By: Amneet Mann and Henry Tran

Board approves request to purchase new membership engagement swag

At a meeting on January 19, the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) Board of Directors unanimously agreed to combine $15,000 from its advocacy, events, and membership engagement committees to purchase new membership engagement items. These include items such as “bottle openers, card holders, and other ‘swag’ items,” according to a document provided to The Peak.

The advocacy, events, and membership engagement committees are the main contributors to the funds, but the ultimate purchasing power resides with the Board.

According to SFSS president, Hangue Kim, the last time the student society purchased its membership engagement items was back in summer 2017 and currently, the SFSS has very few resources left. More specifically, the majority of these items were given out to students at fall clubs days, events, and other engagement initiatives, according to Kim.

The SFSS’s budget is currently looking optimal with $25,829, $25,497, and $7,648 remaining in its advocacy, events, and membership engagement line items, respectively, according to a financial document provided to The Peak. Therefore, the Board of Directors deemed it was appropriate to reallocate $5,000 from the advocacy, events, and membership engagement committees, for a grand total of $15,000 towards the purchase of new membership engagement items in the near future as it still has some monetary resources left that can be allocated to this cause.

Motion passed on publication of SFSS 2016–17 survey

The release of the responses to the General Membership Student Survey conducted by the SFSS at the beginning of the 2016–17 academic school year was brought up for discussion at the Board meeting.

The results are currently not available to the university community. Jeffrey Leung, applied sciences representative, said, “I would recommend that [we publish the survey results] because [. . .] it could be useful for election period[s] when students are trying to understand what is going on in the society and want to put up statistics and base their platforms on real facts.”

SFSS President Hangue Kim reiterated a previous argument that was made against publishing the results based on student complaints that the information was too dense to navigate. To this point, Erwin Kwok, vice-president of university relations, suggested a reorganization of the survey results prior to publication for ease of navigation.

 A motion was passed and it was resolved that the survey results be posted publicly on the SFSS website, as well as the student society’s Facebook page by January 31, 2018.

The survey is a yearly initiative conducted by the student society at the beginning of each academic year, encouraging undergraduate students to “give the advocacy committee direction on which issues/campaigns [they] should focus on [each. . .] year.”