By Jessica Wind (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 16, 2013
There have been empty seats at recent SUS board meetings following the resignation of four representatives in the last month.
The Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in November resulted in a new SUS budget, including the removal of honoraria for any non-executive members of the directorial board.
Since then, reps-at-large Rachel Waslewski, Vitor Carvalho and Cole Durrant have left SUS, as well as VP finance Sam Broadfoot who announced his resignation at the meeting.
Each member allegedly left for personal reasons unrelated to the result of the EGM. VP internal Greg Stickland commented on the resignations and their relation to the motion.
“No one was ecstatic . . . I think maybe the lack of honoraria was a reason not to make them stay but I know they left for a variety of issues and they didn’t cite the lack of honorarium as one,” he confirmed.
The motion was part of a new budget put forth by former Computer Information Systems Student Association (CISSA) president Derek Froese.
Stickland assured that these cuts will not affect SUS commitment to the students. He expressed that the remaining members have risen to the occasion, offering extra help to the board when it is needed.
Stickland went on to explain that SUS reps-at-large get involved because they want to make a difference, be leaders and contribute to their student society. Their loss of honoraria, Stickland explained, doesn’t change those motivations.
“It is really . . . a volunteer position. The honorarium is just a thank you for [their] contribution,” he said.
Though they have many empty positions on the board, SUS is in no hurry to fill the positions. As their director numbers go down, so does the amount of members required at board meetings in order to make decisions.
Stickland added that despite the resignations they had excellent attendance at SUS meetings in December, and concluded by saying that filling the empty positions is more than SUS can expect from students right now.
“To have a by-election would be rather frivolous at this point. By the time [the reps would] get in, it’s time to have the general election . . . it would just be asking the students too much at one time.”
