Democracy Zone (20th February 2017)

Cameron welcomed everyone and confirmed apologies from Emily Harrison ( Open Place Member) and Ben Franklin (Chair of Senate).

The minutes of the previous meeting (15th December 2016) were agreed unanimously by those present.

The action from the previous meeting was to reflect on inviting relevant representatives to Student Groups affiliations meetings. Tom and Michael clarified that this was now being considered for future affiliations.

No-one was co-opted during this zone meeting.

None brought to the committee.

No specific issues for the Democracy Zone to consider.

Changes to the Elections section of the website were discussed, including changing 'You're Ready' to 'Spring Elections'. There were issues raised regarding the budgets on the admin side of the website. They need to be updated to the new amounts for this years candidates.

There were no You Make Change submissions that required discussion by the Democracy Zone. However, it was discussed that a record of the number of submissions should be made in future.

Ideas for possible awards were discussed to be later confirmed by round-robin. Award ideas included: Best Campaign Team (nominated by the candidate), Best New Society, Society Management and Part-Time Officers in the Zone.

Changes to Rule 10, sections 6 to 8. Union President is able to suspend officers from their roles for misconduct but there is currently no reference to suspension of membership to the union. The new rule withdrawing membership would be in the case of serious incidents, such as those that would involve the police. In other cases, the member would be barred pending official disciplinary. 

No other business brought to the meeting.