CSU meeting in review

The CSU meeting held Wednesday, Jan. 10 was short but sweet. The meeting started at 6:30 p.m. and ended at 8:23 p.m., while formerly meetings have kept CSU staff occupied until as late as 2:00 a.m.

It was held on the 14th floor of the JMSB building, at Concordia’s SGW campus, rather than the traditional meeting room on the 7th floor of the H-building.

James Vaccaro replaced Caitlin Robinson as interim secretary, as she was ill and unable to attend the meeting.

After approval of the agenda, the CSU announced it would be conducting a winter student status check, due to upcoming DNE deadlines.

Next on the agenda were appointments and the mid-mandate report. The mid-mandate report was missing CSU’s VP Finance Scott Carr’s section of the report, and the discussion of the mid-mandate report was therefore postponed until a Special Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 15.

It was then brought up that Carr should be docked pay for not completing this task. Carr claimed he was pre-occupied by the Jeux de Commerce that took place in Montreal from Jan. 3 until Jan. 6. He stated he was not opposed to being docked pay, as not doing so would set a dangerous precedent for the CSU.

CSU President Melissa Kate Wheeler agreed with Carr, although Councillor Nikos Pidiktakis disagreed. He believed Carr should be remunerated for his services on moral grounds. However, it was finally decided that he would not be remunerated. Wheeler stated that Carr is a “big boy,” and should have prioritized the CSU over his competition.

The Special Council meeting called on Jan. 15 will have four items on the agenda: 1. The purge of Canada’s fisheries libraries; 2. Ad-hoc committee; 3. Mid-mandate Report; 4. A six-month financial review.

The Co-Op Café referendum question was mentioned. Construction is scheduled to start in March and last several weeks. Three meetings will be held by the working group in the meantime.

Following this discussion, the peer-executive evaluations were briefly mentioned. Wheeler stated that two of the reports were positive, and two negative. She did not read out the evaluations due to the coarse content in one or several of the reports. Wheeler and the other executives did however agree that the executive evaluations provided critical feedback, and should be continued. Self-evaluations were briefly mentioned, but not discussed.

During question period, the note-taking style of Secretary Robinson was discussed. It was brought up that the minutes of the meeting were verbatim, and not summary minutes. A few members appreciated the verbatim minutes, but a majority concluded that minutes should be concise, rather than word-for-word minutes.

Wheeler proposed the solution that minutes from the meetings should be recorded by a team hired to that end. VP Academic and Advocacy, Gene Morrow, proposed destroying recorded minutes at the end of each semester, so as to only leave one official copy of the minutes, the written document.

Finally, notable announcements included JMSB’s success at the Jeux de Commerce; the Student Engagement Fair posted on social media; CSU services (including HOJO) are now set up at Loyola;and the Political Science Student Association (PSSA) is hosting a wine and cheese event in EV building next Wednesday, Jan. 22.

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