Council Meeting Minutes

June 19th at 1pm PDT

Zoom link: https://uvic.zoom.us/j/89926566961?pwd=mqvjgYc1Ycebzznj26fFoCa5xKFKkf.1 

  1. Call to Order/Welcome – 1:07pm

  2. Land Acknowledgement – chair offers acknowledgement, Juneteenth

  3. Access Needs Check-In

    1. Break at 45 minutes

    2. Offers support if any needs arise

  4. Adoption of Agenda/Minutes

    1. Adoption of today’s agenda – (Acorn/Julia – approved by consensus)

    2. Ratification of 2024 May 29 Council Meeting Minutes (Acorn/Julia – approved by consensus)

  5. Reports

  1. Council

    1. Chairpersons

      1. Julia
        1. Traumatic tragic loss, not doing well personally
        2. Personal: Moving on July 12th – may be chaotic next few weeks
      2. Hannah
        1. #Access4All timeline to be shared at next A4A meeting
        2. Background conversations – Thrive meetings are a good way to know what we’re up to
        3. Personal: Leaving Victoria for the summer, going to the UK, will be joining remotely

    2. Treasurer

      1. Grace
        1. Absent

    3. Student Liaison

      1. AJ
        1. Personal: Moving
        2. Meeting with Adrean and Diana for September shenanigans planning
        3. Disability Awareness Day Comms planning

    4. UVSS’ SSD Representative

      1. [Vacant]

    5. International Student Representative

      1. Kush
        1. Absent

    6. Graduate Student Representative

      1. Alison
        1. No updates
        2. Scholarships list on website after thesis
        3. Grad student healthcare referendum passed

    7. Secretary: 

      1. Anika
        1. Personal: Making cookies, white chocolate macadamia nut
        2. July: more availability, right now full capacity due to courses

    8. General Members at Large: 

      1. Lola
        1. Absent
      2. Mya
        1. Absent
      3. Vanessa
        1. Absent

  2. Staff

    1. Office Coordinator

      1. Adrean Meuser
        1. We are going to visit the Goats this afternoon

    2. Research & Communications Coordinator

      1. Diana Viafara
        1. Pride month giveaway
          1. Posting with prizes soon

    3. Education & Administration Coordinator

      1. Marissa Donaldson (on leave)

  1. Discussion

    1. UVSS Instagram posting guidelines

      1. Adrean offers history of these guidelines’ development
      2. Bunni here to answer questions about the guidelines, offers insight to Board’s perspective
        1. Hannah: “posts cannot be political” – broad statements, advocacy is inherently political, centre for student politics
          1. Statements can be generalized “One Million March for Children” – could be argued it supports a political position
          2. Concerns about limitations about what we can condemn
        2. Bunni: conversation feedback system, everything we do reflects the Board and vice versa, Board reps to bring concerns to the Board about rallies and such
          1. Less that you can’t, more issues about sharing rallies on social media not created by the UVSS – advocacy comes with risk
        3. Hannah: these barriers makes life harder and makes it slower
        4. Bunni: doesn’t want to make advocacy harder
        5. Hannah: doesn’t want people to burn out either
        6. Bunni: sharing advocacy and protests not created by UVSS or SSD
        7. Julia: random students or regulars bringing these concerns?
        8. Adrean: consistent engaged students
        9. Hannah: previous guidelines undervalues volunteer’s contribution
        10. Bunni: guidelines were kept closed chest due to legal liability, speaking about was difficult, hoping for more transparency because the climate is clearer, expresses appreciation for volunteers, not trying to be secretive, trying to protect identities of those who feel threatened
        11. Adrean: reminds of safer spaces policy: “prioritizing marginalized peoples’ safety over privileged people’s comfort”
        12. Acorn: Jewish community is very complicated, can you really be a Jew if you don’t agree with every other Jew – imploring the UVSS which definition of anti-seminitism they want to abide by, offers further conversation

      1. Disability Awareness Day Prompt & Survey 

        1. Tabling on Friday July 12th.
        2. UVSS interesting in launching a survey for A4All (Expecting to be launch July 12 th)
        3. We want to have a prompt to generate responses about disability awareness and see how folks are impacting by disability : Posts, clips asking the people about their experience (This is an ongoing conversation: people invited to share ideas)

    3. SSD Journal

      1. Many advocacy & affiliate groups have semi-regular journals – open-ended medium, blogs, essays, creative, digital art, media, etc. 
        1. Honorarium budget and advertising budget 

  2. Business

    1. Motions 

2024/06/19:01 (Julia/Acorn)

WHEREAS the SSD council recently compiled an Encampment Affinity Survey, showing council’s alignment with the calls to action laid out by the UVic student encampment; and,

WHEREAS the UVSS policy requires collective approval to share related educational materials and posts on social media; therefore,

BIRT the council approves the SSD Instagram sharing social media posts within the UVSS guidelines.  

CARRIES

2024/06/19:02 (Julia/Alison)

 

WHEREAS the SSD council found affinity with the UVic student encampment; and,

 

WHEREAS other UVSS Advocacy & Affiliate groups are wishing to support the encampment with the rental of a portapotty; therefore,

BIRT the SSD approves $200 to contribute to the rental of a portapotty for the UVic student encampment for the month of June.

CARRIES

2024/06:19:03 (Julia/Acorn)

WHEREAS the SSD recently lost its UVSS representative on the Board; and,

WHEREAS Acorn Wasserman is interested in holding this position in the interim; therefore,

BIRT Acorn Wasserman is the interim UVSS representative for the SSD. 

CARRIES – Acorn abstains

  1. Future Meeting Times

    1. Council Meetings

      1. Fill out poll for July meeting: https://lettucemeet.com/l/aXlO8 

    2. Weekly Staff/Exec (Thrive) Meetings 

      1. Next meeting is next Wednesday June 26th at 11am on Zoom
        1. Thrive meeting running agenda

    3. #Access4All Meetings 

      1. Next meeting is Friday June 28th at 10am on Zoom
        1. #Access4All running agenda

  2. In-Camera not needed 

Adjournment – 1:46pm

Thank you for coming!