McGill Tribune J .M .C . Ir o n s O u t D if f ic u lt ie s “Better com m unication required” is general co n cen su s by Sherif Nematalla
On Wednesday, September 19, two Joint Management Committee meetings took place to hear the finan cial grievances of various clubs on campus. The J.M.C. has been responsible for preparing the budgets of Students’ Council, Students’ Society, the student clubs and for the operation of the University Centre on campus. The various clubs were expected to submit an application to the J.M.C. in April of this year, in order to receive their 1983-84 budget allocation. As outlined in the constitution, the Joint Manage
P rogram by Brian Todd
The Comptroller of the Students’ Society froze the budget of the Pro gram Board last week, effectively stop ping them from making any purchases. This came as a result of a Program Board breach of procedures, when they failed to bring in the receipts from two events to the Comptroller’s Office for accounting purposes within the 48 hour limit. In fact, for one event, they were two weeks late. As well, Program Board has overspent their budget by $1500 at this point of the year. Is the Program Board managing its finances properly? The Joint Manage ment Committee; the watch-dog for the Students’ Society, will be looking into this question at their next meeting on November 2. The Program Board has been asked to appear before the committee to explain what they intend to do to make up lost income or cut ex penses in the future. There are some suggestions from within the Program Board, that its in ternal structure is to blame for the cur rent management problems. Chairmen of the various functional groups within Program Board are appointed by the Nominating Committee of the Students’ Society at the end of the school year. This often leads to students being appointed from outside of the structure of the Program Board. They are newcomers. The previous year’s files are not kept in entirety to enable a rookie to follow past ex amples. Thus people do not know the ropes and must learn the system anew every year. Inside sources in the Pro gram Board have made the suggestion that appointments be made earlier in the school-year to give the appointees at least some experience.
ment Committee may only provide budgets to the first fifteen clubs sub mitting their applications. Bruce Hicks, President of the Students’ Society of McGill, said, “ This year the J.M.C. wanted to make a deadline and respect it. This action was voted in to enforce the rules, starting from the beginning of the school year, for the protection of the members. This year, the deadline was April 30th. Many club representatives submitted their applica tions past the deadline, thinking that as in the past, the deadline date would be flexible. This left some clubs unfinanc ed, as well as unhappy, for the present
B oard ? This year’s Program Board has been ripe with resignations. Perhaps the in ternal structure needs to be overhaul ed. If Program Board continues to overspend, it will have to cancel events. Already dances in February have been canceled in order to insure that Pro gram Board comes in on budget for the year. Programming budgets are in herently difficult to produce because of the size of the unknowns such as crowd size and the price of bands. However, certain items are more predictable. Students’ Society Comptroller, Jon Shifman, has suggested that the budget of the Program Board should be realigned for the rest of the year to more accurately represent the costs and revenues. The Program Board has suffered from small crowds at its recent events. One solution for a more balanced budget would be to get larger crowds. This, however, requires more money for advertising. It’s a seemingly endless cycle to get Program Board back into financial shape.
year. The 5:30 meeting was very short and was held for the clubs which had sub mitted their applications on time. It was basically to inform representatives as to why they had not yet received their budgets. Among the clubs present were, Amateur Radio, Amnesty Inter national and the International Students’ Association. Yat K. Lo, a club representative of the I.S.A. asked, “ How can the club function without money to buy some stationary and sup plies?” Bruce Hicks replied that “ the budget is being witheld until the coun cil approves it.” Jokingly, Bruce add ed, “ the J.M.C. can offer to donate some sheets of paper and pencils until the budget is passed next week.” The second meeting involved clubs that had submitted their applications after the deadline. This meeting was at tended by representatives from the PreLaw Undergraduate Society and the _ Camera Club. Due to the delayed submission of the application, the Camera Club was not
funded this year, although it has been able to deal with this difficulty by rais ing the membership fee for its 100 members. The main complaint that President Andy Mitchell had was that he was “ mis-informed” , or perhaps “ uninformed” , that the deadline was going to be enforced this year. He sug gested, that in the future, there should be a better line of communication bet ween the J.M.C. and the various clubs on campus, whether it be by setting up posters or by distributing papers. Other ideas thrown around were that the J.M.C. publicize policy concerning clubs in T he T ribu n e, or perhaps hold a monthly meeting. P.L.U.S. President, Mona Klinger, complained that her delay for the sub mission of the application was also due to “ non-information.” She indicated that “ last year’s President graduated without informing me as to my job and I assumed that he had taken care of the necessary steps.” Mona proudly procontinued on page 2
W ill it g o o n ? by Brian Todd
Last Wednesday, the University was hit by a legal walk-out of their service employees, effectively closing down the residences and their cafeterias and abandoning the halls of academia to a build-up of garbage. This walk-out was part of a rotating strike that was aimed at universities across the province. The union, the Union des Employes de Service, Local 298 (FTQ), has had no provincial labour contract since November 30, 1982. The provincial government’s Bill 70 cut their salaries by 20% in the first
Bruce Hicks, President o f Students’ Society prays for divine guidance to solve Pro gram Board financial dilemna.
three months of 1983. If the union does not receive a new contract their wages will be frozen in 1983 and their pur chasing power will drop by 1.5% in the next two years. According to union sources con tacted last Friday, “ There has been no response from universities yet.” Thus the rotating strikes could continue into this week. A union committee was meeting at that time to decide future action. According to union sources, “ there is some chance McGill could be hit by a strike.” The University has set up a Senate committee to oversee the strike negotiations and try to come to some equitable solution. The Vice-President (University Af fairs) of the Students’ Society, Steven Matthews, has given the Daily the Senate rules on student and academic rights during a legal strike. The rights allow for both student and academic right of conscience without fear of repercussion. If the strike continues this week, McGill will have to suffer without residence staff, maintenance and prin ting staff as well as janitors, porters and Faculty Club workers. Whether either side will budge from their posi tion has yet to be seen.