01 November 2002

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This website is meant to provide value to UW student by delivering information. It will also supplement the column that I write for Imprint by providing extra information on some of the topics about which I will write in addition to the text of each column.

Please provide feedback on what I write as well as give me suggestions of topics to cover. You can send e-mail to me to ryan[at]uwryan[dot]com.

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The least of real liberty

Where there is no law

Five years ago in planning for engineering orientation, I told other leaders that we should put careful thought into our own principles and our own rules. I reasoned that pushing the limits of the rules imposed on us by the university would invite further restrictions in the future. Furthermore, if we did not follow our own principles, then we would not achieve what we intended to achieve.

Years later, an orientation organizer asked me if a particular year was the year after they introduced orientation restrictions. I replied that every year is the year they introduce all the restrictions. Frequently, people put their own whims and their own fun ahead of the well being of the community and the organization. The rules we set for ourselves should be at least as dear to us as those set by others.

Creating rules properly saves us from violating our own principles. Henry M. Robert, the author of Robert's Rules of order, a book outlining the most common set of rules by which meetings are run. In 1915 he wrote, "Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty." He said that having rules allows a meeting to best fulfill its purpose.

Council quorum

Two weeks ago, the Feds Students' Council meeting ended prematurely when they lost quorum; that is, there were too few councillors to conduct the meeting.

There was some question as to the meeting might be able to continue, despite the fact that under the Feds' own rules there were not enough people to properly make decisions. Certainly it might be natural to want to continue a meeting in that situation because otherwise your work might be hindered. Hey, it might not make a difference. But if that is true, then why is a rule like this made in the first place?

Quorum should be defined as the minimum number a group requires to properly make decisions. If an assembly is not normally meeting quorum, one should look at attendance before looking at the requirements of quorum.

Perhaps it is set unreasonably high. If so, then change it and abide by the new rule. Sometimes rules are unreasonable and should not or can not be accommodated. They should not, however, be disregarded on the great frivolity of mere whim.

General meeting

There were problems at the Feds annual general meeting on October 23, 2002. The annual general meeting is where members, UW's students, can exercise their authority over the Feds organization. The president presents financial statements and the members can change bylaws and elect the directors of the organization.

A problem arose at that meeting because the choosing of an auditor, who would audit the Feds' financial statements, was not on the agenda.

Feds VP education, Ryan O'Connor, voiced opposition to the members considering it because it was not part of the notice of the meeting. He said that it was against the Corporations Act to add business for which there had been no notice. He did not cite the restriction section that said this and after the meeting said that his comment was based on his own interpretation.

At the meeting, the members did not appoint a new auditor and were told that the board of directors would appoint the auditor.

The Corporations Act states that a notice consists of the time and the place of the meeting, which suggests that considering appointing an auditor at the general meeting would not be against the law as O'Connor stated.

The act also says that if an auditor is not appointed at the meeting, then the auditor from the previous year will continue in office.

So the Feds prevented the members from doing what, under law, they could do and tried to have the board of directors decide what didn't need to be decided. Furthermore, they attempted to take a decision out of the hands of members.

The auditor checks the validity of financial statements that are created under the administration of the board and the executive; the decision of whom to choose should remain with the members, who are the ultimate authority in the organization.

The Feds bylaws however require the publishing, along with notice, of motions and business to be considered, which might be the requirement O'Connor asserted about the Corporations Act.

Thus is the importance of knowing the rules and looking them up if you do not know them.