This year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held by the Student Union Society (SUS) did not reach quorum Friday March 29, with an attendance of only seven voting members at the 10 a.m. meeting.
The meeting was adjourned until the following week on Friday, April 5 at 10 a.m. in the Student Union Building’s Evered Hall, where SUS hopes to meet quorum of 50 voting members to officially proceed with the meeting.
An AGM is held yearly by societies to allow members to vote on issues and special resolutions, and for the society to present their upcoming budget and previous year’s finances. There are two special resolutions on the agenda this year.
In the first special resolution, SUS is asking for student support on rejoining The Alliance of B.C. Students (ABCS). ABCS is an association that lobbies on behalf of B.C. students on academic matters to the provincial government. The yearly fee to become a member was approximated in last year’s Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) agenda, where the same motion was put forward but not passed due to quorum, as being $3,300, which includes the cost of one SUS executive attending lobbying days.
The listed benefits of membership to ABCS includes access to ministers and MLAs for lobbying and resources such as activism training and access to support from student leaders. There are currently four members of the ABCS: Capilano Students’ Union, Graduate Student Society of UBC Vancouver, Kwantlen Student Association, and Langara Students’ Union Association. Although SUS is not an official member, they have attended the ABCS AGMs and participated in lobbying events, budgeting $4,700 total to attend in 2017-2018.
The second special resolution asking for the membership to vote on changes to the bylaws will no longer be voted on, as the proposed changes were not passed out to the membership in time for the meeting according to AGM chair Titus Gregory.
The agenda for the AGM also includes the reports on all the executives’ goal plans, and presentations on the 2019-2020 budget and 2017-2018 financial audit.
Image: The Cascade
