Setting
In the conference room, a little early. EM is wearing pyjamas and has a hot chocolate. WE is very late, so EM goes to knock on his door. Apparently he thought it was at 10.30 pm. He brings smarties as a peace offering.
Present: EM (President), JC (Vice-President), SW (Chair), SP (SRO), WE (Stool), KB (JRO)
Apologies:
Absent:
Voting Period Motion
SW: Should move “long period” to believe
EM: There should still be a statement there.
SP: It’s over 64 hours.
SP: WE elections end at midnight then, and when should we declare the results?
EM: When you like, but pick a time, maybe that should be part of motion.
SP: lets announce at midday then, because system needs time to calculate.
EM: Don’t put it online at midnight, tell everyone that noon will be the announcement. Gives time for dealing with and processing sanctions.
EM: Lets ask RJ to add that in.
SW: Any other comments? Long period will move to believes. Notes will say “voting is over 64 hours” instead. Should announcement at noon be in standing orders?
EM: RJ is fine with it being edited. It should go in standing orders.
SW: Motion will include results being announced at noon following the close of voting.
Assistant Working Class Students’ Rep Motion
SW: Looks fine to me. AWCS rep should be under welfare campaigns team not above. Looks like it’s on welfare committee.
EM: To clarify, welfare committee and welfare campaigns are different things, but there’s also confusion sometimes between them. Welfare committee is for serious welfare things and is not minuted, welfare campaigns is for running campaigns.
SW: Rearranged the text (only formatting)
Transgender Rep Motion
SW: Idea is that it would be like a secondary assistant to LGBT+ rep. Rather than like a new minority rep.
JC: If there’s going to be a transgender and non-binary is it worth suggesting that that gets removed from Assistant LGBT+ rep’s job description?
SW: Many identities contained within LGBT+, so they want a new role for particular challenges. Not sure it matters much. No problem with it still being in their remit.
EM: Do all welfare positions have provide a handover in their job description?
SW: Yes, but not all positions.
Method II Sanctions Motion
SP: For method I positions, we have campaign rules and sanctions. For method II, we have rules but no sanctions. This motion aims to introduce sanctions so that we can respond to complaints. 3 ways.
- Docking of votes, just like in M1. If that leads to someone losing, that leads to election re-run.
- Disqualification
- Publicly announcing it, but I want to remove that.
It’s weird to just announce that in the meeting.
SW: Sanction is just an announcement. I agree, it feels like we’re not following through. Especially for method II, it won’t impact ongoing voting.
KB: Shouldn’t people be made aware of possibility of vote docking? If someone won and we overrule, then we’d have to announce afterwards. Maybe better to point out immediately.
WE: Don’t always know during the meeting if a rule has been broken.
SP: Often requires a complaint for it to be sanctioned. In the next meeting if it’s re-run, it will be same candidates but without disqualified candidate.
JC: I don’t think it should be re-run because that leaves a long gap before the position is filled, and is unlikely to impact the result. Online voting is STV and we can’t redistribute votes from disqualified candidates, but for method II people already vote multiple times.
SP: If we remove someone, they might want an additional last preference.
EM: See point about long time before next vote. What if it was something like ball manager?
SW: But also people might not run to begin with.
JC: Don’t think it will make a big enough change to the results to be worth the delay
SW: Can anyone think of any instances where this would happen? Method II positions are typically less important to be in office immediately. Normally wouldn’t be big difference. Think re-running does make sense.
EM: If we accept that any proposal will be flawed, I’m more in favour of JC’ proposal.
JC: To clarify, my proposal is instead of re-running election, position goes to candidate with next highest vote count.
SP: So we need to start recording votes.
WE: What if it’s really close between next two?
SW: Could include a margin of error for re-running, probably fairest but possibly too complicated.
SW: What is more important, crystal clear policy or people not being annoyed?
EM: In my head options are being more fair or having people in roles sooner. I would prefer second.
SP: We didn’t give trustee to next highest candidate over summer.
SW: But also that was a special situation because the hang up was on signing documents, but from our perspective he was in the role. Let’s vote on this.
Option 1 is position goes to next highest candidate, option 2 is we re-run the election without disqualified candidate.
*Vote in favour of going to next highest candidate. Motion will be edited accordingly. *
Ball Discount Motion
SW: Want to change resolves to orders, and for him to finish his sentence. Anything else?
*Nothing else*
JCR Reserves Motion
JC: I’m concerned over spending around £8k, at FCO’s discretion
EM: Mostly to cover changing prices.
SW: Can we say no more than £9k.
EM: £8.5k would be fine.
SN Manifesto
SP: Any concerns? I’ll ask to her confirm that she’s never cancelled any shifts. No other issues.
EAM Manifesto
SP: I don’t like that people need to resign from current role before running for something else.
EM: Was an issue for social comm, not anymore.
SP: People should be able to campaign while holding a position
JC: Difference with this is the terms of office of the two positions. They need to resign if they would overlap.
SP: Is it related to use of office related powers for campaigning? It’s a big leap of faith to resign before running.
SW: It’s also related to commitment to the current role.
JC: I think rules around this need to be re-written anyway because they’ve got messy, but not sure about when resignation should happen. But not an issue for today.
SP: Let’s discuss later.
SP: RSD should be changed to vice-chair of trustees.
SW: Cuth’s strategy is already public.
EM: Further publicise would be better.
EM: Can we ask for clarify on attend drop-in hours?
*No further issues*
AOB
SW: Let’s have a social at some point.
*Social date decided*
Meeting Adjourned