By Onosholema Ogoigbe, News Team Member
SOCA approved as a tier 2 constituency group
On May 16 2019, during the first SFSS board meeting of the 2019-20 term SOCA gave a presentation to become a tier 2 constituency group. The decision to carry the motion was postponed due to a lack of knowledge on the different tiers by some board members.
The motion was addressed again during the next SFSS board meeting on May 30 2019.
The board approved SOCA as a tier 2 constituency group under the Resource Office.
SFSS President Giovanni HoSang to split his stipend amongst the SFSS executive team
Read more here.
The 2019-20 SFSS board refers the motion to have transparency in board meetings to governance committee
While the previous board had moved to discontinue the practice of listing the voting records of board members, the present board would like to reinstate that practise. According to the motion, this would be to “have better transparency in board meetings” as well as “hold the directors accountable for the decisions they make.”
Health sciences faculty representative Osob Mohamed stated that she does not see any benefit for the board not to associate the names of board members with their respective votes, stating that everyone on the board ran on platforms of “transparency and accountability.”
“I don’t see any benefit really for us to not have the names of the people who maybe abstained or the names of the people who were in opposition of a motion . . . there are people here anyway they see how you vote. . . I think it is in good faith for all of us to put it on the minutes . . . I think it gives us a bit of a better image as well we did all run on transparency and accountability.”
While applied sciences faculty representative Nick Chubb brought up the issue of a lack of context in the minutes, stating that “. . . you can really jump to conclusions without seeing the full story [which is] different from people being here.”
Vice-president external relations Jasdeep Gill commended the idea while highlighting that board members Osob Mohamed and Fiona Li seemed “passionate” about the issue. She then suggested that they start a working group and bring back a proposal to the board in order to have the motion addressed and resolved in a timely manner.
Indian Student Federation seeks funding for Holi event
The Indian Student Federation presented the logistics concerning their Holi event occurring July 13, 2019. The presentation was given by the Vice President Rubab Ahluwali and Vice President Marketing and Sales Neil Karia.
Ahluwali outlined the Federation’s expected revenue as $23,750 and their spending costs at $24,695. She continued stating that these figures were a “worst-case scenario” and they were not expecting to spend more than they would earn.
Ahluwali disclosed that the club does not at the moment have any money in their accounts due to the poorly planned logistics of last year’s Holi event. The purpose of the presentation was to convince the board to grant the club a loan of $14,600 in order to allow the club to pay its fixed costs and deposits.
SFSS president Giovanni HoSang highlighted that the board had loaned out money before, citing SFU’s Got Talent as an example. Vice-president student life Jessica Nguyen stated that she did not think it advisable for the board to give out a loan because there would be no assurance of reimbursement, emphasizing that the SFSS is “ . . . not a bank.”
Executive Director Sylvia Cearcero suggested that she and the Indian Student Federation set up a meeting to discuss the finer points of the event. After that meeting, she would return to the board with a properly discussed and agreed upon proposal.
