UMSU Notes

Chelse McKee, staff

The University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) holds open council meetings every second Thursday at 6 p.m. in 176 Helen Glass. The most recent meeting was held on March 6, 2008.

With only one week since the last UMSU council meeting, members were left with very little new business to discuss.

Hal Brownlee, chair of UMSU council, was absent from the meeting, leaving Garry Sran, president of UMSU, to take over the chair’s duties for the evening.

Sran explained to a fellow council member before the meeting began that Brownlee had not discussed anything with him regarding his absence prior to the meeting.

During the executive report, Sran explained that a new manager for Degree’s, the on-campus restaurant, had been hired to replace Drew Pelton, who had been the manager for the last six years. Thomas Blumer, the new hire, has already begun working evenings and will begin full time with duties on March 17.

Sran described Blumer as a “nice, cool guy,” who was “happy to be joining [the union].”

Blumer joins the union after spending nine years as a restaurant manager with Versatech Industries.

For the finance committee, Mike Einarson, vice-president (internal), announced that the group would be preparing the budget for the council’s review and discussing the discretionary expenses in the coming week.

Einarson continued speaking for the health and dental plan committee, saying that the winter term opt-outs were “successful.” The committee also approved three opt-in appeals, two family coverage appeals, and three opt-out appeals.

For the campaign and government relations committee, Amanda Johnson, vice-president (external), explained that the issue regarding the times for the bus route between the Fort Garry and the Bannatyne campus was a waiting game.

“[We’re] still waiting to hear back from parking officials . . . we’ll wait to hear that they have to say.”

At the Feb. 26 council meeting, members passed a motion stating that UMSU found Canadian Blood Services (CBS) donor application to be “homophobic and discriminatory.” During that meeting, Sran had mentioned that CBS was meeting with unions across Canada, including the University of Winnipeg Students’ Association (UWSA) on March 20.

At the March 6 meeting, Sran announced that UMSU now had an appointment with CBS, which would be held alongside UWSA’s meeting at the University of Winnipeg. Red River College had also been invited to attend the meeting but had not yet confirmed. In addition to the unions, representatives from the campus’ lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups would also be attending as well as a representative from the University of Manitoba’s Rainbow Pride Mosaic group.

At the meeting with CBS, UMSU planned to bring forth concerns expressed about the questionnaire and any other concerns members may have.

Near the conclusion of the meeting, Sran added that the year-in-review annual general meeting would be held on March 31 in the University Centre MPR room from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.