Setting
Over Microsoft Teams, because governance is still important in a remote World. SP is calling in from India and WE from USA, so there’s a 12 hour time difference between them.
Present: EM (President), JC (Vice-President), SWC (Chair), SP (SRO), WE (Stool), BT (JRO), SG (JRO), KB (JRO)
Apologies:
Absent:
JCR Meetings
SWC: Things will be a bit different next term. Hatfield a system where the vote on motions in meetings using their website. It means people can vote when they’re not there. Under normal circumstances I don’t think it would be appropriate to Cuth’s but it could be useful now. We could do it as a livestream and have the proposer send me a video. But the Hatfield president hasn’t replied to me. I suspect we won’t be able to do it though. But I can’t go anywhere with it at the moment. But how should motions work? Should I answer questions? We could put motions on the website and vote for them like elections, or we could do it non anonymously over facebook.
EM: I think you should just put them on the voting system. Grey are having a referendum to allow them to vote online. I think that’s unnecessary.
SWC: Agreed, it’s a necessity and temporary.
EM: I think it should be done as a livestream. The motions can be circulated in advance and then people can ask questions in comments. They can discuss in advance. But voting should be online.
SP: You could also have a question bank and have the proposer film answers and send them.
EM: That’s quite complicated.
SWC: Facebook comments are all in one place.
JC: We could instead have a zoom discussion with a limited number of people who want to be involved in discussion, and livestream this to Facebook. Then also allow people to interact through Facebook comments.
SWC: WE people come in and out of the call?
JC: I’d imagine it as being a set of people there for the whole time who are keen to discuss things. Probably proposers of motions and some other people.
EM: I’m not against that.
SWC: It’s more like a normal JCR meeting. An amalgamation of both is best. We could put it as a post, and then people can write comments or come. Some people want more of a discussion. And we can ask comments in the call. I worry that there’ll be less engagement if people have to be somewhere. So doing both would be good.
SP: If voting can be online, how long should it be open for?
SWC: It could just be as long as the elections.
SP: Things can be for different lengths of time.
SWC: I think it still makes sense to leave it open for the whole period.
SG: I’d prefer the videos over the zoom call, because people will be less inclined to participate in something that’s live.
SP: I would prefer the zoom thing with comments on facebook. A combination is probably best.
BT: I agree. Motions can go out in advance then we’ll have a zoom call.
SWC: I’ll set definitive dates for the calls, a deadline for motions, then we’ll look over motions and post them 24 hours beforehand. So we might have to be quite on it with reviewing motions. And we’ll vote for motions online. It sounds like we’d have to pay for Hatfield’s voting system. I’m not desperate to have this as a long term system.
BT: I agree.
SWC: People will send motions throughout the term, so we should have a meeting quite early to avoid exams and at least one later. I think this will be less commitment than an actual JCR meeting. We could do it on the same night as one of the quizzes and try to persuade people to get involved.
EM: The last quiz only had 17 people. They’re getting less popular. I think you should pick a day without good TV. It could be instead of a quiz.
SWC: Let’s go early May then.
SP: I have an essay due on 7th.
SWC: What about 4th May then?
*Agreement*
SWC: Exams don’t finish until 7th June.
SP: We usually have three normal JCR meetings this term.
SWC: No we don’t, but I wanted to this year. I imagine the budget meeting will be a bit different. We should do 2 meetings + budget + joke.
SWC: Let’s have the second one on 8th June.
*Agreement*
SWC: Then the joke meeting could be soon after. 12th June?
*Agreement*
SWC: Motion deadline can be 3 days before?
*Agreement*
Sports and Societies Elections
SP: I’ve been asked by someone about running a joint campaign for an AGM. It’s not per se against our orders.
EM: We don’t allow joint campaigns, right?
SWC: Are they running for a position together or supporting each other for different positions? Supporting each other for the same position is fine, but they can’t both hold the same position or support each other for different positions.
SP: I’ve circulated a document with proposed society AGM rules.
EM: It’s very long, no one will read it.
SP: There’s a big question about campaigning. Normally people wouldn’t be able to, but now there’s a voting period.
EM: I’m not sure about voting online.
SP: That’s why they have multiple options. Most will prefer the simpler system, but some prefer something more formal. DUVS is bulletproof but not everyone will want to use it.
SWC: I want this to be as simple as possible. I know things need to be fair, but I don’t want societies to feel burdened by rules and regulations.
EM: Maybe we should have a “the election must include this” rather than a fixed procedure. My giving people options, you make it confusing. Give people the essentials and let them adapt those.
SP: Most of what I’m saying is what people have to have.
EM: What you’ve written is very procedural. Telling people what they have to do is quite limiting. Tell people to advertise in advance and have questions and voting. You could offer people to use DUVS if they want to. Tell them some options that they can use. People will be more receptive of that.
Action: SP to make these changes and circulate the new document.
SP: There was a comment in the relevant motion about monitoring attendance. Do we keep that or ignore it for now?
SWC: The people on each exec will know. If people show up who have never taken part, they can ignore their vote and/or kick them out.
SP: We now need nominations to be sent in before. This would give the society exec inside knowledge. How do we deal with that?
SWC: The current document says that they should remove themselves from the exec. Can you specify that the person handling the materials shouldn’t be running for a position? Then any other exec member can administrate the election.
SP: I’ll put in that candidates shouldn’t have any knowledge of whose running.
JCR Elections
SWC: I think prefilmed husts make the most sense. The problem with that is questions.
SP: We can be a bit more procedural here. We could use the question bank, send the questions to candidates and ask them to film responses.
SWC: Would there be a gap between husts and questions?
SP: I think husts, then a day for questions, then answers, then voting starts.
SWC: It’s longer, but it makes sense.
SP: What about Method II voting period?
SWC: There’ll be better engagement if they’re open longer. Given that they have to be online anyway.
SP: We also need to give people in different time zones time to respond.
SWC: I think it makes sense to have the same time frame.
SP: For questions, I’ll send them all to the gov comm chat, then we can select the ones that are sent to the number that we’re constrained to.
SWC: Can we randomize it?
SP: That’s possible. Or it could be first three.
SWC: These circumstances are quite different. But if it’s a video of a candidate answering questions, I’m happy to forget about the limit if it’s not excessive. Let’s keep the limit then.
BT: I think they should be randomised. The first three seems unfair.
SP: We can also remove duplicate questions.
SP: What do we do about campaigning? Specifically related to timings and time zones.
WE: It will mainly be an issue for people living in Asia.
SP: I think we should still have campaigning and 48 hours.
SWC: I feel for international students but I’m not sure if there’s a solution. I think most international students would till prefer campaigning.
SP: It makes it easier for manifestos to reach further.
JC: What about for Method II?
BT: I think just husts.
SP: They should be allowed to share their husts, but not have a campaign team. I think it’s too much effort to make them make campaign materials.
SWC: I think it’s easier just to not let them campaign.
SP: What about the summary manifesto on the website? We could ask for a summary of their hust?
BT: The number of words someone can say in a minute?
SP: It’s currently 200 words for Method I.
SWC: I think Method I positions should have a higher word limit. For now we can have a temporary provision for Method II.
JC: I think 200 words makes sense for Method II because that is around a minute of speech.
*Agreement*