Democracy Zone (24th March 2017)

Cameron welcomed everyone to the Democracy Zone Committee meeting. Apologies have been recieved from the Union President, VP Sports Development and VP Welfare.

The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed unanimously by those present.

Cameron updated the committee on the results of the Spring Elections and provided a breakdown of voter statistics as presented in the attached report.

Changes to the Student Groups review, as stated in the attached document, were passed unanimously by those present.

Giles clarified that Rule 2 has become ambiguous since the change from Union Council to Senate. He reported to the committee that the the new draft of the rules could potentially result in a full time officer being voted out of their role by a simple majority at Senate.

Giles has requested that the Democracy Zone look into changing this rule to reflect the old wording that confirms a full time officer must be subject to a disciplinary first. Cameron brought forward the suggestion that he, Giles and the Democracy Coordinator should redraft this and bring this new wording to the Democracy Zone in the next meeting.

Cameron additionally spoke to the zone about Rule 10 which was discussed in the previous Democracy Zone Committee meeting. He reported that Rule 10 currently stipulates that the Union President is able to suspend officers from their roles for misconduct but there is no specific rule that their membership to the union will also be suspended. Cameron suggested that a change in the wording for Rule 10 also be brought to the next Democracy Zone Committee meeting. – See Actions.

Cameron updated the Committee with regards to the EVAs. He asked for it to be noted in the minutes that the Democracy Zone Volunteer of the Year has a very low take up due to the zone not having much volunteer involvement. 

Cameron updated the Committee on the Summer Elections that are currently underway. He confirmed for the committee that this election period is for Student Leader roles which were not filled by the Spring Elections, the Academic Presidents, Trustees, Chair of Senate and Medicine Course Reps.

Cameron will also be sending via round-robin the updated By-Law for the Summer Elections to the zone to be agreed.

A vote was brought by Ben to ask if the Committee would like to be updated on the number of You Make Change submissions being responded to by the Democracy Zone between Committee meetings. This was passed unanimously by those present and will now be recorded in the minutes going forward.