Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA) last week held its Annual General Meeting, which was attended by a small but vocal group of students.

The AGM, held on Wednesday November 23, was chaired by EUSA President Matt McPherson, who was joined by the Sabbatical Officers. An explanation of the Annual Report on financial performance was followed by a presentation of the five proposed motions, which were subsequently voted on by around 80 attendees.

The association’s constitution rules that if fewer than 300 votes are cast on the deciding side, a voting quorum is not achieved and the motion cannot become binding policy, and so the AGM had insufficient voters for the motions to become EUSA policy.

Philipa Faulker, EUSA’s Vice President Services, presented the financial report, giving a breakdown of the £9 million turnover for the period 2010-11.

She noted that expenditure for the year had led to a budget deficit of almost £320,000, but explained that this was due to a large amount of capital investment in the previous year.

She predicted that the investments, including improvements made to Potterrow, would allow EUSA to operate at a surplus within 3 years. Faulker also stressed that the poor weather in the previous winter had led to energy bill increases of £300,000, the costs of which EUSA had refused to pass on to students.

Four of the five motions presented at the AGM were passed, including two that damned the university’s investment in companies associated with human rights violations: Cobham Plc, an arms manufacturer, and Shell, the global oil and gas company.

Proposer Joel Sharples stressed that ethical investment portfolios had been proven to provide equal returns on investment to unethical ones, and thus the university had no financial incentive to invest in Cobham and Shell.

Also passed at the AGM was a motion proposed by EUSA Academic Services Convenor Hugh Murdoch that stated that EUSA General Meetings were often “dry”, and that, in response, a Big Green Day of Action should be organised that encouraged students to voice their thoughts on green issues through a series of open forums and votes.

The students at the AGM voted to boycott the Birmingham Guild of Students, after unelected staff at the Guild suspended their Vice President Education for dropping a banner that read ‘Traitors Not Welcome’ at the 2011 Liberal Democrat Conference.

A final motion, however, noted that the recent restructuring of the academic year had led to the loss of one week of revision time and one of the April/May exam diet.

The motion fell after a count, as some felt that it encouraged a return to the norm at the expense of Innovative Learning Week, an addition to the academic calendar that EUSA Vice President Academic Affairs Mike Williamson noted had been approved by 87% of class representatives.

EUSA has recently come under fire for failing to address shrinking attendance at general meetings.

Although the sabbatical officers maintain that the conclusions reached in general meetings will be treated as an informal indication of the general student opinion, as meetings becoming increasingly inquorate, AGM attendees are unable to have their views bound into EUSA policy.

The new EUSA constitution attempts to redress the democratic balance for its student body, and more referenda will be introduced in the coming months, allowing a wider audience to have their say on proposed motions.