As is becoming the norm at UCLU, this month’s Extraordinary General Meeting soon descended into chaos.
General Secretary Pierre Deludet proved incapable of maintaining control of the meet- ing. Indeed, he did not even appear to fully understand the UCLU constitution, with at- tendees being called on stage to explain the standing orders to him. His constant dithering led to a call for a vote of no confi- dence in him. This led to fur- ther confusion as the General Secretary failed to realise that such a motion took precedence over all others. Meanwhile, the Bloomsbury ~ Theatre slowly emptied of students, bored of the chronic incompetence of the Union.
As Deludet made vain ef- forts to regain control - in spite of persistent attempts to remove him from his position - quorum was called. He then instructed the audience to ‘press any key’ on their voting pads to deter- mine whether there were enough students to continue the EGM. Unfortunately, the screen behind him informed the audience that they could in fact only press buttons 1, 2 or 3, meaning that the consequent result, declaring the meeting inquorate, may well have not been valid.
The democratic meltdown at the EGM was born out of factional infighting over a mo- tion supporting the introduction of the London Living Wage to UCLU. Predictably, the verbose roposals from UCLU’s an- swer to the Third International (Brown, Chessum, ~ Griffiths, Rackley et al) were met by the distasteful Tory warbling and wobbling of the Union’s very own Eva Peron in the form of Mandy Smith. Her obstruction- ist behaviour and incessant Point of Ordering culminated in the Sabb elect running across the au- ditorium to snatch a microphone from Griffiths’ hands, leaving whatever dignity she had to be- gin with back in her seat.
With the meeting looking like the Moscow State Circus had come to town, it is perhaps hard to believe that anything worse happened that evening, but it did: the rejection of the Special Resolution to Incorporate UCLU as a Charitable Company on its second reading. Despite impas- sioned pleas by the Sabbs that such a move was supported by independent legal advice and would secure the independence of the Union from College, op- position led by Trotsky Inc. and the President of the Postgraduate association Dante Micheaux — on grounds of a lack of consul- tation — saw the resolution fall short of achieving the required two-thirds majority. With the likelihood of resignations from the Union’s board of trustees following the failed vote, and several years of work on the part of management down the toilet, it is little wonder that the Sabbs had their heads in their hands.
Having secured her po- sition as Democracy and En- gagement Officer for next year, you'd think that Mandy Smith would wait until September to cock up her job. However Smith has already gone above and be- yond our expectations by setting up a Facebook group encourag- ing students to oppose Union policy. The group, UCL Students Against 3rd Term Strike Action, goes against a motion passed at this year’s AGM to support staff facing job losses. Despite Smith’s position as Sabb elect, and hence her duty to support UCLU poli- cy, she has completely disregard- ed this by creating a Facebook group to do just that. As she declared on the group (gram- matical mistakes included): ‘Ive stood against the union on a number of issues before, and I'll do it again if i feel its necessary.’ We can therefore look forward next year to more of Mandy’s questionable brand of ‘demo- cratic leadership’.
In other election news, The Cheese Grater has got its grubby hands on a confidential dossier, compiled by Kieran Wieisberg, detailing some election offenses committed by Michael Chessum, Craig Griffiths and Greg Brown. The three are variously accused of heinous Facebook offenses (all tenuously related to actual cam- paigning) and poster-sticking in cluster rooms. The punishments inflicted on the three miscreants by a three hour hearing probably speak for themselves: Brown was cleared, Griffiths was given an oral warning and Chessum was docked a ‘symbolic’ 0.25% of his first preference votes. It is interesting to note how, despite the fact only 2859 people voted in these elections (a mere 13% of the total student body yet appar- ently a record), egos have been running as high as ever over things of no consequence such as this.