The OUSA Exec have to write reports about what they have done in each quarter of the year in order to continue being paid. This is a review of the best paragraph of each third quarterly report from the 2020 Exec.
President Jack Manning
“This quarter has gone by about as fast as the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow (free chocolate for the first Executive member to show me they understand thisreference/look it up on Google - this is also to check you’ve read the report),” Jack wrote. This is a reference to Monty Python, because Jack Manning is deeply cool and down with the kids.
Finance and Strategy Representative Josh Meikle
He has built a “live spreadsheet”. Not sure what that involves or how he built it, but it sounds terrifying, like the financial equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster. One day, the living spreadsheet will govern us all. “For the Executive budget specifically I have built a live budget spreadsheet where costs incurred in the Executive budget are updated on a rolling basis,” he wrote. “The budget lines” (what are those) “for this are taken from the Executive budget sent by accounts at the beginning of the year. This and a written summary of the Executive budget is sent out at the end of each month.”
University of Otago Pacific Island Students’ Association President Joshuaa Alefosio-Pei
Joshuaa has genuinely been involved in interesting activism work. “As a Pasifika male, I understand how important it is to continue to grow my knowledge of other people’s lived experiences of being an ethnic minority in Aotearoa,” he wrote. “This quarter, I attended a meeting with the group who organised the Black Lives Matter rally in Dunedin and have continued to educate myself on how to deconstruct structures that uphold racism using educational podcasts, videos and other resources.” Fuck yeah.
Clubs and Socs Representative Dushanka Govender
Dushanka described an OUSA Grants Panel meeting as “exciting”, which is sad for her but a sign that she’s in the right place. “This was one of the first meetings I had in my new role, and it was exciting to have a glance at the range of activities and events that many of our affiliated clubs and societies put on for their members, as well as the general public.”
Welfare and Equity Representative Michaela Waite-Harvey
Michaela was just extremely honest about her goals and it was refreshing. “Not gonna lie this absolutely flopped and I’m still trying to get over that disappointment,” she wrote about OUSA’s Mental Wellness Week. Relatable. The week didn’t work out because the election date was moved so the Link was unavailable. But she does have some hope. “We’re now
working to set up a pop up sensory/chill out area for students in the Main Common Room and hope that will provide students an opportunity to learn more about ways to manage and mitigate stress through sensory modulation.” What does that mean? Idk but it sounds fun.
Tumuaki of Te Roopū Māori Karamea Pewhairangi
“On the 15th of July we ran our SGM and Bi-election where we were able to vote in a Welfare and Recreation officer,” wrote Karamea. The highlight is that she misspelt by-election as “bi-election”, which is where you vote for your fave bisexual. Her report came a week late, reportedly due to her emails not working on the due date of 16 September. Conveniently, her candidate bio for 2021 Tumuaki was submitted just fine that same day.
Academic Representative Emily Coyle
“I advocated for the Bills and sought the best outcome for their welfare after significant concern from students,” wrote Emily. This is genuinely some of OUSA’s most important work to date.
International Representative Arina Aizal
Arina had a rough time organising the International Committee’s gala. “Our planning took many long hours as the first attempt was cancelled due to government’s Level 2 response, the second attempt was cancelled by the venue, and lastly, we made the Gala work on our third attempt,” she wrote. At least it worked out in the end.
Administrative Vice-President Georgia Mischefski-Gray
“Sustainability as my favourite thing to work, has definitely been a focus this semester, I went to the launch for the vending machine, the electric truck,” wrote Georgia. It’s a terrible sentence but I want to know what the electric truck is or why Georgia went to the launch for it.
Postgrad Representative Hanna van der Giessen
Hanna has actually been doing something interesting. “This quarter I have been involved in some heavy discussions with a particular student about racial discrimination within the University, and its supervisors in particular,” she wrote. “We have discussed several methods in which we believe may help take action on this problem, which will be actioned in quarter 4. I have also heavily encouraged a diversity workshop for all staff through the values for actions working group, which I believe fell on open ears.”
Political Representative Francesca Dykes
“I have definitely not worked less than 10 hours per week,” Francesca wrote. I’m pretty sure this is a passive aggressive dig at how the Politics Rep only gets paid for 10 hours. Nice.
Residential Representative Jack Saunders
Jack has achieved one of his goals, but only “tentatively”. “After finally meeting with Gary (head of catering) I can tentatively confirm that kitchen hands/staff (who are students too a lot of the time) will be able to take home meals which may have otherwise gone to waste,” he wrote. “Gary and I discussed the policy and figured that this was one of the better ways of reducing larger quantities of waste (as plate wastage per student per day sits at the weight of less than a banana skin).”