BUSU met four times in the summer: here’s what they did.
The new year at Brock has seen the return of the Brock University Student Union (BUSU). In fact, BUSU was working while much of the student populace enjoyed their summer vacations, meeting a total of four times over the summer. With their first meeting of the school year approaching, there’s no better time to look back at what BUSU was talking about in preparation for this school term.
To make their meetings public, BUSU posts recordings of their meetings on a YouTube playlist attached to their main channel. As of now, the two uploaded videos have a combined 140 views. This article will go over the highlights from each, but the best way to know what’s going on is to see it for yourself, so take a look.
Meeting #1: June 24, 2024
The first BUSU meeting of the new term was called to order at 6:15 p.m. with 12 members in attendance. The BUSU Board of Directors quickly approved the agenda of the meeting and returning board members approved the minutes from the last meeting. With the introductions out of the way, they got into their first order of business: electing a Chair and a Vice-Chair.
Four members put their names in the bid for Chair: Hinkal Patel, Charlie Martin, Brielle Kaminsky and Mohiz Imtiaz. Patel’s primary platform rested on her love of student involvement and her experience on the board last year, where she put forward two motions, the most notable being a re-working of the Remembrance Day plan.
Martin cited his journey to becoming a lawyer as instilling in him “a deep respect for honesty and adherence to guidelines, principles that [he] believes are fundamental to effective governance.” He promised that if elected Chair, he would ensure that the board’s decisions “reflect the values of integrity, transparency and overall student welfare.”
Kaminsky, a master’s student at Brock, discussed her experience with parliamentary procedure, including formal training and two years as the Board Chair of the International Council of Student Leaders (ICSL) for the Golden Key International Society; she also chaired a BUSU board meeting the year prior.
Imtiaz discussed his experience with multi-national organizations like World Vision and the Ontario Young Liberals, as well as his passion for student advocacy and his desire to put BUSU in conversation with other student governments in Ontario.
The poll resulted in a tie between Patel and Kaminsky, which was subsequently broken with a re-vote that saw Brielle Kaminsky elected as Board Chair.
Next, candidates came forward with their bid for Vice-Chair. Mohiz Imtiaz, Hinkal Patel and Charlie Martin didn’t have much to add after their speeches for Chair, but new Board Member Irene Charley came forward with a year of experience on the BUSU Advisory Council (BUSU-AC, formerly known as BUSAC), experience as a club executive.
The poll resulted in Charlie Martin being elected as Vice Chair.
Due to connectivity issues on Kaminsky’s end, Martin was thrust into his role and took over to chair the meeting as it entered an in-camera session at 6:42 p.m.
The Board moved out of camera at 7:44 p.m. and launched into a presentation from Kayleigh Rossetto, BUSU Director of Governance, Advocacy and Clubs on three Green Levy requests. The Green Levy is a student ancillary fee of $1.22 per credit on every undergraduate student, which comes out to “approximately $100,000 a year” and is “used to fund sustainability initiatives that BUSU does,” said Rossetto.
The three requests were as follows: $23,500 for waste sorting at Isaac’s, $740.82 for plants and supplies for Isaac’s patio and $17,404 for eco SWAG.
Board members seemed most concerned about the increased student labour costs of the waste sorting at Isaac’s, an estimated number of $14,000, up from the $11,730.10 spent in the 2023-24 school year. Rosetto explained that this increase was due to the increase in minimum wage.
A subsequent question was centred on the eco SWAG fund, a startingly steep cost which Rossetto’s report writes “can be used to cover the difference between a cheap, low-quality item and a higher cost, eco item” made of sustainable resources “as per the Green Levy Memorandum of Understanding.”
The breakdown was as such: $5,740 for BUSU Sweaters for Advisory Council and 2025 BOD Sweaters, $9,180 for Food First Totes for exam kits and food first events, $798 for lunch storage containers and $1,686 for drink tumblers. Each category also included “general BUSU promo and giveaways” following the descriptive items.
Rossetto explained that the cheap SWAG from the past was incredibly poor quality and likely often ended up in garbage cans and landfill sites; she also explained that this eco SWAG has been in circulation in previous years and they’ve received “good feedback from students that have gotten them.”
The Green Levy requests were put to the board and passed 8-0-1, thus concluding the first BUSU meeting of the new term.
Special Meetings
The BUSU Board of Directors met twice more before their next meeting, both “special meetings” that occurred entirely in-camera and thus were not recorded or uploaded. However, the minutes from both meetings are available on BUSU’s website, even if they are limited in their information.
The first Special Meeting was held on July 15. Before going in-camera, the board approved the agenda of the upcoming meeting, 11-0-0, as well as the minutes from their first meeting with a vote of 10-0-1. They spoke in-camera from 6:06 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. and then adjourned the meeting.
The second Special Meeting was held on July 22 and went much the same. The agenda and the previous meeting’s minutes were approved, both with a vote of 9-0-0, before the board went in-camera at 6:05 p.m. They moved out of camera at 7:08 p.m. before adjourning the meeting.
Meeting #2: July 29, 2024
The second board meeting featured much more of BUSU’s policies being discussed, wherein there were some important developments and discussions.
After approving the current and prior meeting’s minutes, Rossetto went into a presentation on proposed changes to the Clubs Policy: her draft was essentially entirely reconfigured, but this was for the sake of readability and not due to vast changes to the policy.
Notable alterations to Policy 500 included the addition of a new BUSU Clubs paid position, that of the Clubs Administrator, who assists the Clubs Manager and oversees most of the administrative work regarding clubs; the cleaning up and clarification of the disciplinary actions that can be taken against clubs if they violate the policy; and clarification on the new clubs election software implemented last year.
A significant change was the establishment of a new policy document comprised of the clubs funding information from Policy 500, called Policy 501. The main focus of this document was the establishment of new guidelines for the Clubs Advisory Committee (CAC) when granting funding to Brock clubs. Last year saw a small crisis as clubs funding ran out in November, leaving many groups unable to receive any financial help from BUSU. This year, the board hopes to amend that mistake, thus the implementation of new guidelines which can be found in the recording of this meeting and the policy itself.
To further alleviate BUSU’s financial limitations, Rossetto explained that clubs are encouraged to apply for their entire funding for both terms earlier in the year to avoid getting left in the dark. A policy change that reflects this encouragement is that the Clubs Manager would be able to approve or deny any request under $3,000, a number up from the $1,500 in the old policy.
Rossetto also explained the new Clubs Code of Conduct and responded to Board Members’ concerns, namely her inclusion in the Clubs Advisory Committee, to which she responded that she’d been doing work with clubs for some time now.
There was a brief mention of a referendum much further down the road regarding in increase to the clubs levy, but not at the moment. They’ve also considered a cap on student funding, which could be implemented in the future but for now is only speculation. When it came time to vote, the motion to update the policies was passed.
The board then moved in-camera at 6:38 p.m. and didn’t move out of camera until 8:04 p.m.
Next on the agenda was a seemingly simple request for the approval of a Business Continuity Proposal: essentially a business plan should a disaster strike, like an IT data breach. The proposal outlined that in the case of a crisis, decision-making powers shift to the General Manager, currently Robert Hilson. The reason for this was “continuity”; while the BUSU President and their contact information might change from year to year, general manager is a more set-in-stone position.
Another facet of this proposal came up when Mohiz Imtiaz asked whether students would be consulted in a situation such as this, to which the answer was no because there would be no time in an emergency such as the one indicated in the proposal. This was enough for the board members, and the motion to approve the Business Continuity Proposal passed.
The last two topics on the agenda were reports from General Manager Robert Hilson and President Anusha Pahuja.
Hilson’s report touched on sustainability efforts, like the new light fixtures in the Student Alumni Centre reportedly saving BUSU $12,450 a year; the new voting system, which is reportedly saving BUSU $6,000 a year; an ongoing financial audit, the results of which should be available by this month; and BUSU’s advocation for Metrolinx to offer a bus to Hamilton after night classes in 2025-26.
Pahuja’s report was focused on the efforts of the BUSU executive in preparation for the school year, which included the hiring of a new VPSS, the next steps for the new student centre and the finalizing of club policies.
With those reports concluded, the meeting was adjourned at 8:31 p.m.
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BUSU’s summer meetings discussed numerous relevant topics, including the allocation of student fees, upcoming initiatives and policy changes. These may not seem like the most exhilarating of conversations, but the devil is often in the details, and watching these meetings is an important part of keeping updated on what’s happening at Brock. Remember, this is your school and your student union.
You should know what they’re talking about.
Future BUSU Board of Directors meetings will be posted to the BUSU YouTube playlist mentioned above.