News

The Exec meeting began with two requests for OUSA affiliation, from the P3 Foundation on Campus and the Dunedin Feminist Collective. Lucy and Ruby asked if they needed to abstain due to conflicts: Lucy has dealt with P3 while Ruby is a DFC member. “Don’t worry,” Fran reassured them. “It’s not real politics.” Both requests were approved.

Rachael reported that while the Environment Committee was getting along swimmingly, they weren’t making a great amount of progress. Fran’s explanation? “They’re hippies.”

Most of the rest of the meeting was taken up by a painstaking of review of every OUSA portfolio – of which there are 36 – to confirm Officers, Deputy Officers and Associate Officers. (What does that even mean? I don’t know.) Kamil resigned as Officer of the Employment Rights Portfolio. Fran took up the role instead, pointedly noting to Critic that “students need to be aware of their employment rights.”

Lucy became Deputy Officer of the International Events Portfolio, “because I’m half-Asian,” and Ruby took the disappointing step of changing the Propaganda Portfolio’s name to Communications. “Critic seems to think I have evil plans for students,” she explained, evidently hoping to conduct said plans from the shadows of a bland and unassuming title like “Communications.”

In a rare moment of worthiness, “Raising awareness of mental health issues” was added to the Student Health Portfolio, and Rachael, who campaigned on that same issue, was appointed Deputy Officer.

Meanwhile, Ruby became Officer for the Living Wage Portfolio, only to reveal that she had misheard and didn’t know what the living wage actually was. She was then accused by Rachael of trying to unhook the latter’s bra.

Francisco “Sports” Hernandez then reported on the recent “E-Sports” tournaments, which were apparently raging successes. Critic assured Fran that no, we would not be dropping the quotation marks around “E-Sports.”

The most significant development was the establishment of a working party to review the OUSA governance structure. Zac opposed the review, noting that it had only been two years since the Exec had been slimmed down to its current, svelte form. The rest of the Exec reminded him that the purpose of the review was not to reverse the changes but to assess whether the changes were working. Zac continued to grumble about “wasting our time,” so the motion passed with one opposed.

Finally, Lucy delivered the first monthly Finance Officer’s report in “103 years”; and, neatly demonstrating that Critic is not alone in haemorrhaging money to feed young egos, it was revealed that $1,400 had been spent on silk ties for last year’s Exec.