Last week’s VUWSA executive meeting came and went in almost exactly twenty minutes, a new record for the time I’ve attended them. Notable absences this week were Paul Zhong, who apparently does exist because he called to organise a meeting with Max while he was in Otago, and James Sleep, who made his absence known in 14-point, bolded font on the back page of his work report.
Work reports flew past. James forwarded his previous period’s report to Salient editor Sarah Robson from deep within whatever bureaucratic hellhole he was trapped in at FINSEC (the financial sector workers’ union), properly formatted and all. Alan still needs to make up six hours, Tom five, and Zack three. Alan had seven hours of work struck from his report from the previous period as the exec deemed it unlikely that he would be able to make them up.
The likelihood of blanket fee increases hung over the meeting like a blanket. Max spent a (proportionately) large section of his report talking about VUWSA’s engagement with students regarding the fee setting.
James has secured the Debt Monster (large, green and fuzzy) for some sort of activity around campus next week, which will serve to shock the financially disassociated student body into action. VUWSA also received a letter from the university regarding their protest policy, obviously trying to avoid a repeat of last year’s fruit-throwing fracas when fees were set.
Max told the exec that it has been agreed the Student Services Levy would not increase next year, after an increase to $510 for full-time students for 2010. He stated that VUWSA had also secured partial refunds for students who only completed one paper this year.
Zack Dorner updated the executive on implementation of the Sustainability Policy. He was working with Mark and Melissa to develop an annual action-plan, as well as a way to make future events more sustainable. Zack suggested this may be in the form of a checklist for organizers. The executive is now taking the sustainability of grant applications into account. How grants that require a large amount of international travel will be addressed is yet to be seen.
Events for the coming weeks were run through with Masha. Bridie is organising a clinic for the Education (Karori) Campus. There was mention of reopening the VUWSA office at the campus, hopefully as part of a scheme to start exiling underperforming executive members.
Despite the thirty-minute meeting a fortnight ago, and the twenty-minute one this time around, it might still be too soon to assume that a trend’s developing.
Next Eye On Exec promises to be a doozy, with the VSM Select Committee report to be released next week. Enjoy your socialist utopia while you can!