All bylaw changes from the past year have been ratified by the membership
The Central Student Association (CSA) held their annual general meeting (AGM) on Feb. 1, 2017 to have the membership ratify all decisions made since the last AGM. The full AGM package can be found on the CSA website, outlining all items on the agenda for the evening, and updates by the commissioners.
A quorum of 100 voting members had to be met before the meeting could be called to order. Once this was achieved, communications and corporate affairs commissioner Zoey Ross provided a land acknowledgement to begin the meeting.
Following a brief explanation by chair Joshua Ofori-Darko on how members in attendance could participate in the meeting, the agenda for the evening was approved. Those in attendance were then given the opportunity to read through the minutes of the previous AGM and the minutes were passed with unanimous support.
The auditor’s report, which goes over the CSA’s current financial standing, was then presented by CSA business office manager Lee Anne Clark.
Clark outlined how the CSA currently has their finances in order and have eliminated all long term debt.Once the auditor’s report was approved, BDO Canada was also approved to, once again, act as the 2016 to 2017 auditor for the CSA.
All bylaws and amendments since the previous AGM were then presented to the membership.
Ross motioned to have the bylaws considered as omnibus, so that all bylaws must be presented and voted on as a collective whole instead of individually.
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College of Arts director at-large Peter Miller proposed an amendment to Ross’s motion so that items 1.11.4 and 1.11.7 be considered separately from the rest of the items. Miller’s amendment passed, thereby separating bylaw changes regarding failed referendum questions and the CSA executive structure from the rest of the bylaws. The bylaw omnibus was then passed.
The first bylaw change in question concerns the ability for referendum questions that fail to meet quorum to be exempt from a one year moratorium before being voted on again by the membership. What this means is that if a vote does not have the minimum number of responses that it needs to reach quorum, it can be reopened or have the voting period extended, so that quorum can be reached.
Originally, this amendment would only affect referendum questions which deal with contractual obligations by the CSA, but Miller proposed a further amendment to remove the moratorium period from all referendum questions proposed to the membership. Miller’s subsequent amendment, and the newly amended bylaw were then passed.
The final bylaw, which would see the CSA adopt a hierarchical model, with a president and three vice-presidents, instead of its current non-hierarchal structure. Each executive commissioner of the CSA spoke in favour of the proposed change over the course of the discussion, and board directors, as well as regular members, spoke for both sides of the proposal.
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Following the discussion, the motion to restructure the CSA executive was passed. The commissioners briefly provided updates about their portfolios for the general membership before the meeting moved to open forum.
The purpose of the open forum was to allow for any questions from the membership to be posed to the executive committee.
The upcoming CSA club space changes were discussed during the open forum before quorum was lost among the membership and the formal AGM was concluded.
Finance and operations commissioner Ryan Shoot, who is spearheading the club space renovations, offered to stay and discuss the topic with anyone who wished to stay behind and find out more information about the communal club spaces. Further concerns would then be addressed at the next CSA meeting on Feb. 8.
Photos by Rebecca Thompson/The Ontarion