The AMS held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) over Zoom yesterday.
The 2023 AGM meeting had three motions on the agenda including a motion to approve the AMS’s financial statements and auditors and a motion to approve the AMS’s president and managing director’s reports.
Quorum is about 600 students, and last year's AGM had over 1,100 attendees. That year, the AMS passed six motions, including formalized support for the CUPE 2278 campaign to unionize all student workers and called for a tuition freeze and sustained food security funding.
This year's AGM had little advertisement and only included motions required by AMS code, none of which need quorum to be passed.
Unlike the last two years, the AMS also did not offer any prizes to students attending the AGM this year.
All three motions pass
After the motion to approve the AGM's agenda passed, Decker and AMS Managing Director Justin Lieu provided updates on the work the AMS has done this year.
Lieu discussed the performance of AMS’s food and beverage and its conferences & catering businesses while Decker discussed stabilizing the AMS/GSS Health & Dental plan, the Memorandum of Understanding with the Interfraternity Council, major wins in the provincial budget and the $630,000 worth of bursaries it has provided to 230 students in financial need.
“This year is really a year for building trust and collaboration with student groups across and having cross collaborative events," said Decker.
The motion to approve the president and managing director's reports passed.
Next, Lieu talked about the AMS’s financial statements for the 2022/23 fiscal year. Lieu said the deficit is due to the AMS/GSS Health & Dental plan costing more than the plan fee.
“That was an intentional decision made ... to help students [maintain] their [insurance] coverage,” said Lieu.
The motion to approve the AMS’s financial statements and auditors passed with 52 per cent of the vote.
Executives updates and town hall
AMS executives presented updates which discussed portfolio achievements and goals.
During the meeting's town hall, an attendee asked the AMS opt-out information campaign. Decker said this years campaign was meant to increase transparency and "was also based on a referendum from a few years back that called for all the opt out fees to be available to opt out online."
An attendee also asked Decker about the number of AGM attendees.
Decker said the number of people attending the AGM was “definitely fewer than past years,” and that this year was "an experiment" to see how many people would attend a Zoom meeting without prizes.
It appears quorum was not met as the meeting did not start at its scheduled time, rather it began 30 minutes late which is done if quorum is not met.
Decker did not confirm the number of attendees or if quorum was met by press time.
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