Hey UPEI,

The AGM has really been an exercise in operating on little sleep. I apologize for not updating sooner, but the last two days have been so packed that there has been little opportunity to do any other work, including update the students on the conference progress.

I don’t want to get too heavy on detail, but I’ll do my best to cover everything that’s happened over the past couple of days here in Halifax.

Day one opened with a report from our National Director, Arati Sharma. Arati is in her first year on the job and has been going flat out since being hired. She is incredible and we are very lucky that she is working with our organization. Arati will hopefully be on campus sometime in the New Year to speak with students and the Council about CASA and the UPEISU’s role within the organization.

Next, our Government Relations guru Rick Theis was up. Rick spent an hour talking about the federal government climate and some of the inroads CASA had made with the government since our last conference in Calgary this past June. Of particular note, and I hope our graduate students are reading this, is the great news that the House of Commons Finance Committee is going to recommend to the Minister of Finance that he include increased funding for indirect costs of research in his 2010 budget. This would be a welcome investment in research conducted by graduate students at UPEI and right across the country.

Digital Technology Officer Sharif Virani kept things moving with a review of some of the new communications efforts (both internal and external) that will be coming forward over the next few months. He also gave the group a sneak peak at some of the footage from the East Coast Media Tour that comedian Paul Telner made across Atlantic Canada during frosh and NSO weeks at campuses in the region. CASA hopes to use some of this video in television advertisements during the next federal election to push the PSE agenda.

After a rousing policy update from Spencer and Bev we broke for the day and scurried off to prep for the next day’s sessions and reply to all the emails and phone calls that we missed during the day.

Day two was spent in a similar process that our own Council has just completed – preparing a three-year strategic plan for the organization. This was preceded by a frank and informal ½ discussion amongst the membership about some of the challenges and issues that we were having with CASA. There were some good things that came out of this discussion and I hope that our Home Office Team and Governance Officers are able to make some changes to address the members’ concerns.

This morning we are continuing to work on the strategic plan and will have it essentially complete before the end of the day. The big part of the day that everyone is interested in seeing how it plays out is the discussion on the voting structure of the organization this afternoon. This is an issue that keeps coming up at CASA conferences. Right now CASA operates under a system of one member one vote, but some of the larger schools are interested in seeing the organization move towards a weighted voting system, which is something that the CFS has employed (since its inception????). The UPEISU is opposed to this idea because it would reduce our voice at the table. We will be joining many other small schools in the organization and voting against the motion to reform the voting structure.

Today is going to be an interesting, but stress filled day!

I hope you are all enjoying yourselves on the Island. An update on the rest of day 3 to come later in the day!

Timothy Cullen

UPEISU President