Salient

Mid Year Eye on Exec 17th June 2008

By Conrad Reyners | 18 Jun, 2008

During the mid year break I have decided to flagellate myself by attending VUWSA executive meetings every Wednesday. Urgh, I’m a masochist.

Present were Sonny Thomas, Seamus Brady, Joel Cosgrove, Alex Neilson, Stefan Tyler, William Wu. Fiona McDonald trudged in late. After exchanging pleasantries the meeting got underway, Joel led an officious charge through the agenda. Thomas tried to pass a motion thanking Tyler for diligently doing the minutes, no one listened. Thomas tried a second time, and was ignored by the executive. Neilson thought the fact that his birthday was coming up, and he was turning 21 was ‘auspicious’. Cosgrove and Thomas denied this assertion. I put my head in my hands.

Contrary to popular belief important matters are discussed at executive meetings. The VUWSA van policy was canvassed but wasn’t voted on because only the draft report was included in the executive’s papers. Members obviously hadn’t read it yet, and Thomas refused to because “he can’t read things when they are underlined”. Joel raised a motion concerning formulating policy for a membership list of all VUWSA members (i.e everyone at university) which included all of their contact details and university information. I wasn’t listening very hard so I didn’t know why VUWSA needed and or wanted this information. Neilson and Joel started talking about the privacy act, so it must have been something important. In other news, it was brought to the executive’s attention that VUWSA receptionist Carey, has decreed that if you have your restricted licence you can not take anything in the car with you, as it would contravene your licence conditions. This was news to Neilson, as it would mean that all the free bread he picks up would be considered illegal passengers. Everyone had a chortle at poor Carey’s expense. Nielson laughed so hard he went all red, and I thought he was going to explode on me.

Following on from that epic and comical tale, Cosgrove informed the executive that the van only took diesel, and to not put petrol in it. Tyler sardonically quipped that maybe Joel should put sugar in it instead. I giggled, it was pretty funny at the time.Just when things couldn’t have gotten any more riveting Melissa Barnard exploded into the meeting. Originally I thought Barnard was drunk, turns out she wasn’t. That was disappointing. She exclaimed “I’ve had a lot of sugar this afternoon” and then explained that “I got offered $1 to lick commercial grade salt they put in swimming pools. I’m regretting turning it down.” Before then postulating “This is why the Berlin Wall got knocked down and David Hassellhoff was on top of it going ‘I want a cheeseburger’ arrgghnomnomnom (replete with exaggerated eating actions).” Too much sugar indeed.

After Barnard had settled down, Thomas’ application for a $850 ($200 for the second half of the summer trimester and $650 for this trimester) bonus was approved by the executive. I’m not allowed to tell you why because the bloody executive went into committee. Finally the executive passed a strongly worded motion to Auckland’s vice chancellor Stuart McCutcheon, over it took them bloody ages to formulate the damn thing, as Thomas, Barnard and Cosgrove kept adding clauses such as “historical, privilege” “honour” and “distinction”. Tyler got frustrated and asked for the executive to just “fucking email it to him”.

On that tense note, the meeting was adjourned.