UES Meeting 5 – November 14, 2016
Minutes prepared by Aly Klein
Regrets: Colin Nowers, Michael Zhou, Emily Larochelle, Elizabeth Blokker, Olivia Gilles, Isaac BeattieBooth, Li Hao Zhang, Lovedeep Singh, Omar Ezz, Lac Truong, Eric Robinson, Kylie Paliani, Dana Zagar
Absent: Carl Botha, Quinton Cleghorn, Devendra Singh, Danlei Chen, Claire Phelps, Alejandro Carrillo,
Richard Lacroix, Will Christodoulou, Tyler Lacroix
1. Motion to Open: Aly Klein Seconded: Matthew Tutty
2. Agenda Additions: Khalid Backtash, Announcement about changing order of council business within
the meeting. Consensus is to move council business to before executive announcements.
3. Minute Ratifications, Motion to Ratify: Khalid Backtash, Second: Cassy Jaffray
4. Bassel Agroam: Please read the OWL announcements, I’m still receiving regrets by email and not
through the form.
5. Cassy Jaffray: Interfaculty Pub night announcement
a. Meet with the five smallest councils and today met with the remaining five. Came up with a
lot of plans have the event organized, just need a date. Wanted to do early January, most
likely will be Saturday or Sunday because that is what works best to get into the Wave.
Fewer events on a Sunday.
b. Ruhmaa Bhatti: Since it is a pub night most people will probably want to drink but most
people probably don’t want to do that on a Sunday because your Monday is probably not
going to be super good especially if you’re planning on going to the bars later.
c. Cassy Jaffray: Might be on the third Saturday of January but we run the risk of excluding a
faculty which is really not a good thing. Will cost $1800-$2000.
d. Elaine Cook: That date is Charity on the Rocks. We have events every other date except
January 28th.
e. Nick Kaketsis: What about a weeknight?
f. Cassy Jaffray: Cheaper on the weekends at the Wave and we couldn’t use the Wave until
10PM on a weeknight.
g. Kelsey Crawford: I think that Friday would have a better turn out than a Sunday if you’re
trying to make it a pub night.
h. Kelsey Crawford: We also have to try to make it more accessible for the other faculties
because Music said that they could barely swing $200.
i. Jake Sawyer: Maybe it’s better to wait until later in the semester because a lot of people use
Sunday as a day of rest.
j. Ethan Kellough: is there any way we can 180-degree paradigm shift this and not do a pub
night since the date and time seems to be a trouble.
k. Cassy Jaffray: We would have to totally change our plans and I guess that wouldn’t be a bad
thing. Health sci said that they want to have an event later this semester for everyone
l. Ethan Kellough: Is this just for the councils?
m. Cassy Jaffray: Yes, just councils. Only about 250 people not 3000.
6. Motion to change the members of the conference selection committee
a. Motion passes unanimously.
7. Motion to change the constitution moved by Kelsey, seconded by Matthew Tutty
a. Bassel Agroam: This does not count as a first reading due to Constitution, we can only vote
on if we want to amend the Constitution.
b. Kelsey Crawford: Can we talk about it so that the Constitutional Review Committee can have
something to think about tomorrow.
c. Vote: All in favour.
d. Kelsey Crawford: I made this motion to change the format of how we pass motions because
taking three weeks to pass a motion is rather cumbersome and wasteful of our time. It was
brought up to me that some people miss meetings, however the motions that are coming up
are sent to you the Sunday night before the meeting so you have time to read through it
before the meeting and if you do have thoughts on it and you can’t make it
e. Matthew Tutty: Obviously like Kelsey said this is kind of a waste of time.
f. Khalid Backtash: This is actually a reverse loop-hole that is really slowing us down. Some
things need to happen faster and a lot of motions don’t need to wait until next February for
us to decide. I do think that it’s a good idea for us to have a reading before voting because it
gives you a chance to sleep on it.
g. Kelsey Crawford: My direct rebuttal is that most of the things that we try to change do have
to do with changing the By-Laws or the Constitution because that is kind of the point of a
motion.
h. Khalid Backtash: I agree that its good to abide by the constitution. Again I’ll say that I think
that the reading is a good idea because it gives you time to think about the motion.
i. Bassel Agroam: Point of info, the first reading is to go through the motion and the second
reading is to update the motion if need be, the number of readings to not reset.
j. Ethan Kellough: I think that all this does is give us the option of changing small things in the
constitution if we do want to change them. Also, since all the motions from the last few
years have been voted on unconstitutionally do we have to redact those motions and read
them all twice again?
k. Bassel Agroam: That will be considered but I don’t think it will have to be done.
l. Kelsey Crawford: Can you please clarify what the constitutional review committee will be
doing with regards to this motion.
m. Bassel Agroam: So the constitutional review committee is going to review the document and
make sure that it stands in the best
n. Kelsey Crawford: So are you changing grammar or the spirit of the motion?
o. Khalid Backtash: This is basically for the CRC to determine if the motion is in the best
interest of the students and council and
p. Nick Kaketsis: I think it is good to have a second reading because sometimes amendments
are kind of slapped on and it’s not really done properly.
q. Kelsey Crawford: I’m not saying we can’t have a second reading because that is always an
option, tabling is always allowed and encouraged if members are feeling uneasy about a
motion.
r. Ethan Kellough: Would it make sense to have a safe guard on to have at least 50% of the
council vote on whether or not they wanted to vote on this on the same day or not.
s. Kelsey Crawford: That is the point of tabling because that is also only a majority vote not a
2/3 vote.
t. Khalid Backtash: Can we table this so that the CRC can discuss it.
Exec Announcements
8. Gregory Evans
a. Last week we had the PDC and it was a great success.
b. Also had the first WESEL meeting last week and that went well.
c. This week we have associate Dean shadow day. So if you have a class that is great or maybe
not so great please let me know like now and we will try to get Dr. Bartlett there and discuss
any concerns that you might have.
d. If you have feedback from your classes about the reading week please send it to me and we
have a discussion about it next week.
e. Peter Serles: Is there a reason why it’s on Wednesday and not on Tuesday or Thursday when
we have Dean’s hour free?
f. Gregory Evans: We will be having more of these throughout the semester to try to reach as
many students as possible.
g. We will be having the first TEC meeting on Thursday so please talk to your classes.
9. Jake Sawyer
a. We doled out the money last week for the Project Fund.
b. Rick’s shirts are in and they look sweet! *Nick shows it off*
c. Still working on Tilt and the online merchandise.
d. Jersey and Patch promotion coming up.
e. Will do an end of semester budget review.
10. Aly Klein
a. Took part in Fall Preview Day yesterday and it went really well.
b. Will continue to be working on the meeting minutes, calendar and announcements.
11. Kelsey Crawford
a. Just posted the new conference blog website, please check it out and give me some
feedback. A lot of people had said that we need to start publicizing this more. So if you give
me feedback by the end of this week I will send it to be put in the Monday morning emails.
b. Going to CDE conference this weekend.
c. After that we will have a conference review session about CDE and PEO to share info about
the last couple of conferences.
12. Ruhmaa Bhatti on behalf of Gamaliel Obinyan
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Grad photos are done and Beta will be coming up again in January.
The second volume of the Purple Arm will be coming out in the next few weeks.
Working on a Wellness Week with Claire in Student Services to help with exam stress.
Also assisting in the Interfaculty Pub Night.
Facilitating the December 6th Memorial with WiE.
13. Elaine Cook
a. Eng Donates blood is this Thursday with Spirit day so please come out and donate and wear
your spirit wear.
b. Formal still a work in progress.
c. Just had confirmation from all schools that the Euchre Tournament will be held on February
11th, Mac, Waterloo, Conestoga and Windsor are coming.
d. Trying to figure out housing for these people so if you are willing to let people sleep on your
floor it would be greatly appreciated.
e. Had heard about archery tag followed by Boston Pizza as our social event so I will look into
that and get back to you soon.
14. Khalid Backtash
a. ACWE meeting was last week.
b. The building artists were really happy with the results of the survey.
c. Had a meeting with Peter Fragiskatos, made some changes to provincial compensation for
students and also low income families.
d. Please share the UES feedback form but don’t clog your groups. Your feedback will probably
be different than your classmates but that’s a good thing.
e. Wellness week is coming and we are trying to condense SOMETHING into one day instead of
over two weeks.
f. Career Services Survey committee to make a survey is in process. Basically it’s about giving
students the chance to work with the faculties HR and build resumes, etc.
g. Growing my beard still.
h. We will be standing by the By-laws and constitution about attendance in the meetings.
Don’t want to impeach anyone but we will be putting a new system in place to
15. Questions
a. Ethan: Question for Elaine, how will we be determining the people we’re sending the to the
Euchre tournament?
b. Elaine: We will have our own tournament before hand and it will be similar to last year.
More money to the big one but it will be held on a Saturday to accommodate more people.
c. Khalid: I would also like some feedback on the demerit point systems to help us determine
how to handle the people who have put their position on their resume and never actually
act on it.
d. Matthew Tutty: When do you want the feedback from our classes about the reading week?
e. Gregory Evans: Not meeting until next semester but it would be great to have your feedback
sooner rather than later.
f.
Bassel Agroam: If you don’t send your regrets in time I am not accepting them. I just
checked and two people sent regrets in the meeting time and those are not being accepted.
g. Khalid Backtash: So what are everyone’s thoughts on the demerit point system?
h. Nick Kaketsis: I think it’s a really good idea to keep people accountable but I do think that it
can be tough because things do come up and obviously some people are going to miss a
couple of weeks.
i. Bassel Agroam: When you fill out the form to apply to this position it does ask that you if
you’ve read the by-laws and if you just check that off to continue the form you are already.
j. Alex Woodcroft: I think that it’s a really good idea to have the point system because it helps
maintain a standard.
k. Nick Kaketsis: I agree with Alex, I think that this also helps clean your hands on this issue.
l. Ruhmaa Bhatti: I know that some cards haven’t been folded but some people have been
here and just can’t make it.
16. Motion to close: Kelsey Crawford, Second: Khalid Backtash