Union considers sweeping changes to combat apathy

The Students’ Union (SU) has still not decided what is the best way to involve students in the Union’s democracy system.

Last week on our website, the Boar reported on a recent Annual Members’ Meeting (AMM) that failed to draw a high enough turnout to even begin. Meetings require at least 1 percent of the SU’s membership to be present. Democracy and Communications Officer Chris Luck has now initiated a campaign to re-engage students in the SU.

Luck said that he has since had “proper discussions with about twenty people” regarding why they did not attend the AMM. Luck said that he is now keen to talk to people who were “not engaged” so that he can find out why. “These are things that people are already talking about in their kitchens,” he said, but added that most people do not seem to feel that they should talk to anyone else about them.

Only 119 people joined the Facebook event that was created to advertise the AMM, and the majority of comments posted on the wall were highly negative. The consensus seemed to be that turning up would be a waste of time.

“To be completely honest, I’ve had enough of discussing the Life Sciences and No Platform issues and the stance on Fees and Cuts is a given really,” said James Coe. “However, I’m tempted to show up in case the Socs and Sports thing actually gets passed.”

Michael Jones agreed: “[It is] good to see the same topics reappearing that have come up at GM or referendum on a roughly termly basis for about the last five years!”

Two of the four issues that were set to be discussed at the failed AMM have since been resolved. The first, the Life Sciences issue, has been dropped by its proposer. The motion had already passed in last year’s AMM and was only put forward again to gauge public opinion.

The other resolved motion was that on the subject of fees, which “went to the Union Council meeting in Week 7 where it was passed”. The two issues that remain are the No Platform and the question of sponsors for societies, and Chris Luck said that he was waiting to speak to the proposers of these motions.

Luck said that he was “favouring online voting” as the new method of passing motions, and was considering a system whereby a debate would still be held, but that it would be filmed and then posted online for students who were unable to attend the meeting due to time or location constraints to vote on afterwards. “People do not want to sit in a room anymore,” said Luck, who added that “it’s time the SU democracy moves into the twenty-first century”.

Many polls on more specific issues are currently on the SU website. Luck said that these usually averaged around 200 votes per poll, which is a lot closer to the 227 needed to properly vote on a motion than the 134 who attended the AMM. Luck said that these polls were “not in a prominent place on the website,” nor are they advertised so he was confident that more people would vote if these became the solution for democracy.

“There hasn’t been any real opportunity for progress yet,” said Luck, who explained that the Union is trying to reform not only how the AMM is run but also the “wider democratic process”. Luck said that a second AMM or equivalent would not take place until second term, as if it was held again this term and was again unsuccessful it would just “reinforce the problems with democracy”.

Luck said that he was also waiting before holding another AMM because charity law, which the Union must now follow since becoming a charity a couple of years ago, “is still being written,” and so the Union are still consulting to find out what they can legally do. However, Luck said that whatever decision they made with regards to how the AMM is held would “open up” the democracy.