The UVic Students’ Society (UVSS) is holding a Special General Meeting (SGM) in Cinecenta on April 3 regarding a UVSS Board of Directors motion that affects the Catholic Students’ Association (CSA).
Chairperson Kelsey Mech wrote in an email, “We are providing an opportunity to revisit the motion regarding CSA, since the previous AGM in which CSA requested to appeal the board’s decision did not meet quorum.”
If membership numbers this time are similar to what they were at the time of the previous AGM, the UVSS needs about 105 undergraduates to attend the SGM this week. The membership cannot pass significant motions at a general meeting if not enough voting members are present. Every undergrad is a member of the UVSS, and general meetings are where, operationally speaking, the entire membership directs the society.
The motion on the agenda is phrased so that votes in favour support the board’s decision; votes opposed support the CSA’s appeal. If quorum is met and the motion passes, membership upholds the board’s decision: that CSA can’t display Pure Manhood, Pure Womanhood, or Pure Love pamphlets at club events; that CSA enter mediation with UVSS board representatives; and that not entering mediation by Sept. 2013 would mean “the Board of Directors will consider further disciplinary actions.”
The CSA considers peaceful distribution of its pamphlets to be an exercise in free speech.
“I’m really excited at the SGM,” says Director of Finance and Operations Matt Hammer, “for students to come out and participate in the democracy that is the UVSS and really think critically about the important decisions that the UVSS is facing right now.”
According to general meeting minutes posted on the UVSS website, the society last achieved quorum at a general meeting in February 2013, but lost quorum 16 minutes later.
UVSS Special General Meeting
Thursday, April 3, 2014
2 p.m. @ Cinecenta in the SUB
