General Meeting Recap

On behalf of Kevin Wiber

General Meeting Notes                                   September 24, 2018

I was asked at the general meeting last night if I could send out a recap of the events at the general meeting last night, here goes.

We called the meeting to order at 4:15.

There were two guests invited to speak to us.
Nicholas Coley, president of the Students association introduced two initiatives he is working on. The first initiative is to put a copy or two of text books in the library to ensure students can have access to those text books. He is asking for support of faculty to determine which text books should be included and even for support by helping acquire the books. The second, which is in the early stages is an Open Educational Resource project, Nicholas will communicate more as that develops. Please contact Nicholas through the student association for more information or to offer help.

The second guest was Bonnie Farries, accompanied by Line Gagne, who provided a very informative presentation on the new Code of conduct. The code is available on the college web site and I would encourage you to read through the policy. Any questions should be directed to Line or Bonnie.

Thanks to our guests for the information.

Cheryl presented three motions. The first confirmed the appointment of the President, Vice president Finance, Vice president negotiations/welfare and VP administrative. Since the election occurred after the last general meeting there was no official record suitable for the bank who required minutes indicating the results. The second motion confirmed our banking institution and the third identified executive members as signing authority on LCFA accounts.

The president’s report included a brief update on the Faculty Professional Development Committee, indicating we are working on reworking the handbook to clean up the language and simplify the procedures. The procedure for purchase of electronics and software has been simplified. I reported that communication with the executive leadership team has been open and productive. Jennifer Davies could not attend but provided the following board report;

There is not much to report from the Board. I have attended two meetings so far.

A couple of background details that I thought might be worth mentioning for those who don’t know:
         One thing the LDFA membership should be aware of it that while I am the faculty representative on the Board of Governors, it is not my mandate to represent the LCFA on the Board. That role is Kevin’s. Just to be clear, any issues membership has that they wish to bring forward need to go through Kevin.
         Another thing to be aware of is that the mandate of the Board of Governors is to focus on policy and strategic planning, and explicitly not an operations. This means that the Board will generally not attend to complaints or issues brought before it that are operational in nature.
Other than that , there isn’t much to say at the moment. We are still awaiting Provincial appointments for three vacant seats. We have a retreat scheduled for the end of October. I should have more to say after those things are accomplished.

Cheers,
Jennifer

We discussed the Ron MacDonald emergency fund which is getting low. Thanks to Dic Charge and a dedicated group of volunteers who agreed to hold a Taco-in-a-bag in support of the fund. Watch for details to follow.

Ryan discussed new training requirements for members of the safety committee. He then discussed a search for a new law firm to represent the association.

Cheryl presented a yearend report from last year and a very positive first step toward our current budget. The review of our books has been completed and it was also very positive.

Kerry provided a report on negotiations. Negotiations took place for two days in June, while the first day was not encouraging the second day was much more cordial. Negotiations are set to resume the next two days (September 26thand 27th).

On the welfare front Kerry reported it has been quiet but there have been issues. Faculty will notice casual contracts are now based on 15 weeks rather than the accepted practice. Discussions are ongoing.

Dic reported the progress of the by-law committee who continue to work through revising the bylaws. It was reported that we will call a special meeting to approve changes to the by-laws in order to keep the meetings to a reasonable time.

There are three vacancies that will require a by-election. Constituency 6 (child and youth care, therapeutic recreation, massage therapy etc,) requires a representative on the executive council. Academic council requires an alternate and the student appeal committee has an opening for an alternate.

The meeting adjourned about 6:15

Please do not consider these as official minutes, simply an effort to provide a concise recap of the events for your information. Hope to see you at the next meeting January 29th