The buzz around the MSU’s General Assembly is noticeably quieter this year.

In 2012, then-MSU President Matthew Dillon-Leitch orchestrated a major marketing campaign. The posters were well designed, the event had its own website, the Facebook page exploded, and it was hard to walk around campus without learning that 601 students would make quorum.

The day of the event was like New Year’s Eve. There were counts coming from the back of the room: forty to go. And then thirty. Four, three, two, one, and we had it. For the first time in 17 years, votes made at General Assembly were binding on the Students Union.

It was exciting. So why no big campaign this year? Where is “The 606” (or whatever the number will be) this time around?

It might be absent because, for the brief period when there were enough students in the room to make motions binding on the MSU, no one seemed to know how to handle it.

The question was whether or not students wanted to charge incoming first-years an automatic $110 for Welcome Week fees, rather than offering an optional MacPass. In what looked like a pretty even split, the more than 601 people in the Burridge Gym ran to one side or the other to show their vote. Someone looked over the crowd, shot a picture, and it was decided. In about half an hour, it was determined that the Welcome Week fee would be applied.

With the announcement, two things became apparent.

First, 601 is not a big number. Least year, it was three per cent of the full-time, undergraduate student population. It takes 10 per cent of the MSU’s membership to vote on binding changes to the Union during a referendum. But at general assembly, 601 students were able to make a decision on behalf of the other (roughly) 19,400.

Second, the decision was largely made on impulse. Visibly undecided until they saw friends run in one direction or the other, it was apparent that many hadn’t given the issue much thought in advance.

And so, agreements between the MSU and University were re-written to make the new fee work. The MSU, Student Success Centre and faculty societies each received a piece of the pie. The money was spent, and expenses were badly reported. But an optional Welcome Week payment is likely a thing of the past.

It’s still true that a general assembly is a fine idea. It’s direct democracy. It’s a lot of people getting together to talk about realizing ideas that the SRA can’t (or won’t) and that wouldn’t be done justice by a referendum question on an MSU presidential election ballot.

But it doesn’t tend to work out like it's supposed to. In that rare quorate Welcome Week fee vote, it wasn’t the will of the masses that drove the decision. The MSU president ran a campaign to get 601 people in a room. And then he introduced a motion. He spoke to it, and it passed. And then a lot of people left.

There might come a time when McMaster needs General Assembly. During the peak of the Quebec student protests, masses of students were assembling to talk and to vote together as often as a couple of times a week.

But that time doesn’t seem to be now.

And given the toned-down General Assembly promotional campaign this year, the MSU appears to know it.

So, before Tuesday, have a look at the agenda. If you care about one of the motions, go to GA.

But if you’re only headed there to run with your friends across the Burridge Gym floor, stretching your legs after a 15-minute presentation, you’re probably better off staying at home.

Dina Fanara

Assistant News Editor

 

It was brief, but it happened.

Reports from the back of the room gave a count of the flow of students into and out of Burridge Gym – 40 more to go, it said. Then 30. Then four, and then three. Finally, attendance at the McMaster Students Union’s General Assembly broke well over 600. The event had reached quorum for the first time in 17 years.

“I feel like, apart from winning the presidency, this was probably one of the best feelings I’ve ever had,” said the MSU’s president Matthew Dillon-Leitch following the event.

‘601’ had been plastered around the McMaster campus on walls, bulletins and t-shirts for weeks in advance. The number represented a mere three per cent of the McMaster undergraduate population, which was required for votes at GA to matter. Attendance hadn’t reached that level since 1995.

A total of eight motions were brought forward at the March 28 Assembly, though numbers only stayed up long enough for one vote to be binding.

The proposal, which was moved by Dillon-Leitch, was to enforce a compulsory $110 fee to incoming first-year student in place of MacPass sales. The goal was to attract greater Welcome Week participation while having the funds to support a bigger week.

It was for this vote that quorum was sustained. The outcome was not obvious from a count of pink pieces of card, held up by each student voting either for or against the motion. MSU speaker Jeff Wyngaarden asked voters to get up and stand at either side of the gym so that he and the elections committee could eyeball the crowds and determine a winner.

While the vote was a slim but evident “yes,” at its conclusion, many opted to exit the gym rather than return to their seats, and quorum was lost after the vote was conducted.

“That’s just the unfortunate nature of General Assembly, is that you can lose and regain quorum at different times. I think you have to pick issues that students actually know about. If you don’t know what students want, that’s a problem,” said Dillon-Leitch.

The original motion suggested a fee of $120, but Dillon-Leitch amended it at the Assembly to read $110 due to extra cost cutting.

Prior to the Welcome Week fee vote was a motion from the McMaster Marching Band, which was asking for a one-dollar-per-student levy. The motion had been moved to the top of the agenda at the outset of the meeting. Though the vote was in favour, quorum wasn’t reached until after the vote.

After attendance dipped back below 601 – having peaked close to 670 – the Assembly pressed on with the agenda.

Next up was a $5 campus events fee that would fund a concert to be held at McMaster’s Ron Joyce Stadium and would accommodate more than 5,000 students. There would be no charge for the concert, and students would be able to vote on which genres of music they would like to see.

The third motion proposed a push for an on-campus grocery store to replace Travel Cuts in the Student Centre. There was some debate over who would own the store and how it would be run, and the motion was ultimately re-written to call for a cooperative store, though not one that was run by the MSU.

The vote was in support, but was not binding due to the decreased attendence.

Other motions were for a $0.35 fee in support of McMaster Musical Theatre, one for the MSU to officially recognize a Greek Life Council and one for the MSU to avoid investing in organizations that are involved in illegal military occupations.

Another motion suggested that the MSU president write a letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty and the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Glen Murray to lower tuition fees and gift some money from each student loan as a grant.

The motions were generally successful, but the energy had left the room along with quorum.

Student leaders, though, were satisfied with breaking a trend of poorly attended General Assemblies.

“It was amazing. I didn’t think we were going to hit quorum, to be honest,” said Dillon-Leitch. “When we did make it, I don’t have much to say other than it was amazing.

“We marketed like crazy for this, and for the most part I think people were passionate about this. For the first time in 17 years, other than voting for a president, we actually got people to make a decision, which I think is pretty cool,” he said following the GA.

Brian Decker and Sam Colbert

Executive Editor and Managing Editor

 

General Assembly (GA) has total control of the McMaster Students Union (MSU). It can recall presidents, change student fees and fundamentally repurpose the MSU and its services in whatever manner its attendees see fit.

That is, as long as 601 people show up.

That number represents three per cent of the more than 20,000 full-time undergraduates at McMaster, which is the required percentage to reach quorum – the level at which votes are binding on the MSU. Without sufficient attendance, the Assembly’s motions are powerless.

This year’s General Assembly will take place on March 28 and has a chance to break an unfortunate trend. Quorum hasn’t been reached since 1995, with attendance suffering since and bottoming out with a 25-person gathering in 2008.

“We’ve had some pretty substantial issues in the past couple of years that have gotten a lot of people out and we still haven’t reach quorum,” said MSU speaker, Jeff Wyngaarden, who will chair the event.

With a new marketing campaign and a few big-ticket motions already on the table, there’s a modicum of optimism around GA this year. The new campaign, which include signs advertising only “the601.ca,” has been part of a collaboration between Campus Events, Underground Media & Design, the MSU’s student life coordinator Michael Wooder and president Matthew Dillon-Leitch, among others.

“I think when you say ‘General Assembly’ – when the MSU throws its logo on different things – people sort of shut down and ignore it,” said Dillon-Leitch, who is hoping this year’s GA will be different than in the past 17 years.

“You have to make things a little different, a little more interesting, because the impact is really what’s important,” he said.

“It holds the Board and the SRA (Student Representative Assembly) accountable,” said Wyngaarden. “This is really the opportunity to

make sure they’re doing what you want them to be doing, and also to bring forward projects that aren’t on the table that you want to see happen.”

As of Wednesday night, Wyngaarden had received four motions for this year’s Assembly – the first two moved by Dillon-Leitch. The first would scrap the MacPass, putting in its place a flat $120 fee for all incoming first-year students whether they attend Welcome Week or not, subsequently increasing funding for the Week overall.

Second is a proposal for a five-dollar charge to all full-time undergraduate students for an annual, Roy Joyce Stadium-sized concert. With the additional funds, Campus Events could bring in a major act and accommodate more than 5,000 students for a free show.

The third and fourth motions are both for mandated MSU lobbying efforts, one for a grocery store in MUSC to replace Travel Cuts and the other for a reduction in tuition, along with additional grants for students and an increase in provincial funding for universities.

Motions passed at GA have the same power as those in referenda, which typically accompany the MSU’s presidential elections. Through GA, students can do things the SRA can’t do on its own – make fee changes, for example.

The MSU, which is distinct from the University and operates under a multi-million-dollar annual budget, charges four to five hundred dollars to each student yearly. With that money, it supports a governance structure, businesses and a number of services (including the Silhouette).

Wednesday’s event will run from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Burridge Gym. It is expected that more motions will come forward before the event.

Aware of the Students Union’s annual struggle to reach quorum for the Assembly, Dillon-Leitch kept his answer short when asked if he thought this year’s GA would draw enough people.

“I sure hope so,” he said.