Archive:Exec report - President 2007 - 2008
President: Kaja Sadowski
To begin with, I'd like to refer you to the excellent calendar that Sandra posted in her 06-07 report, as I think it does an excellent job of breaking down the important things to do over the course of the year. Outside of dealing with those major events, the President's job is really to keep the rest of the Executive on task and on track with their own various responsibilities. This is most easily accomplished through Exec meetings, where I did my best to make sure that all important issues for a given week were addressed and, when necessary, to force interesting discussions to focus in on tangible solutions (that's probably the hardest part)--it's easy to sit and discuss the problems with a given idea, the trick is deciding how to address them in a timely and useful fashion.
The Exec this year was excellent at keeping up with the workload, and I didn't need to deal with any problems of work being neglected or jobs being left undone, for which I thank all of you guys.
The other job of the president is to serve as the face of the VOC whenever one is needed, especially when we get in trouble. I dealt with a few concerned/unhappy members over the course of the year without any major blowups resulting from our interactions. This was the least pleasant aspect of being president, but one that played a minimal role in the events of the year. Most of the time, when I was being "the face of the VOC", it was to speak with people who were excited about the work we were doing and wanted to let the Exec know how much they enjoyed their experience with the club. That was the best part of this job.
Projects
Phelix Creek: The biggest project I was involved in this year was the negotiation over the zoning of the Phelix Creek drainage with the Provincial Government and their appointed mediator, Gordon Erlandson. I attended several meetings with representatives of the non-motorized and motorized communities and the government. A detailed summary of the issue at hand and the current state of affairs can be found here. At present, the zoning has not yet been resolved.
Constitution: As in the previous year, several amendments were made to the VOC Constitution. This time, we finally modified the wording of our membership section on order to allow non-UBC connected people to join the club officially. To that end, we decided to create a new membership category, called "Other Members" and define it in the following fashion:
1.5. Other Members
1.5.1. Eligibility
1.5.1.1. Must not be eligible for any other class of membership. 1.5.1.2. The membership of an individual in this class must be of benefit to the club, as determined by the Membership Chairperson.
1.5.2. Privileges
1.5.2.1. All social and competitive privileges of the club. 1.5.2.2. The use of club equipment (see Bylaw 12). 1.5.2.3. Other Members may not vote nor may they hold Executive positions.
1.5.3. Qualifications
1.5.3.1. Qualifications shall be the same as for Student Members.
1.5.4. Obligations: Members are obliged to know and obey all club rules as outlined in the Bylaws.
We also modified the definition of the Alumni category in order to allow for Other Members to acquire an Alumni membership after a few years (we decided on 4: the standard amount of time it takes to complete an undergraduate degree at UBC) by including the following text:
1.3.1.1. Must have been members of the VOC previously either as Student Members or as Associate Members or must have been an Other Member for at least four years.
The amendments were voted in at the 2008 AGM and have been incorporated into the master copy of the constitution held by the AMS. The most recent version of the document can be viewed here.
