By and large, students are a lazy bunch. Many of us skip at least one or two lectures a week and sleep through the remainder. When we skip class, when we hand our assignments in late, we hurt only ourselves. When our Board directors skip meetings and can’t be bothered attending important workshops, they hurt us all. It shows the university, already reluctant to part with their money, that we are just as incompetent and unprofessional as ever. It impacts on the accountability and transparency of the Board. Most importantly, it represents a broken promise, a failure to live up to a basic commitment. These directors were quite willing to set aside a week to campaign in the first place, stoking their over-inflated egos and gaining a useful line for their resume, yet they can’t put aside three hours a month. Pathetic.
With five notable exceptions, every Board director has missed at least one meeting since being elected last year. Six missed two of the eight meetings. Tom McDougall missed three and Yang Shen has skipped out on four. Simon Le Poidevin has managed to attend but a single meeting since November last year, missing five in total. You have to wonder why he bothered running in the first place.
At the May meeting, the Overseas Students Association was placed on notice for (allegedly) failing to meet its Key Performance Indicators. This is the first step towards suspending its funding. Dilan Moragolle, a Board director and President of the OSA failed to show up to that meeting. More disturbingly, despite the obvious importance of the June meeting, he failed to attend until some snack-seeking Board directors retrieved him from an OSA-sponsored party. He apologised profusely to the Board and the OSA’s notice was extended to August. It’s a true shame that an important organisation like the OSA risks having its funding cut due, in part, to its slack President.
That same meeting, important electoral changes were discussed, including the notion that at least four board members each year must have previously served on the board. Yet of the fifteen directors who bothered to show up, three felt the need to leave before the end.
Earlier this year the Board following the advice of its General Manager, David Coluccio, organised a governance workshop to examine how the Union runs and how it should run. He touted it as the most important event of the year for Board Directors. Appallingly, seven directors neglected to attend – Zhen Ji, Justin Kentish, Simon Le Poidevin (surprise), Tom McDougall, Dilan Moragolle, Yang Shen, and Matthew Taylor.
After all this griping about the shameful laziness of many of our Board directors, I would like to commend the following for showing up to the governance session and every Board meeting this year: Lavinia Emmett-Grey, Rhiannon Newman, Emilio Roberts, and Claire Wong.
In shock news, a Board Director delivered their letter of resignation shortly after the deadline for this article. SRC Chair, Ellen Ketteridge, gave notice on Tuesday the 15th of July. Regarding the AUU and SRC, she said, “It’s a nice cause, but not really going to accomplish anything, is it?”. This was Ellen’s first (and likely final) year of involvement with student politics.
By Daniel and Hannah (Daniel will be taking over the column soon).
For those who are curious, the attendance rates were:
Lavinia, Emilio, Claire and Rhiannon: Attended absolutely everything (seven meetings plus the governance session).
Simone, Ellen, Justin and Xan: Attended six meetings and the governance session. (Justin missed the governance session, but he had informed the Board that he was on teaching practice and not an acting member for that period as a result).
Matt Taylor: Attended seven meetings, but not the governance session.
David, Paris and Sam: Attended five meetings and the governance session.
Dilan: Attended six meetings, but missed governance.
Zheng: Attended four meetings and governance.
Tom: Attended five meetings, but missed governance.
Zhen: Attended four meetings, but missed governance.
Yang and Simon: Attended three meetings, but missed governance.
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