Salient

Eye on Exec

By Jenna Powell | 19 May, 2008

This week’s VUWSA Exec meeting was delightfully short, but what it lacked in length it made up for in general bitching about President Joel Cosgrove. Cosgrove was absent, rumoured to be attending one of the following: some kind of graduation ceremony, a Workers’ Party meeting, or a scientology ritual.

The first gripe with Cosgrove surrounded his lack of work reports. Cosgrove suggested earlier that Exec members who do not hand in regular work reports should get their pay “docked” if after a week no report arose.

It has been several weeks (maybe even months) since a report has surfaced from Cosgrove. The Exec were particularly concerned about his trip to Australia – the Exec gave Cosgrove $400 to help fund the trip and he has apparently yet to officially justify this expenditure.

Work reports are obviously taken very seriously by the rest of the Exec. Case in point: Campaigns Officer Sonny Thomas included in his report: “Went to Denny’s” and “Dealt with snobby students.”

After pondering whether to go off the record or not, the Exec also had a bitch about Cosgrove’s ties to the Workers’ Party and decided an “element of care” needed to be taken by Cosgrove to draw the line between his political stance and his job as president.

Most recently, he has been in the Quad distributing Workers’ Party information and Spark magazines in what was allegedly “VUWSA office hours.”

Beyond the hating on Cosgrove, the Exec is looking into the “crap” wireless coverage around the University - particularly in the areas where post-graduate students hang out.

Because of the shortage of computers on-campus, post-graduate students were encouraged by the University to invest in a wireless-capable laptop. The University provided an incentive, promising $400 cash backs for postgraduate students who purchased one.

It seems like a pretty good deal, but after the purchases, it appears to have been discovered that the University has poor, and not to mention slow wireless coverage.

Campus Angels were also briefly touched on during the meeting. Even though it is “getting dark so quick,” VUWSA has yet to be organised enough to put the Angels on the payroll. This falls under Welfare Vice-President Melissa Barnard‘s portfolio of responsibilities.

The Exec did, however, have some ideas on how best to promote Campus Angels and how to get them sponsorship.

The meeting ended with the re-budget of VUWSA’s finances yet to be discussed. Stay tuned for Salient coverage of an increasingly likely Exec fuck-up. (Yet again.)