Minutes 2010 04 23

This meeting was more of an informal chat, but here were the take-away points:

GSAs at UBC, in general, are all on their own (not technically an official student group). This means that they don’t have to follow any particular rule set but they can also get into trouble, as happened with a previous ECEGSA executive. The department still treats the ECEGSA as official.

ECE has a general form for anybody claiming money. We should have a similar-type form for ourselves. It must require signatures of two of the bank account signers in order to be processed by GSA.

Must establish a baseline amount of cash that we have based on some day, all in the bank account. Must have a VERY clear log of where the money has gone. Treasurer actually requests money from the chequing account to use for petty cash to be able to pay for small items without writing cheques. Every petty cash transaction needs to be signed for and have a receipt.

SEPARATE from petty cash – floats for events. Hand out tickets for stuff sold to keep track of number of items sold. Must match change in float at end of event.

Year-end financial report must include a bank statement confirming balance.

Annual General Meeting – could be 1) Propose budget, show financial reports, vote on stuff, OR 2) Vote before election, then at meeting propose budget and activities (Neither is a requirement of the department, we can kind of do what we want) However, a Constitution should specify one way or the other. Such a meeting would need to be well-advertised (note that there are some higher-level email lists that we can use to ensure a message gets out)

To do: We make policies. Luca meets with us and agrees with them. THEN we create the budget and argue over it. What they want to see: We need X dollars to operate (tea/coffee/etc, annual events, stationary). We need Y dollars for capital (lounge stuff, etc). Luca would rather just give us (X+Y) dollars and then a year later he reviews the money. This is much easier on our end, but if it comes to pass that things aren’t documented properly, then we’d be forced to go to getting everything reimbursed. Since some events would require more extensive planning, we could submit budgets for major events later than the initial budget.

MCLD is old. Newer buildings have a higher priority to be kept clean so other buildings tend to fall back. Adam McKlusky is the facilities manager. We could send him an email and cc Luca requesting that the lounge be cleaned up a little. Dave Fletcher can be asked about removing junk in the lounge.

426a – access comes when the financial stuff is taken care of. At that time we would need to get a light fixed inside and also have some dirt removed. We visited the room after the meeting and saw that it had two large shelves inside.

The FOB on the kitchen door is currently having a part ordered. We share the eating room with the undergrad society and should cooperate on keeping it clean. If we have future issues over use of the room we can re-open discussions over access to the room.

Our capital expenses could go towards fridge/microwave in lounge, if we felt we need to keep it clean.

(The rest of the meeting focused on lengthy discussions of TA ships and PhD student funding. I definitely didn’t catch everything)

ECE has its own TA teaching session thing, required for all new TAs. Individuals would be getting multiple assignments only if they are requesting courses that there is little demand for. All TAs who have previously worked are considered in full for positions before new people are looked at.

Grad scholarships – Luca and Andre had been following the election. The university stopped its PhD tuition program however a lot of people weren’t informed explicitly of the change. That money has become the GSI program. Sadly the money is being double-dipped. University wants NSERC top-ups. Dean’s office decides the GSI topup levels (to NSERCs,etc). Way out – different credentials for TA ships, based on financial need (not a good idea according to Luca). The department’s mandate is to hire the best TAs, period.