As the term gets closer and closer to wrapping up, it means that A-Society is getting ready to head off to co-op and fourth years are getting ready to enter the real world! However, we will continue moving forward and serving the engineering student body. In this article, I would like to outline some of the things happening over the Spring term!
Joint Annual General Meeting
First up is the Joint Annual General Meeting (JAGM)! The meeting will be on Sunday June 26th. At JAGM, every EngSoc member receives a vote, can submit motions, and can speak about issues that matter to them. This is the most important meeting of the Society and it is very important that we have a strong voter turnout.
For those of you traveling outside of the area for co-op, I am very excited to say that we will have a system in place to allow you to remotely attend and vote at the meeting! Keep an eye out for details on how to register to attend remotely and other specifics. I would like send a huge thank you out to Jeff Gulbronson and Akshay Joshi for helping me get this implemented.
Agenda items can be sent to president@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca. If you are unsure of how to write a motion or what can be added to the agenda, a manual can be found in the document section on the EngSoc website. There are three different types of motions that can be brought forward: stances, mandates and policy changes. As a member of the Society, you have the power to mandate the Executive to shift their priorities, work towards a particular goal, or express an opinion based on general members’ consensus. All this can be done by bringing forward a mandate or stance. Policy change motions include anything related to changing our governing documents. These motions can be submitted by anyone with an opinion on wording, who has ideas for new content, or disagrees with our current policies and procedures. If you have any questions about writing a motion, please email me at president.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca.
As a sneak peek, the major agenda item so far is a proposal to completely restructure the EngSoc council. The Council Review Committee has been working since September and has developed a new structure that we will be proposing at JAGM. A full report will be released at the end of May. Food will be provided to all who attend!
If you can’t attend the meeting (or know someone who can’t attend) keep an eye out for the proxy forms at the beginning of the Spring term, or for more information about remote attendance.
Elections
My team will be done our term as exec in December, so we’re having an election in the Fall! Over the co-op term, I will be working with our Chief Returning Officer, Sameer Chitley, on planning the elections and working on ways to get a better voter turnout. If you have any ideas on how to improve the election process, or encourage more people to participate, please email Sameer at cro.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca.
This election will be for 6 positions: President, Vice-Presidents Academic, Finance and Operations, Communications, and Student Life, and WEEF Director. For more information about the positions available, visit engsoc.uwaterloo.ca/society/elections; here, you can find the full position descriptions, eligibility requirements, as well as the full report prepared about the change to this new structure. If you’re at all interested in running for one of these positions, please email executive.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca
Fall Term Goals
I’d like to end this article by briefly talking about what myself and my exec will be working on going forward! We will be working on a more complete list of our goals to be released on the mailing list during May, but some of them include creating a Student Experience Survey, more website improvements, new Novelties swag, and “Rate-My-Co-op”! See the other articles here for more! If you have any ideas for improvement or things you would like to see implemented, let me know so we can look into it before our term is done!
That’s all for this term! It has been a pleasure, and I can’t wait to be back for the fall. Have a great co-op, and see you in September (or at JAGM)!
Leave a Reply