BCIT’s Student Council held their first meeting of the school year this Monday Sept. 14th. The new Student Executives welcomed new Council members and went straight into business.
The first item discussed was the cancellation of Frosh Fest —the association’s largest annual event that welcomes students to BCIT.
The event was cancelled due to the poor weather conditions predicted for Friday Sept. 18th.
Students who bought tickets through Evenbrite have been refunded automatically; those who bought a physical ticket can get refunded at the Geared Up store on campus.
“Because of a lot of up-front costs that cannot be recovered if you don’t cancel at a certain time, we made a decision because the weather was looking so detrimental to the event to cancel it all together to avoid having a poor party that reflects poorly on the student association and anyone involved” said VP of Campus Life Bradley Lindsay.
There will be a small event at the Pub, but nothing on the magnitude Frosh Fest was going to be.
Underage students will also be at a loss since no minors are allowed in the pub.
By-Elections
The Association has opened nominations for the position of VP Finance. By-elections will be taking place next week.
VP of Student Affairs Heyden Vargas, and Aerospace school chair Navin Vidyadharan are part of the elections committee. Two student council members also volunteered to join.
Students should receive an email next week with the candidates.
ABCS Contract Termination
Student Council voted in favour of leaving BC student advocacy group ABCS, due to a lack of results and a proposed fee increase.
ABCS was formed in hope of uniting BC’s student voice but VP external Shubhi Singh said to council the Student Association was no longer happy with the way things were being run.
Another factor that prompted the association to leave was a suggested $8,000 dollar fee ACBS wanted to charge all members.
“It’s come to a point where we are questioning whether it’s really worth $8,000 dollars, and it’s not just any $8,000 dollars, like student fees go towards that,” added Singh.
External Advocacy has an allotted $15,000 dollar budget, which would mean more than half of the budget would be spent in a sole membership fee.
Student Council voted unanimously to leave the student advocacy group.
Next Council meeting will take place on Sept. 21st at 5:30pm.