The most recent VUWSA executive meeting took place on Friday, Feb 26 at 3.00pm. Yep, 3.00pm on a motherfucking Friday.
But it wasn’t all bad. Not only were the exec in surprisingly high spirits after five days of O-Week madness, but there were TWO special guests. VUWSA communications and marketing manager Christina Gillmore, and NZUSA President Linsey Higgins.
X-Tina was up first with her plan to get the exec blogging. Apparently blogs are still cool and I have been convinced by her enthusiasm. The initiative has been framed as an effective way for the exec to “engage” with students by keeping them up-to-date with their campaigns and portfolio-relevant things. Jacinta raised some concerns around the exec’s workload, but these were quickly put to rest when it was decided that “if you’re too busy it’s fine,” which I pretty much translated to mean “if you ever see an exec blog post it will be a bloody miracle because it seems the whole damn lot of ‘em are overworked.”
Following X-Tina’s departure it was Linsey’s turn to talk, and boy oh boy did she ever. Linsey covered things from $15 billion debt day, to Weir House, to local body elections and everything in between. Literally. Everything.
One of Linsey’s more interesting talking points she told the gang was about the research NZUSA were doing around hidden costs at halls of residence. If you never lived in a hall or aren’t following me, I’ll lay down a scenario for you: you moved out of your tiny KJ room more than a month ago. Your room was spotless and your RA gave it a big ol’ tick. Surely your bond must be coming soon? Wait what? You bond has had $50.00 taken out for “crockery?” WTF. $50.00 each for a bunch of cutlery that would’ve cost about three cents a piece? Cue NZUSA, swooping in to find out where all of that money is going and in turn, stop it from happening in the future. No, not all halls are so sneaky, but I could rattle off at least three I know who are, so kudos, NZUSA.
The only other thing I took from Linsey’s presentation was the repeated use if the phrase “sick collabs.” Lots of “sick collabs” happening in 2016. Keep your eyes peeled.
If you’re still reading this and wondering when there will be some juicy O-Week goss, there was none. The one part of the meeting I was looking forward to—Nathaniel’s O-Week update—was thieved from me when a motion was passed to skip it because there wasn’t enough time. Ah well. Better luck next time I guess.