COUNCIL SUMMARY – APRIL 9, 2020

Here are notes from the regular AMS Council meeting, held virtually on April 9, 2020:

 

Omnibus Motion: Council approved an omnibus motion covering a number of items:

1) Repeal of policies on Communications and Sponsorship.

2) Replacement of the policy on Relations with External Organizations with Code provisions on that topic.

3) Amendment of policies on Media Relations and the Use of Student Email Addresses.

4) Approval of an agreement with the University concerning the $21 AMS fee for Athletics and Recreation.

5) Approval of a budget amendment to pay for new board management software.

6) Approval of procedures for selecting student senators from Forestry, Dentistry, and Arts.

7) Approval of Chalaya Moonias as the student senator from Forestry.

8) Creation of an Associate Equity and Inclusion position.

9) A Code amendment to allow email voting by Council.

10) A Code suspension to make it easier for committees to use email voting.

11) A Code suspension to allow oral reports and remarks to Council to be replaced by written ones.

12) Approval of an expenditure of $5,002 from the Capital Projects Fund to pay for a wall for the Services.

13) Reappointment of Chris Hakim and Max Holmes to the CiTR board of directors.

 

Special Election and Referendum: The AMS Chief Electoral Officer, Ahsan Sahibzada, announced that Georgia Yee had won the special election to become VP Academic & University Affairs.  He also reported that the rerun of the bylaw referendum had failed for lack of quorum.

 

Health and Dental Plan: Council approved a 3% increase in the Health and Dental Plan fee and discussed extending the contract of Studentcare, the plan administrator, for two years.  It was decided to postpone the vote on the extension until after further documents could be circulated to Councillors, and to conduct the vote by email.

 

Councillor of the Year: AMS President Chris Hakim announced that the Executive had chosen Engineering representative Katherine Westerlund to be Councillor of the Year.

 

COVID and Government: VP External Cristina Ilnitchi reported on advocacy concerning the U-Pass and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).  She added that a web page on student support has gone up on the AMS website.

 

Clubs: VP Admin Cole Evans said CampusGroups is being implemented as the new administrative platform for clubs (replacing Clubhouse).  He said club renewals are taking place online, but Club Executive Orientations are on hold.  VP Finance Lucia Liang said Club Treasurer Orientations are going ahead on Zoom.

 

Food Bank and Other Services: Student Services Manager Ian Stone said Food Bank is being “very well used,” reflecting the severity of the current situation.  Tutoring is working online, and there are plans to put Speakeasy Peer Support online as well.  Safewalk is not running.

 

Awards during COVID: VP Academic & University Affairs Julia Burnham said she is involved in advocacy to ensure the continuity of awards.

 

Emergency funding: VP Finance Lucia Liang said $280,000 for students has been found to deal with the COVID situation.  She said the AMS would be giving it to the University for the University to administer.

 

Budgets: The VP Finance said she’s preparing three different budgets for the next Council meeting to provide options.  But she added that Services, as a core program, will not have their budget cut.

 

HR: Riley Ty, the chair of the HR Committee, said the committee has been looking at Executive pay and is working on hiring the Ombudsperson, the Speaker of Council, and the Chief Electoral Officer.

 

Next meeting: The next regular Council meeting will be held virtually on April 22, 2020.

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