Originally published on February 24th, 2009

This year’s Student’s Association General Meeting again failed to reach quorum, with several reforms to the institution failing to be passed.

Students present at the meeting nevertheless voted in favour of motions including online referendums to replace the general meetings, having free squash courts in the Centre for Sport and Excellence, and having birth dates on matriculation cards.

Roughly 200 students turned up at the start of the meeting, falling short of the 300 required to officially pass motions. A steady stream of people leaving the lecture theatre meant that even fewer were present for the end of the meeting, with the hall left mostly empty.

Adam Ramsay’s proposal to replace the voting power of the General Meetings with a system of online referenda was passed without any opposition. The Annual General Meeting will still be held as usual next academic year, but Ramsay said the vote would 'send a message to next year’s sabbaticals' to reform the system next term.

Ramsay then took the controversial decision to skip votes on two more constitutional amendments, including one relating to the ‘save the King’s Buildings bar’ campaign, due to them being ‘too boring to debate’. With 10 motions to get through Ramsay wanted to move on to more controversial issues yet several students were left confused about the future of the bar.

A motion to push for lower gym booking prices passed narrowly with 77 to 63 votes in favour of the motion. Membership fees for the Centre for Sport and Excellence have gone up 20% recently, but Sports Union President Joe Gray argued the extra money was worth it for improved facilities.

As is customary in spring General Meetings, several candidates for the EUSA Presidency proposed motions. Oliver Mundel proposed a ‘fairer fees for medical students’ motion, Liz Rawlings called for improved academic feedback, and Thomas Graham successfully proposed to have EUSA acquire a minibus for societies.

The King's Building's bar motion was brought forward due to Edinburgh's licensing board requesting for EUSA's contitution to be changed in order for the bar to keep its license. The bar will not close immediately, but another motion will have to be brought to the next General Meeting on the same issue.

On the lack of turnout, EUSA Vice-President for Academic Affairs Guy Bromley said: “I think everyone is disappointed by the lack of attendance at the EUSA General Meeting last Wednesday.  We really hoped that with ten very relevant, interesting and important motions, alongside a lot of publicity about the GM, we would buck the trend of the past decade and achieve quoracy, as in the November AGM." 

"One of the motions brought to the GM would have introduced online referendums, allowing more students to engage with political debate on campus without having to drop their normal evening activities but without the necessary quoracy we of course were unable to bring forward this very necessary democratic innovation.

The fact is, many of EUSA’s structures predate the internet and mobile age, and so they are designed for an era when political debate could take place only in a meeting room or lecture theatre.  Nowadays, that debate happens on a more continual basis, and we need to change to reflect this. 

Next year’s sabbaticals and the student body at large need to make sure that the November AGM is well attended if they wish to see change to this element of EUSA democracy, which if passed would finally put a stop to the inevitable disappointment that people feel about this time of the year.”