Jake Wray News Editor ‘) DSU holds a he Aboriginal Gathering Place at the New Westminster campus was packed with students January 25 for the DSU’s annual general meeting. The roomful of students voted on six bylaw amendments and saw a presentation of a report of the DSU’s activities for the 2016/2017 fiscal year— including a financial report—but did not take advantage of a question and answer period where they could have asked questions of the DSU board of directors. They did, however, take advantage of raffle prizes and free pizza during the denouement of the meeting. Steven Beasley, executive director of the DSU, detailed the DSU’s ongoing struggles with the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), a national student organization. “The national student organization has taken, let’s say, a bit of a nosedive since 2014,” he told the audience. “There’s been election-rigging at a number of the recent general meetings. They had a secret bank account to conduct off-books expenses, and then they had a fake process to fakely review that secret bank account.” Beasley said the DSU took steps to expose the corruption and they were stonewalled. He said the DSU, along with at least 10 other student unions in British Columbia, are now in the process of withdrawing from the CFS. Erik Allas, a partner at Tompkins Wozny LLP, the accounting firm that independently audited DSU nual general meeting > Students vote on resolutions, devour free pizza financial reports for the 2016/2017 fiscal year, gave a small presentation about the financial reports at the annual general meeting. He said the DSU has net assets of $5.5 million and is ina solid financial position. “A lot of [the $5.5 million] is tied up in your capital assets—the student union building,” he told the audience. “But overall it’s a very strong financial position. If you take the cash at the very top line [of the financial statement] and the term deposits and combine them, that’s $4.2 million of your total net assets of $5.5 million.” Allas said DSU revenues were up slightly from the previous year, but expenditures were roughly the same as the previous year. The six bylaw amendments—all of which carried unanimously—updated DSU criticizes Douglas College student budget consultation > ‘There’s a lot of room for improvement’ Jake Wray News Editor Ihe DSU has raised concerns about Douglas College’s annual forum where they solicit feedback from students about the college’s upcoming budget. The student consultation involves a presentation of a draft budget for the upcoming fiscal year, followed by a question and comment period where students can give feedback about the budget directly to college administrators. This year’s consultation is set for February 2 at 12:30 p.m. in room $4920 at the New Westminster campus and in room B3ou at the Coquitlam campus. A DSU representative told the Other Press that the students’ union wants the college to do more to engage students in the consultation, while a college representative said the college takes student engagement seriously and they are committed to working with the DSU to improve the consultation process. Tanysha Klassen, director of external relations for the DSU, said the college relied on the DSU to inform students about the consultation, but the DSU had only brought members of the DSU board and DSU staff. “Last year, for example, they kind of expected us to do the advertising,” she said in an interview with the Other Press. “We showed up with four representatives and a staff person, and [the college] were like ‘oh, there’s not more students coming?” No other students aside from the DSU representatives attended the consultation last year, according to Klassen. She said the confusion about who should advertise the consultation may have been a miscommunication resulting from the fact that the DSU hadn’t sent representatives to the consultation in previous years. “Maybe just a lack of communication for that first year we attended, so that’s fair, but also it was weird for us,” she said. “I don’t want to come across like we're attacking the college for doing this budget consultation, it’s just at this point there’s a lot of room for improvement.” Klassen said the DSU is taking an active role in advertising the consultation process this year, but they had some difficulty planning the awareness campaign because the college didn't provide them with a time and location for the meeting until January 19, just two weeks before the planned February 2 consultation. Photo by Tracy Ho job descriptions for several DSU board positions, amended quorum requirements for general meetings and referendums, and made several other administrative changes. Various members of the DSU board of directors presented sections of the DSU annual report, which detailed the students’ union’s activities for the past year. This included an update on numerous DSU advocacy campaigns, like the push for open education resources, an update on the DSU’s efforts to engage with key politicians at various levels of government, and the DSU’s relations with Douglas College. There were also updates about campus life, volunteering, clubs, internal affairs, services, and facilities. The full annual report is available on the DSU’s website. the Other Press. “There’s a social media campaign, all students will receive an email about this, and there are going to be slides on the big digital screens [around the campuses]. So there is a campaign that we're doing this year in response to those concerns [from the DSU] last year.” Taylor said scheduling events at the C C We like working with the DSU to do these kinds of things,” Dave Taylor, associate VP of public affairs, Douglas College Dave Taylor, associate vice president of public affairs at Douglas College, said the college has relied on the DSU to advertise the consultation in the past, but this year the college will engage in its own awareness campaign. “In the past, I would say that’s fair. We had relied on the DSU to get the word out,” Taylor said in a phone interview with college can be challenging but the college always gives as much notice as possible. “The point of this is to have students at the event and give them notice so that they can actually come if they’re interested,” he said. “We like working with the DSU to do these kinds of things because it’s an important opportunity for students.”