The SUB board room was filled with plenty of new faces this Monday as the newly elected Involve slate took their seats at 6 p.m. for the first board meeting of the 2015–2016 term.
The newly established Yoga Jam was ratified with $100.90 in funding for the summer semester, along with 44 other returning clubs — each with funding amounting to $147.32. The following clubs were ratified without funding for the semester: the Jewish Students’ Association, Rally Club, Biodev, Jubilee Bible Education Club, Student Ambassadors, and the University Bible Fellowship.
Director of Student Affairs Kaylee Szakacs was the focus of a motion granting her a paid leave of absence from May 12 – 16 to attend a one-week intensive Disability Studies class offered at UVic. An amendment was introduced for the board to pay for half the course ($263.10), which inspired some debate. UVSS Research and Communications Coordinator Ben Johnson said he thought it made sense to cover part of Szakacs’ expenses, seeing as it would be a benefit to her executive role. The question was raised how the board would handle those requests in the future. The issue was ultimately tabled for next meeting, as the motion to grant the leave passed.
Other new business involved nominating candidates to fill a myriad of committee vacancies. The nomination process was tedious, as some nominations were not received ahead of time. Nominations were then done in person, with secret ballot votes called when there were more nominations than vacancies.
The meeting was marked by numerous delays as members talked amongst themselves or derailed the discussion into unrelated tangents. Two directors-at-large proved distracting, and Chairperson Brontë Renwick-Shields jokingly threatened to split them up at the next meeting. As 8:20 p.m. rolled around, and with numerous committee vacancies remaining to be filled, Renwick-Shields brought the board to order: “We just want to get out of here,” she said.
Eventually, the remaining vacancies were mostly filled. A motion to elect one director to sit on the CFUV Board of Directors was tabled until the next meeting, as CFUV Station Manager Randy Gelling was unable to appear and provide a 10-minute presentation to the board.
Editor’s Note: A previous edition of this article said that Randy Gelling failed to appear at the meeting. In fact, he could not appear for personal reasons and provided notice to Ben Johnson beforehand. We have therefore edited the article to reflect this, and regret the error.
