Guild Council: totally monotonous, increasingly irrelevant!

higuy · Black Bloc

Just some thoughts after yesterdays GC. Is it just me or was yesterday practically a waste of time? We dished out censures on the officers who had not submitted reports, GC then had hardly any questions for those officers who did submit reports - I doubt many people read them to be honest. So much for holding the exec to account.

Full credit to the boys from BUCF, they're almost as annoying as Josh. My favourite bit was when one of them got up to make a speech against, realised he had nothing to say, just went over what the speech for had said and sat down. The grilling they gave out with questions on motions was also impressive.

And that is one of my gripes with GC last night. People were asking questions at the expense of making speeches. The Shell motion was a good example. If someone was against it they should have just got up and initiated the debate, rather then ask slanted questions as they did.

hannoir · Black Bloc

My fave bit (apart from me chairing, of course!) was when BUCF man kept asking me about inflation rates. I felt as though he assumed I was a know nothing about economics lefty arts student.

But yes. I've echoed my sentiments on facebook I think. And I am too cold to write them over again.
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naivehottie · Black Bloc

I quite enjoyed it to be fair and I got a motion passed. Conservative Future were entertaining but no match on the piss take scales to Josh/Rich Morris/Lee Whittaker. Them speaking on censuring Gary was pretty funny though, although since it was only half an hour late and the first time he didn't deserve one in my opinion. Two exec officers are looking like being in trouble sooner or later over it though.

Noone was up for going to Chaos afterwards Wink

Although it's a good thing really and I'm glad the motion passed as I don't want the Guild supporting a night like that. If people voluntarily took off clothes (provided it didn't breach health and safety or hygiene rules) then that's up to them and I think they should be allowed (it's not unknown for girls to take their top off at fab, although admittedly they keep their bra on) but active encouragement of it is wrong, as is taking pictures and not making it clear that that will happen when advertising and I don't like pushy promotion either.

bobby · Indymedia Hound

GC went really slow. The motions were boring, although I’m glad the Chaos motion was starred because GC needed to hear about it. In fact would you agree that it is important to at least hear the proposor’s thoughts behind each motion even when they are not starred?

multitasking · Indymedia Hound

I guess the main problem were the reports. Then probably very few people actually read the reports. The unecessary starred motions made me very angry. Glad chaos motion went through. Feel sorry for the indi chairs for not getting life membership but there will be a revised motion on that anyway.

JulienP · Black Bloc

bobby · Indymedia Hound

Why is starring something making you angry? Don't you think just passing something through is non-democratic? Tom Marley told GC it was a waste of time to star things if there was noone to stand against the motion and i think he has a point but i think even if you have a question for the person proposing the motion then it should be starred. I think that asking a question is part of the debate not merely standing against the motion (although this obviously plays a vital role).

multitasking · Indymedia Hound

hannoir · Black Bloc

Yes Julien, I got to chair for that motion Smile

From the top of my head, indy chair and societies motions fell, and everything else passed? The niteline motion was withdrawn.
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naivehottie · Black Bloc

The Guild is non-smoking as of today as well

bobby · Indymedia Hound

Glad the smoking got banned, and more glad the "independant" chairs didn't get what they wanted! Checky gits!

bobby · Indymedia Hound

Or even cheaky gits! Take your pick!!! Laughing

SimonM · Black Bloc

I leave the room for twenty minutes and you guys fail to pass the indy chair life membership motion. Useless!

Almost nothing of any note happened at this GC, unfortunately. Smoking ban ratified at the start. Hayden's absurd motion on societies rightly fell. The Chaos motion passed, and it's great that we had a proper debate and formed a consensus by the end of it. We renamed the VPFS to VPDR (Democracy and Resources, which I keep forgetting and everyone else will too), and rather sneakily also renamed the VPAQA to the VP Education and Access; both come into effect for next year's officers. Some other motions passed or didn't - I was pretty indifferent about the rest.

We derecognised a load of societies who couldn't be bothered to reply/turn up to dozens of emails, notes in pigeonholes, a couple of soc rec/derec meetings and several GCs, and gave a second chance to the two who finally turned up yesterday to make their case.

We censured three officers, at least two of whom definitely deserved it, and chose not to censure the ones who didn't, thereby setting a nice precedent and hopefully giving officers an incentive to submit reports on time in future. Creating this automatic process was a good motion, and I'm glad we did it.

That anonymous marking motion nonsense was withdrawn for some reason. We were ready to ask lots of questions about the Guild Governance stuff in the resources committee report, but discussion of it was mysteriously postponed.

JulienP · Black Bloc

scruffy · Black Bloc

hello

yes Julien, the Shell motion did pass. It was a good motion and I'm glad it did.

And the anonymous marking motion did pass. It was put immediately because it was a fairly simple premise.
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"the hardest thing to do in politics is nothing"
President of the Guild of Students