My ultimate round-up of what's been happening as a result of this year's NUS appointments, so that we don't have to refer back quite so far when discussing the latest happenings:
- Mid August: Nominations for NUS were lodged. Here's the full list of nominees.
- Late August: Elections for NUS (as well as others) were cancelled.
- Late November: The NUS delegates were appointed by Board. Two of the delegates never nominated for the position, and many of those who did nominate weren't aware that the choice was being made.
- Very End of November (juuust before NUS): The exec authorised the payment of the NUS affiliation fee of $3,300, despite the fact that the exec is only constitutionally permitted to authorise payments of up to $2,000. In addition, the Board had been assured in the previous meeting that the vote on NUS delegates did not pertain to whether they would affiliate, only to who they would send as delegates if they did. 3 of the 4 exec members who voted were also NUS delegates.
- Mid December: The exec's decision to affiliate was voided on the basis that it was against policy, then passed by Board, because affiliation was still wanted. Jake Wishart and Aaron Fromm also put forward a motion that exec minutes have to be passed by board. It turned out that this was already a policy, but was generally supported anyway (the exec meeting was only a day or two before the board pack was due in, so minutes weren't submitted for want of time). Someone (Sorry, I don't have a name for who proposed this motion. Feel free to leave it in the comments) motioned for Board directors to be able to spectate at Exec meetings, and Jake put forward a motion for a conflict of interest register to be circulated at the start of every meeting and for those with a conflict not to be able to speak or vote on the issue. Both of these motions are passed too.
- Later Mid December: Ex-Board director and 2008 NUS nominee Sandy Biar released a press release to the Advertiser containing quotes from directors Mark Joyce. Aaron Fromm also gave quotes, but revoked them before the release date.
- January: Lavinia Emmett-Grey put forward a motion to condemn Mark Joyce for his comments as they were not 'in the best interests of the Board'. This lead to a wide-ranging and convoluted discussion of what counted as the 'best interests', and whether it actually broke the AUU media policy as was claimed. In the end, the media policy was redefined, though not in any way that was actually relevant to the question, and Mark was not condemned, as he appeared to have believed at the time that it was in the Board's best interests.
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