…in which academics take over the board room and all of the exec kindly grace us with their presence…
The 27th meeting of the ASA started with a slight hitch after all of the ASA Exec-ers turned up to the boardroom only to find…there were Massey Staff in there! Eating sushi! Discussing academic things! In a pre-booked room, no less!
After an argument of “who’s going to knock on the door”, Rawa hesitantly enquired as to how long the lecturers would be.
“Oh, 15 minutes?” came the reply.
It was 6.02. Constitutionally, if the meeting doesn’t start 15 minutes after the scheduled meeting time on the agenda, then it must be disbanded. So the waiting game began. 10 exec members, Men’s Welfare elect for 2010 Chris Paulin and a very hungry Satellite editor sat in the halls…
…this is where I go hazy due to the fact that I was famished, but the meeting minutes say that the meeting started at 6.12pm, so lets just roll with that, shall we? Okay.
Since there were so many apologies from the last meeting (which consequently failed to meet quorum), Sort-of-but-not-really-Acting AVP Steve-o Freeland (one of the three members who bothered to turn up last week) demanded to know (but actually knowing full well) where everyone was last Wednesday. President Rawa stated that he’d had apologies from Pacific Island Students Rep Neil Tahal and Admin VP Richard van den Bos, who had a test on that night, but that the others were unaccounted for. First up to answer was Rec and Leisure Rep Salam Arif who said he had: “a meeting of some sort…”
“…don’t lie” said Women’s Welfare Rep Helen van Asch, who was also conspicuously absent from last weeks meeting.
“Okay, fine. I was at the movies.” revealed Salam begrudgingly.
Right. Two brownie points deducted for dishonesty there. Next up was Education VP Annie Zhang.
“I was ill” said Annie.
“yes, but…”started Rawa
“I. Was. Ill.” said Annie, a little more forcefully
“Yes, but did you go as well?” asked Steve-o.
“Yes. I also went to the movies” said Annie.
Hah.
So, where was Sumire Tachibana? Simialrly, she was at the movies, but she did say that she had “three reasons”, one of which was that Steve-o had told her he suspected the meeting would be inquorate anyway. Oh, and also that she, too was sick.
Rawa then asked Post Graduate Rep, Grace Su. Refreshingly, she was straight up about where she was. Did you guess? At the movies.
As it turns out, Helen has acquired a whole bunch of free movie tickets to the premiere of Year One and the majority of the executive had decided that a shitty comedy with Jack Black in it (and I say this confidently as I’ve since seen it) superseded their responsibilities on the executive. But the funniest part was hearing them try to defend their actions:
“We did ask for the meeting to be changed like, three days before it!” said Salam defensively.
“…And Helen went to all that effort to get the tickets” said Grace.
“We deserved it!” said Helen emphatically.
Perhaps you did, exec. Perhaps not on your meeting night though. Oh, but the tickets were free and only valid for that night, you’ll argue. But really? Year One? Honestly? I’d had rather attended the meeting
After the apologies had been accepted (!) by Rawa, Steve-o and Andy Domangas (the only exec to attend) they got into the meeting, nothing of which was half as interesting as the first five minutes . Richard van den Bos gave his debut Admin VP report, noting on his work report that he took out pizza boxes for the Wednesday lunchtime event to the garage bins as he was “under the impression that it was his duty” to which Steve-o said, with a hint of satisfaction “Ahhh, delegation…” van den Bos’ report was moved by Rawa and “scheconded” by Steve-o, who had a mouth full of crunchy noodles. He shared them with me. They were delicious.
Aside from that, there was great discussion on polar bears and the Sign On campaign, during which I lost my shoe under the table and stopped listening in a vain attempt to try and fish it back, and a motion to do with provisional dates for 2010 in which Rawa refused to move as he disagreed with it but managed to tell us that he “had to give the exec the option to move it” no fewer than six times. I think the opportunity was given sufficiently, really.
Sigh.