An Emergency General Meeting (EGM) of the Students’ Union took place at 1:30pm today, in the wake of the university’s takeover of the union bar and social space.
The decision was made without consulting students. Furthermore, the minutes of the Trustee board meeting where decisions were made were not made available to ‘ordinary Union members.’
Our article on this can be found here.
Two motions have been submitted for discussion. One demanding that the sabbatical officers have regular sessions with students to maintain transparency. The other demands that the vote of no confidence procedure is made easier to access.
The meeting included an Open Meeting with the Board of Trustees taking student questions. Here is what happened.
Can students and societies still use the space?
Zoe Crosher (VP Communities) states it was agreed in writing with Robbins that student groups will take priority using the space in the Robbins centres, and be able to book online the same way as the university resource booker.
A Robbins partnership agreement with the full details will be made public when it is confirmed.
Can under-18s access the space?
Millicent Wenlock (Student Trustee) has acknowledged that under-18 access was not raised during the conversation, and that student access took priority.
However, the Union is working with the Stirling Licensing Officer to find the best licence, and in conversation with the Queen Margaret University (QMU) on how they outsource their licence.
How does the university and Union plan to manage staff in the wake of issues with contracts, allegations of poor treatment and bad management?
Crosher stated that the Robbins centre was operating on a £180,000 loss, and one of the main concerns was saving jobs and conserving employment.
Zoe spoke to the university personally and was told that any employment issues can be taken directly to them, or the union.
Students were unsatisfied with this response. One student asked how going to management about a problem within the institutions that they run would solve anything.
After a moment of silence, Gethings answered that: “it is not the role of an elected sabbs (sabbatical) officer to advise on anything. All we are obliged to do is signpost them to the appropriate professional services. We never said that we would be able to solve the issues, only show them to the correct place to go.”
Grant Cairns (Trustee), also added: “We can arrange for them to have the training to solve that problem, which would take an extended period of time, or signpost people to professional services.
“At no point has membership of the Stirling students union precluded you from being involved in other professional unions.”
Crosher also added that they are “very for students joining unions and the yes, the union haven’t promoted joining them enough. We should really be looking into that.”
Why weren’t students consulted?
Gethings said that “Student consultations would have been great and that might have done something, five years ago. But with RAAC, that wasn’t a viable option, and that is completely out with any of our control. There was nothing any of us could do.”
However, a new strategic plan for using this space is being drawn up in September. Students can be involved in that.
Leen Ali (Union President) has confirmed that an open forum will be made to discuss all of these matters, and include sabbs officers, people from commercial services, and the Student Voices Manager.
“It will be here permanently, and students will be able to influence it,” Gethings added.
However, students attending expressed that responses to the lack of student consultation “seemed to boil down to ‘we talked about it but we don’t think you’d manage to do it’,” and that it was “patronising for the group that has allowed this to happen to tell us we wouldn’t be able to make a difference.”
Gethings quickly said: “that was never intended to be said. Nobody, not even a magic wand, could have fixed that. None of us are happy about anything that has been happening. We can’t waste our time on that. We have to deal with the situation we’re in now.”
Why couldn’t students access the minutes of the Trustee Board meeting when they decided all this?
Gail Burden (Trustee) said: “much like the power of being able to employ staff there are significant operational matters and issues that are not subject to democratic activity.
“The decision to agree to the temporary transfer was made by the board of trustees and the charity law that we must abide by. The minutes discuss some confidential and sensitive topics, and would need to be redacted.”
“It’s not the practice of the union to publish trustee board meeting minutes. Under charity law, we don’t have to.”
Sticking to motions (like the Plant-Based Universities and Starbucks motions) and student power over the space
Katie Gethings has confirmed that “the current menu will be maintained but they have no intention of being 100% vegan.
“The Robbins partnership forum will be set up, and they are open to letting students engage about the space, including moving away from Starbucks, including a different coffee shop, and allowing students to make collective decisions about the alternatives.”
How will the Union keep advocating for students when controlled by the university?
Mark Cullen (Trustee) argues that the takeover is a good thing: “The union has been a tenant in a university owned building. Without this, the union would have had to pay for the RAAC problems on its own, and would have had to close.
“The Union can’t exist without the university, it only exists to provide opportunities for students within that institution.”
He continued: “What we can do to fix the Robbins comes up at every single meeting. Regardless of all the issues, we would end up talking about the decline of a bar and a nightclub. It became a distraction. We did up the space, we updated everything, and the Starbucks back in my day was a way of giving the Union a bit of life.
“The campus central development was coming over the hill, and it was the University’s decision to keep the union out of that, there was nothing we could do about that.
“With snowstorms, with RAAC, with that development, the Student Union Gods have been working against us. We’re all tired of working on it. There comes a point where we have to say ‘no, no more’.”
Gail Burden adds ‘We would not have been able to predict COVID, or RAAC, that have massively impacted us and were beyond our control. It’s been too overwhelming for the charity to survive that.”
Featured Image Credit: Brig Newspaper
