VICTORIA MARTINEZ
Senior News Editor

The University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union annual general meeting, which is the chance we regular students get each year to air our concerns and decide what the executive should be getting up to, student fee uses and everything in between.

That said, it will be in Arts 146, at 6 p.m on Nov. 18.

The first amendment to be discussedwould make a referendum necessary for increases to dedicated student fees ­— excludng the Health and Dental Plan — of more than $15. As it stands, they have to call one for minimum $10 increases.

“That $10 mark was pretty random,” said vice president operations and finance Scott Hitchings. When the cap was initially brought in, it was to prevent any irresponsible, unchecked growth.

As in, to prevent a possibly-drunk and thoroughly unsupervised AGM in which fees were raised 400 per cent without referendum.

But the USSU executive feel the $10 student fee cap is a little low to get things done. Hitchings cited possible projects like childcare and basic replenishing of funds.

“It can’t get us as much as we would like to get,” he said.

Only two proposed changes to the USSU bylaws are by non-executive students. The first, by Sara Waldbillig, amends the timeline between the announcement of the AGM and the final call for submissions of amendments. This year, the meeting was announced Nov. 3. Amendments were due Nov. 8. Five days doesn’t leave much time to do the required reading, much less the mandatory procrastination.

Currently, members receive 15 days’ notice of the AGM, which is always held in November. Waldbillig wants that changed to 30 days.

“I hope that this simple change will give students more time to make political actions and contribute amendments,” she said. Even as a member of student council for the College of Arts and Science, she found the five-day window difficult to form a solid draft.

The second student-driven amendment came from last year’s vice president academic, Daniel McCullough. There are quotas for student council positions to be filled to represent student societies at council meetings. For societies under 1,000 students, one councillor is elected. For societies over 1,000 students, two councillors are elected.

McCullough suggests adding a third category for societies of over 5,000 students. These would have three student representatives at council.

The executive is also asking for other changes.

First off, there’s an amendment on how to get rid of no-good execs. The new draft requires that along with the existing requirements for quorum and non-confidence to remove a member of the executive from office, the Executive Protocol Policy will become part of the bylaw.

This five-step discipline plan would help keep executives in place in face of personal grievances and would prevent an elected member from getting ejected from office easily.

There is also a proposed change to the requirements for councillor attendance: the amendment would treat attending summer session meetings identically to regular session meetings.

Instead of requiring meetings at a minimum of once a month, another proposed amendment excepts May, June, July and August from the requirement. Additional meetings could still be called by the president or upon written request by one third of the councillors.

Council, too, forms a large number of specialized boards with specific membership quotas — which executive members must sit on a given board, how many students-at-large and how many councillors. The Sustainability Board, which analyzes sustainable options on campus, could require an extra non-voting member, the USSU Space and Events coordinator.

Vice president student affairs Leon Thompson, who suggested the amendment to the Sustainability Board, also made the most boring change: fixing a mismarked direction to a subsection in the bylaw. See the box, at right.

Thompson acknowledged that he was “a boring guy with boring amendments,” and asked that we note his curious “buttered cat” story, which he welcomes future questioning about at the AGM.

Waldbillig, too, hopes to see a good turn out at the meeting and emphasized the opportunity for engagement.

“Students have this chance to connect with their governance body that is representative of their interests,” she said.

Also, there is free pizza and pop.