Compared to recent meetings, the regular council meeting on October 26th for BUSU was relatively tame (and short). The majority of the meeting revolved around updates given to council by directors. Those include the addition of Jenna Wade as the new Sexuality and Gender Identity Based Director, the establishment of Sheree Blacksmith’s (Indigenous People’s Director) office hours which will be held in the IPC on Thursdays from noon until 1:30PM, and the farewell of Armando Galindo (Residence Director) who has been offered the position of Residence Assistant in Darrach Hall and will therefore be unable to continue working with BUSU.

In preparations for the upcoming elections, a Returning Officer Selections Committee was struck composing of Nick Brown (BUSU President), Natalie Ore (BUSU General Manager, ex-officio member), Rebecca Storey (Science Director), Natashalee Thompson (Graduate Studies Director), and Jenna Wade (Sexuality and Gender Identity Based Director). This committee’s purpose will be to hire a Returning Officer who will function as the contact person for BUSU during the elections.

As well at this time council debriefed from the recent Day of Action which was held on October 25th. Brown reported that over 200 students were in attendance at our own event.

“We’ve done everything that we can to tell the government to scrap Bill 31 and to keep tuition low in Manitoba” Brown commented to council, commending them for their efforts. He went on to say that “We don’t know if we’ve been successful yet, but we know we’ve been heard”.

While students are away from campus during the fall break, Vice-President Internal Emily Simon has also requested time off, and will be out of the office from November 6th-9th.

The next BUSU meeting is currently scheduled for November 23rd. There was originally a meeting scheduled during the fall break as well, but as most of the council will be unavailable this meeting has been cancelled. Should urgent business arise in the interim a special meeting may be called between now and the next regular meeting.

As always, the meeting will be held in the CLC Boardroom on the 2nd floor of the Knowles Douglas Building, and is slated to begin at 6:00PM.