Chaired by Chanel Munroe, Deputy Chair.
The second Union Council (UC) of the academic year kicked off with the election of the Chairperson using a Single-Tranferable Voting system. Sapphire Roques, Syed Mohammed Hamza, and Alicia Khuttan were each given one minute to make a statement on why they thought representatives should vote for them.
Syed Muhammad Hamza was duly elected as the new Chair of Union Council.
Voting members then ‘ approved ‘ October’s UC minutes, followed by the approval of nine new societies and peer groups.
Fashion Society, His children Society, Hong Kong Society, Mental Health Nursing, Padel Society, Scandi (Scandinavian) Society, Sociology Society Sport and Exercise Medicine Society and Stroke and vascular Society were all approved.
Next came the election of two members of the Democratic Procedures Committee, A nine-member advisory group elected to provide strategic guidance on democratic and governance processes to the Union Council. One position was reserved for women or non-binary identifying candidates. Sapphire Roques, Zak Williams and Amelia Żabicka all stood for the positions, each making a roughly one-minute statement.
Zak Williams and Amelia Żabicka were elected to the Democratic Procedures Committee.
One final election took place, this time for the SU’s Board of Trustees Risk and Finance subcommittee (see the Governance page on the UEA(SU) website for more details). Two positions were open, and the candidates were Sebastian Magnago, Devin Owen, and Ethan Peters.
Sebastian Magnago was the only candidate in attendance and was duly elected to the Risk and Finance sub-committee.
The next item on the agenda was the Student Officer Committee reports. In previous years, the 5 full-time student SU officers would present these in detail to the council. However, this year, they deemed it too time-consuming for councillors and instead emailed the reports to representatives prior to the meeting for them to read in their own time.
Activities and Opportunities Officer Olivia Hunt sent her apologies to representatives, as she was attending a coinciding Sports Executive Committee meeting. She did, however, attend the final 20 minutes of the meeting after this.
SU part-time officer for the Environment Oscar Welchman and Jaz Brook, climate campaigner and Concrete’s representative for the Student Sustainability Network, introduced the new initiative, giving a brief overview of the group’s aims and purpose. You can find out more about the SSN on their new Instagram account, where you will find a link to their public WhatsApp group.
Moving on to the ‘Motions’ section of the meeting, UEA Student BCAN Society proposed ‘Fossil Free Careers’ – a motion calling for “the University Careers Department to end their recruitment relationships with the oil gas and mining industries…[and] for the Students’ Union to exclude these companies from attending events in SU spaces or receiving any endorsement from the SU”. You can find out more about this on the UEA Student BCAN Society Instagram page (also see page 9).
The council approved the ‘Fossil Free Careers’ motion.
A second motion was proposed by Campaigns and Democracy Officer Chris Kershaw and seconded by Undergraduate Education Officer Rebekah Temple-Fielder titled ‘Accountability: more than just a buzzword’. The motion “seeks to clarify bylaws around the accountability of Full Time Officers (FTO) regarding their duties as employees, responsibilities as co-workers, and their duties as elected officers”.
The council approved the ‘Accountability: more than just a buzzword’ motion.
A call for ‘Any Other Business’ was then made, to which no proposals were made, and the meeting was concluded.
The next meeting of Union Council will be held on Thursday, 5th of December.
You can find out more about Union Council, including its meeting agendas and minutes, at https://www.ueasu.org/democracy/unioncouncil/
Image Credit: UEA(SU)
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