By Vanessa Broadbent (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: October 1, 2014
The Student Union Society (SUS) meetings usually tend to be low in attendance, but its extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on September 23 was the exception. There were 102 students in attendance, exceeding the quorum of 92.
VP internal Thomas Davies kicked off the meeting with a review of SUS’s finance reports. SUS received more funds than expected due to an increase in attendance at UFV.
However, there were still cutbacks on their student government expenses — almost $16,000. Thomas explained that some funding, such as cell phone and transportation costs, were unnecessary and therefore reduced.
Davies also said AfterMath is costing SUS less money than it ever has, and those numbers are still decreasing.
“A couple years ago we lost about $160,000 [to AfterMath expenses], then it went to $140,000, $115,000, and last year it went down to $94,000,” he said. “That is fantastic, because it frees up a lot more money to put into other student services, and we are on track once again to continue that downward trend.”
But the EGM did not yield any major issues — just minor editorial edits to the recent bylaw changes.
“We did recently do a very large change of our bylaws. This is just catching the errors and typos, some mundane revisions in our definitions and meanings,” Davies explained.
SUS also changed CIVL Radio’s title to UFV Campus and Community Radio Society, but shortly amended that to add CIVL in brackets for clarification.
Before closing the meeting, there was an opportunity for students to ask questions. One student asked why SUS fees still have to be paid even if the student isn’t on campus for the semester, and is instead taking online courses or co-op education.
Davies explained that students can opt out of some of the fees, such as the U-Pass, but students are not exempt from all fees.
“You’re part of the UFV community and you’re contributing to the community as a whole,” he explained.
“It’s not necessarily the issue of being on campus or not, but [of] being part of the UFV community and contributing to the greater body that is this school and our students.”
