and that the person in question was let off a portion of the standard fee because they missed a chunk of the season and because they were doing a favour and the exec agreed it.

In terms of social media Stevie argued that his conduct made him the public figure he is. It is going back on one of my campaign promises to get free entry for Exec into Quack and in meetings with Lincoln SU we tried to get Quack entries back to societies.

Majority of my time is spent on football as football is the only society who really needed the support. Netball are brilliantly ran, rugby run themselves well and have good external links. Badminton are brilliant too. Football had massive debts and only an exec member until by-elections. I have been part of the society for three years and am passionate about it. Stevie argued that he hadn’t paid much attention to non bucs sports teams as of yet but that this was due to being a third year and working lots. However these teams can approach me if they need anything.

In terms of fresher’s the exec were aware of my situation. Fresher’s is manic and I run promo for the biggest event in the city.

In terms of Council attendance Stevie highlighted that the President had given him permission to leave early and that was to support the Netball society.

This year Stevie has organised BG’ first tour to Salou. He has also supported societies with sponsorships.

Following this the chair offered an additional round of speeches but no council members wished to speak for the motion. Therefore the chair proceeded with the vote carried out by secret ballot.

The results were as follows: 46 ballots were cast so a required 31for a two thirds majority would be required to pass the motion of no confidence. 17 council members voted for the motion, 22 voted against the motion and 7 abstained meaning that a two third majority in favour of the motion had not been reached and therefore Stevie retains his position on the BGSU exec as the sports officer.

Motion Proposal 1:

Green initiatives read by Jamie Caress onbehalf of Arran Hart

Name of Proposer: Arran Kelvin Hart
The Union Notes:

1. The Union needs to increase its sustainability and begin considering more issues which may be affecting the environment, locally, nationally and globally.
2. Many Students’ Unions are taking on the ‘Green Impact Student Union’s’ (GISU) initiative which is offered by NUS, this initiative outlines small simple steps as to how a SU can become more environmentally friendly and engage in sustainable development.
3. However, there is a great deal of flexibility within this initiative as it requires the SU to make their own activities, campaigns and initiatives around the GISU aims. This initiative is not only fun and environmentally friendly, but also offers the Union a chance to be involved with wider research and a chance to achieve an award depending on how much of the GISU aims are completed.

The Union Believes:

1. A quote taken from the NUS Green Impact website: “Working within 105 students’ unions, over50 universities and collegesand nowexpanding into NHS trusts, local authorities and beyond, each programme is supported by NUS, ensuring its constant development and responsiveness to the needs and capacity of our partner organisations.”
2. The Green Impact accreditation scheme is rapidly becoming common practice within Student Unions’, Further Education establishments and Higher Education establishments, and is evenly slowly branching out into other sectors of society such as the NHS and various other larger organisations. By engaging deeper with this initiative BGSU will be able to show that despite only being representative of a small university we can still compete with the larger institutions.

The Union Resolves:

1. To create a student-led environmental group that will decide on and advise the Students’ Union Community Officer on sustainable development and environmental issues that could be tackled within both the Students’ Union and the University.
2. This group would also be responsible for gathering wider student opinion, helping to engage students with environmental issues, ethical considerations, activities and campaigns.

The Chair asked if anyone wanted to speak against the motion presented. Nobody wished to but a question was asked about the nature of the committee. Will the panel have powers or would it just be an advisory board?

The Vice President highlighted that the board would recommend motions on green and sustainable issues to Student Council but would be able to carry out green initiatives and work on the Green Impact project with the support of the Community Officer and the Campaigns Officer if necessary.

The Chair moved to a vote on this motion and council votes for was a clear majority and therefore the motion was passed.

Motion Proposal 2:

The Vice President proposed the motion to outline changes for RAG on behalf of the President.

Name of Proposer: Chris Robertson – BGSU President
The Union Notes:
1 – RAG is an amazing force for good that the union offers.
2 – Having RAG as an executive member on the main exec team adds more pressure to the role with it already having a large remit
3 – Growth of fundraising activity is potentially stunted by having an officer, rather than a society.
4 – Becoming a charity in our right, present’s legal issues around giving money to other charities.
The Union Believes:
1 – RAG should be a society from August 2015 with a protected status
2 – Doing this would enable to society to be more autonomous and manage their workload amongst a bigger team
3 – RAG Society would reach the wider community of the student body than it already does.
4- Fundraising should not be part of the full union strategy so it can focus on its core representation work
5 – This society should have a protected status and should remain a society regardless of how much money they have in their account, or how many members they have.
The Union Resolves:
1 – RAG Society will exist from 1st August 2015
2 – The ‘exec’ will be elected at by-elections, and will follow the union’s society exec structure
3 – The society will have ‘protected’ status.
4 – There will still be money available to attend conferences and training and to put on events.
5 – RAG is still a fundamental part of the union’s work, and will be supported with training, finances and administration, like any other society.
6 – There will be no ‘RAG Officer’ on the executive team.

The Chair asked if anyone wished to speak against the motion. Nobody volunteered but there were plenty of questions asked about the nature of the RAG Society.

Questions:

Adam asked who was the motion written by?

Jamie confirmed that Chris Robertson had written the motion.

How would it work going to rag conference?

Jamie confirmed that the money would still be provided by the Students’ Union.

So rag would get more than other societies?

Yes because it is a protected society. It's purely a legal thing as we are now a charity.

Why does the SU have to be a charity?

It's is a legal requirement. We are completely independent so we can freely represent our members without being a department of the university. We also have a turnover which is in excess of one hundred thousand pounds and therefore have to be an independent charity to comply with charity law.

Would there be membership fee?

No it would be a free society like gaming.

What is plan B?

We need to do this to be legally compliant. If the vote doesn't go through because it's a legal requirement the trustee board is likely to overturn this.

Do people still have to join or is everyone automatically a member?

We need to look into this further before we can answer that.

Sounds more like a committee rather than a society? Should you not call it a committee so not to confuse people?

It can’t be a subcommittee of the exec or Student Council it would need to be a society to not go against the rules.

Could you out a vote of no confidence in the rag society?