The Earth revolves around the sun, night follows day. Some things are not open to interpretation. Unfortunately, the Union’s Standing Orders are — which is why the bickering over what happened at the AGM just won't stop (see CG Special Report March 2008).
Exhausting
An exhaustive list of arguments by those who want the AGM overturned and those who think that attempts to do so are part of a ‘rightwing’ [sic] conspiracy would be, frankly, exhausting. Check Facebook. But here are the recent key goings-on...
The Sabbs decided to invoke disciplinary procedures against General Secretary, Samantha Godwin, after receiving numerous complaints over her conduct at the AGM, suspending her while a hearing is pending. Governance Committee (usually chaired by Godwin) was due to consider the status of the AGM in the light of the ongoing investigation into its procedures.
However, Godwin turned up to the latest Governance Committee meeting (as an ‘observer’) with a motion proposed by three of the committee’s members, accusing the Sabbatical officers of acting “ultra vires” (outside their powers) in suspending her, stating that disciplinary procedures hadn’t been properly followed and asking that she be fully reinstated with immediate effect. Fat chance; the Union General Manager advised the committee that passing this motion would, in fact, be illegal. Godwin’s response? It’s all open to interpretation.
Stompy
After fifty long minutes of discussion, Godwin and her committee buddies staged a stompy walk-out when it became clear that the acting Chair, (Finance & Administration Officer) Jim Hunkin (who had repeatedly told Godwin to “shut up... please”) wasn’t going to let them vote on the motion until the actual agenda motions had been looked at.
As they left, the three musketeers boasted that the meeting would no longer be quorate; four members are needed and their leaving left only three... However, it looks like what goes around comes around — as Godwin et al. have ceaselessly pointed out during the AGM fallout, a) a meeting is quorate unless declared inquorate, and b) you can’t leave the room once quorum has been called. Quite simply, when they called quorum, they were still in the room. Ergo, the meeting was quorate. Once they'd left, as none of the remaining members chose to call quorum, the meeting went on to suspend everything that happened at the AGM and vote down Godwin’s motion. A tactical error?
Most irksome is that none of this gets to the heart of what UCLU is supposed to be doing ~ representing students. With the AGM’s results suspended, even the few semi-useful things that the meeting achieved — like a motion to keep the cap on top-up fees - have been undone. Bravo!
Showbiz Sean
Still, it’s nice to know that all this furore isn’t distracting union officers from their jobs — or their future careers at least. So set is Media and Communications Officer, Sean Clothier, on a career in showbiz that he refused to leave a theatre rehearsal to help out (the understandably upset) Rare FM committee after former convict and pirate radio DJ Andrew ‘Killer’ O'Neill threatened to “get some pikeys in a van and smash up the studio”. Instead he left it to a senior staff member to give ‘Killer’ a stern talking to down the phone.
Conspiracy
As The Cheese Grater goes to press, yet another tedious chain of events is beginning to unfold, with Godwin’s supporters submitting a motion of no confidence in Jim Hunkin.
The process for this motion is long and dull; briefly, an Emergency General Meeting must be called within seven days, followed by a second at least a week after that. Both meetings must be quorate and the motion needs to be voted for by a two-thirds majority. Odds of that happening in exam season are low; the proposers are either under the delusion that students give a shit, or are trying to score points...
Worse than the puerile nature of the tit-for-tat gesture is the way the motion is written. The first thing it notes is “That Hunkin is a former president of the UCL Conservative Society,” The relevance of that to a charge of Gross Misconduct is slim, but presumably it’s there to support the idea that Hunkin wants to overturn the AGM’s decisions because “the results were contrary to Hunkin’s political views”. The Heil Hunkin conspiracy gathers pace...
It also notes Hunkin’s participation in a “secret meeting of the Sabbatical Officers” when deciding to suspend Godwin from her position, and claims that this constitutes “Gross Misconduct”. Surely this claim would mean that anyone at this ‘secret meeting’ was guilty of the same charge? A UCLU without a General Secretary or any Sabbs? Now there’s an interesting idea.
In the end, it’s up to Governance Committee (on which Hunkin sits) to decide whether the motion gets put to an EGM or not. Watch this space.