Committees

The following was agreed:

That the standing committees, which would meet as frequently as neccessary, should be:

Executive Committee
Trustee Board
Strategy Committee - consisting of sabbatical officers and senior managers
Finance Committee
Societies Exec
Halls Exec
Reps Council

In addition to these committees there will be a number of students forums which should convene no less than once each semester.

Reps forums in each school
LGBT forums
Post graduate students' foums
International Students' forums
Disabled students' forums
Ethnic Minority students' forums

Trustees

The following was agreed:

Allumni should not be excluded from recruitment as trustees, but we should not make specific efforts to recruit allumni. We should not recruit individuals who have been a student at Brookes within the last 5 years.

Staff of the University should not be recruited.

We should not recruit a Governor.

Staff of other Universities should not be recruited.

Trustees should be recruited by a mixture of personal contact and open recruitment.

We should look to recruit governors with specific expertise in the areas of Representation, Business Management, Finance and Marketing, though these should not be the determining factors as to whether an individual is recruited.

Policies

Background:

In the previous constitution there were detailed policies on Equal Opportunies and on Openness and Confidentiality and Social Club rules. In the review of the Constitution it was decided that it was more appropriate that these should be independant policies, rather than integrated within the Constitution.

Agreed:

It was agreed that these policies would be submitted to either the first members meeting of the year or the first Union Council of the year.

Officer Roles

It was agreed to recommend the following:

That the role of Vice President: Commercial Development and Communications should re-focus on communications with the student body.

That the aspects of the role which are to do with dealing with external media should be realocated to the President's role, reflecting current practice.

That the post should be re-titled Vice President: Communications and Development.

That the role should still include the political lead on issues relating to commercial activities.

Representation

The following was agreed

That Union representatives on committees should be elected at the first meeting of the Union Council.

That candidates should be allowed to nominate themselves.

Their nominations should be sent to the Union administration by the deadline set for the receipt of motions.

They must each submit a paragraph of no more than 150 words supporting their nomination, which will be circulated with the papers for the meeting.

That each member of Union Council will have one vote for each vacancy. (i.e. if there are six places then each member may vote six times).

That decision will be made by simple majority on the first past the post principle.

Subsequent vacancies should be filled by the same method.

All representatives on committees should attend a briefing in advance of the meeting.

Officer Job Roles

It was originally agreed that the roles should substantially remain as they are, with some changes to the detail of the wording, and presentation of the job descptions.

It was subsequently agreed to re-visit this decision.

The options under consideration are:

• To retain the roles of President, VP Welfare and VP Academic and have 2 VP's without portfolio.
• To introduce a VP with a Union Development role.
• To retain the roles of President, VP Welfare and VP Academic and have a VP with responsibility for Wheatley campus and a VP with responsibility for Harcourt campus.

Election Regulations

VOTING SYSTEM

The group could not agree on a voting system, with some of the group favouring Single Transferable Vote and some prefering the First Past the Post system.

The following was agreed:

The timetable for elections for Executive Committee, Union Council and Halls committees would be determined by the Executive Committee before the end of June each year.

For elections to the Executive Committee:

The elections will be held in Semester 2

Each year a Candidates Handbook will be produced, in advance of the start of the nomination process.

Each candidate will be required to submit a manifesto of no more than 300 words.

Each candidate will be given the opportunity of filming a video manifesto, which will be a single take with no editing, effects or additional comentary.

Any complaint by or about a candidate must be resolved by the Election Supervisor before counting votes begins.

Votes will normally be counted the day after polling closes.

Each candidate will have the right to nominate one observer to the count.

Following the count, any complaints about the count must be submitted within 5 days of the count.

Rules Governing Meetings

The following was agreed for all meetings:

All meetings will be open to all members, unless the meeting is dealing with issues which the chair has determined to be confidential (in line with the confidentiality policy).

Meetings will start on time.

A time will be set by which the meeting will finish.

The members present will have the authority to extend the meeting past the scheduled end time.

The chair is responsible for managing the meeting, balancing each person’s right to speak and the need to deal with the business of the meeting.

A record of all meetings will be kept, including details of any decisions and actions which should result from the decisions.

The chair of the meeting will be responsible for providing a report to the members as soon as possible (this would exclude any issues which are personally or commercially confidential). This report should be given in the most appropriate format, e.g. formal written report, email, video etc.

The following was agreed for Executive and Committee meetings:

In addition to the above

The date, time and venue of each meeting will be made public in advance of each meeting.

At the end of each meeting the chair will sum up all action points which have been agreed.

At the beginning of the year the team will agree a set of groundrules which will apply throughout their term of office.

Meetings of members

A schedule of meetings will be established and published at the start of each academic year.

Items to be included in each meeting must be agreed by the Independant Chair 10 working days before the day of the meeting. An agenda for the meeting must be published at least 5 working days before the meeting.

In accordance with the constitution, for meetings held in addition to those scheduled at the start of the year an agenda will be published no less than 24 hours before the start of the meeting.

At the start of each meeting a member of the Executive Committee will explain the protocol for that meeting.

The Independent chair will be responsible for keeping time.

Policy

We recognised that there are two types of policy, which we will call Union Policy and Operational Policy.

Operational Policy will be the responsibility of the Executive Committee and the Management of the Union. These represent the workaday policies which determine how we manage the Union, rather than decisions about issues of principle.

In all matters Union Policy will take precedence over Operational Policy.

Policy proposals for Union Policy should be presented on a template, which will be provided by the Union.

The template will include the following sections:

Background to the proposals

Recommendations for action.

Impact on the Union:
Cost
Reputation
Diversity/Inclusion.

The template will include and a statement that the Union Council will allocate implementation to an executive committee member, in line with a previously agreed decision of the Council.

We will find an alternative word to use instead of “motion” and include an explanation of the meaning of that word on the template.

Decisions will be made in Union Council by simple majority of those present (subject to section 2.13 of the constitution, which says that decisions of Union Council will only be binding if 2/3 of elected members are present).

Trustees

The following was agreed:

That we would seek to recruit one trustee with each of the following professional skills and experience;

• Representation (experience of holding an elected office)
• Finance
• Business Management
• Marketing or PR.

That we would not recruit current staff or governors of the University.

That we would not recruit people who had recently been officers of any Students' Union, but would consider individuals who had been offices in the past (as a guide line more than seven years ago)

That we would accept allumni but would not focus on recruiting from them.

That we would re-visit the issue of how we will recruit Trustees once the costs of using a recruitment agency had been investigated.

Committees etc.

The following was decided:

That Stratcom should continue, and be a joint working group of all sabbatical officers and all senior managers. That it should have as a focus the future direction of the Union and should amalgamate with the Vision 2011 group.

That the Welfare and Membership Services Committee and the Commercial Services Committee should be discontinued and that departmental reports, including performance against KPI's should go to the executive committee monthly.

That a Welfare Campaigns Group should be formed to support the VP Welfare and Equal Opportunities in carrying out their role.

That the Finance Committee should continue with it's current role.

That the Reps Councils and the Societies Exec. should continue in their current format.

That each of the non-sabbatical officers should plan on holding two Forums, one in each semester, for the students they represent.

That there should be a Post Graduate Students' Forum, facilitated by the Mature Students' Officer.

That the Halls Exec continues in it's current form.

That the Sports rep should establish a Sports Council.

The Environmental Rep should faciliatate an Environmental Forum, which would elect an Environmental Council,

These forums (fora) should be used to gather information from students to inform the work of the Union and should directly link to the Welfare Campaigns Group

The committee structure should be reviewd within one year. If any of the newly formed Forums etc are not seen to be working, they will be discontinued.

The forums, committees, councils and execs which are to be facilitated by officers and Union COuncil reps should be recorded by students, without using the staff resource provided by paid staff.