This year’'s Welcome General Meeting began much as it does every year: with a patronising five minute slide show offering the participants photos of drunken freshers and Michael Chessum bel- lowing through a megaphone at hordes of UCL students.
If only this had been cut in favour of something more productive, perhaps more mo- tions would have been passed. After a mere thirty minutes and with only two motions cov- ered, the WGM was declared inquorate due to the streams of UCL students leaving the Bloomsbury Theatre. Whether this was down to boredom, bafflement or a com tion of the two is unknown.
Low attendance has al- ways plagued the WGM: in 2008 the attendance of 140 was so low that the meeting was inquorate from its off- set, meaning that no motions could be passed at all. 2009 saw some improvement with a turnout of 348 and five mo- tions debated, but the WGM went on to finish prematurely due to many people depart- ing early. In 2010 the attend- ance plummeted once again.
Certainly the Sabbatical Officers could have and did foresee this. Chessum conspicuously requested at the beginning of the meeting that his own proposal — ‘Defend Education, Defend Students’ - be bumped up to the top of the agenda ‘in order that the response is agreed by members as early in the meeting as pos- sible should it fall inquorate’.
With not even our Sabbat- ical Officers showing enough faith in UCLs democratic process to believe it might ac- tually run its full course this year, it is little wonder that the WGM collapsed with little ac- tually having been achieved.
Inquorate
The real question is whether anything which was actually passed at the meeting should in fact count. Quorum for the WGM is 269, 1% of the total membership of UCL Union. Yet for the first mo- tion of this year’s meeting only 268 actually voted (206 for, 37 against, 25 abstain- ing) while only 232 voted on the second motion (207 for, 4 against, 21 abstaining).
Arguably, neither of these motions should been passed because the required numbers of voters were not present. It is rather embarrass- ing that despite now using an electronic voting system that in- stantly logs the number of votes cast, this flaw was overlooked.
This year’s WGM thus did not only achieve very little but what it did achieve should not have counted in the first place. It is embarrassing to the student body how predictable UCLU general meetings are becoming, to the extent that we at The Cheese Grater could be accused of unoriginality for having to print a similarly damning report every time one occurs. The likelihood is that come the AGM next March we'll be composing a more or less identical article yet again.
Caldicott Condemns Leaky Union
The Union has again been criticised for releasing Islamic Society membership lists to the Metropolitan Po- lice in January 2010. The is- sue reared its ugly head once more at a panel debate on the Caldicott Report hosted by Pi Media on 26 October.
Following the arrest of Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab on 25 December 2009, the Union released three years worth of ISoc and RUMS ISoc membership data to the Coun- ter Terrorist Command Unit. Despite initially resisting the Police’s efforts to access the private information, Union Of- ficers were eventually pressed into handing over the names of over three hundred students.
When asked what she thought of the Union’s actions during the investigation, Dame Fiona Caldicott responded that ‘due process had not been fol- lowed’ and that the breach con- stituted a ‘personal invasion’ of UCLU members' privacy.
Former Student Activities Officer James Hodgson and other Union officials had as- sumed that they were legally bound by a Police Data Re- lease Form to hand over the information, but this was not the case. The appropriate le- gal checks were not made be- fore the names were released, which constituted a serious oversight and neglect of duty.
The panel was unanimous in condemning the breach. Counter-extremism researcher and journalist James Brandon called it ‘completely wrong’ and said that the Union had ‘blown the Data Protection Act’.
Hodgson was forced to admit his mistake at the An- nual General Meeting in Feb- ruary, and accepted that the mistake was entirely the Un- ion’s responsibility. Needless to say, UCLU policy on deal- ing with police enquiries has since come under review- but this breach of student trust has tainted the organisation’s reputation and may haunt them for some time to come.