If you thought Federico was bad...

Well, well, well... The SFUO's website seems to have gotten a half-assed face lift. I guess they have to make it seem like SOMEBODY is doing something this summer, right? Alright, alright! I admit that I'm being quite critical. I can only hope that 90% of the links that appear on the website might actually be functional in the next week or so. Do I expect that to be the case? If we go by how fast the last year's budget was posted to the SFUO website, it may be by the next SFUO elections, in February 2012 (and sadly, I'm being OPTIMISTIC).

Anyways, that's not the point of my post as I think uOleaks has poked enough fun at the site for one day! For those who may not recognize the fella in the above picture, let me introduce you to the former Canadian Federation of Students National Chairperson, Mr. Dave Molenhuis. Before being "elected" as National Chairperson, Mr. Molenhuis held the position of National Treasurer. He gave an interesting statement about where the money we pay in membership dues is spent to The Ontarion.You may remember an interview, conducted by Antoine Trépanier, that appeared in the 6 December 2010 edition of La Rotonde. He also travelled the country (on the student's dime) to help campaign in favour of the organization which he led when referendums on continued membership in the CFS were taking place. To say the least, it has been a rocky year for Mr. Molenhuis. He also seems to have had a rocky past in student politics at the University of Western Ontario.

You may also remember the bitter battle that ensued the October 2010 referendum on continued membership at the University of Regina between the University of Regina Students' Union (URSU) and the Canadian Federation of Students. In this "friendly" letter, Mr. Molenhuis unilaterally released the referendum results. In the period between November 2010 and March 2011, accusations had flown left and right coming from both the URSU executive and the CFS's student-funded legal counsel. The URSU executive released this statement shortly after the release of the referendum results.

Why have I highlighted the controversy surrounding Mr. Molenhuis while he held the position of CFS National Chairperson? Recently, Ms. Roxanne Dubois took over the helms of the CFS, replacing the 28 year old Mr. Molenhuis.

Oddly enough, as I wrote at the end of July, Federico Carvajal resigned as Chair of the SFUO Board of Administration during the 17 July 2011 meeting. As you can see in the images below, his position was quickly advertised online (but not on the SFUO website).

Do you see where this going? Well, after taking a few minutes to browse through the new SFUO website, I looked up the BOA. If you scroll down to the last email address in the list of board members, you'll see that beside "BOA Chair", Dave Molenhuis' name appears. I encourage everyone who reads this post to contact the new BOA Chair, Mr. Dave Molenhuis by emailing him at boa@sfuo.ca. And if you do, please comment below and let readers know if he bothers replying to your email. You see, during Mr. Molenhuis' tenure as CFS National Chairperson, I sent him a few emails. Sadly, Mr. Molenhuis never seen fit to even acknowledge my emails... Not once. So send him a message and see if his BlackBerry has been fixed yet.

"Help me with the SFUO finances!?"

Looks like SJK is looking for a financial director to assist her with the SFUO's finances. As you can see, this position was posted to the Charity Village website on Friday, July 22 2011. However, at the end of the add, interested candidates are asked to "send a resume and cover letter prior to July 13 at 5 PM via email to Sarah Jayne King, Vice-President of Finance at hr@sfuo.ca." Oh, SFUO...

Job Posting Source: http://www.workopolis.com/EN/job/13282008?uc=E4

Carvajal resigns as SFUO BOA Chair

Other than the ill-advised "affiliation" motion that passed at first reading on Sunday, 17 July 2011 SFUO BOA meeting, the audience (of 5) was surprised by what the Chair, Federico Carvajal announced at the beginning of the meeting: he announced his resignation as Chair of the BOA and that would most likely be the last BOA meeting that he would chair.

He has presided over some less than stellar BOA meetings in the past. To be sure, we needn't look far: the 15 October 2010 BOA meeting when he called Protection to have students in the audience removed (which never ended up happening). Another example took place on 6 March 2011 which was the meeting at which time the Board heard appeals arising from the SFUO elections (i.e.: disqualification of Tristan Dénommée).

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING VIDEOS CONTAINS COURSE LANGUAGE - VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

Federico became the SFUO BOA chair at some point between the 2 March 2008 and the 1 June 2008 board meetings. Amy Morris, Carvajal's predecessor, had only been the SFUO BOA's chair since 1 January 2008 and only chaired 4 board meetings.

Federico has deep roots within the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) which made his chairing the board during discussions involving issues such as the SFUO bulk t-shirt orders very controversial. (the report recommended Just Shirts, a company strongly supported by the CFS) 

1) First "final" report authored by Martin Schoots-McAlpine, Jesse Root and Iain Brannigan: http://www.scribd.com/doc/48751480/Final-Report-of-the-Ad-hoc-Ethical-Purchasing-Policy-Committee-Submitted-to-the-SFUO-Board-of-Administration

2) The final "final" report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/48751480/Final-Report-of-the-Ad-hoc-Ethical-Purchasing-Policy-Committee-Submitted-to-the-SFUO-Board-of-Administration

Carvajal was the CFS-Ontario Chairperson of the Ontario Graduate Caucus; While Carvajal was the external commissioner of the Graduate Students' Association (GSAÉD), he was a member of the "Yes" Committee during the CFS referendum that took place on the U of O campus in November 2008. As recent as 26 April 2011, Carvajal was at Trent University speaking with the Trent Graduate Students' Association (GSA) to promote the CFS administered health plan with Green shield.

Here is an image of the job posting for the new Chair of the SFUO Board of Administration which appeared on the Charity Village website:

As always, your comments are more than welcome and will be published upon review. Stay up to date by subscribing to my blog's RSS feed by clicking this icon found somewhere within your browsers. 

SJK's SFUO Budget Presentation

For those who are interested (and I'm sure there are many who are), I recorded large portions of Sarah Jayne King's 2011-2012 SFUO budget presentation which took place during the 17 July 2011 SFUO BOA meeting.

Liveblogging: SFUO BOA meeting - Sunday 17 July 2011

Late Night Mischief: SFUO.ca hacked

This image appeared as the splash screen of the SFUO website on Thursday, 14 July 2011 just after 12:00 am. I wonder how long it will take before someone actually notices...

Réunion du Conseil d'administration 2011-2012

Après avoir envoyé un courriel à notre merveilleux exécutif de la FÉUO par rapport aux dates futures des réunions du Conseil d'administration de la FÉUO, j'ai reçu une réponse de la part d'Elizabeth Kessler:

Les dates pour le reste de l’année sont :

Le 17 juillet – 13h

Le 14 août – 13h

Le 18 septembre – 13h

Le 16 octobre – 13h

Le 13 novembre – 13h

Le 4 décembre – 13h

Le 15 janvier = 13h

Le 26 février – 13h

Le 18 mars – 13h

Le 1 avril – 13h

Et maintenant, vous le savez!

---------

I recently sent an email to the marvelous SFUO executive regarding upcoming SFUO Board of Administration meeting dates and received a reply from Elizabeth Kessler (which came the very next day; I was pleasantly impressed). She provided me with the following dates:

17 July - 1:00 pm

14 August - 1:00 pm

18 September - 1:00 pm

16 October - 1:00 pm

13 November - 1:00 pm

4 December - 1:00 pm

15 January - 1:00 pm

26 February - 1:00 pm

18 March - 1:00 pm

1 April - 1:00 pm

And now you know!

François Picard moves on

Francois Picard taking part in the Canadian Federation of Students' AGM Rally on Parliament Hill - November 2010

It's official: Francois Picard, the former SFUO VP Communications, has vacated the position of SFUO Executive Coordinator. The following job posting advertising the SFUO Executive Coordinator position recently appeared on a slightly unconventional website (if/when the job posting is taken down, see the image below). However, it seems as though the SFUO couldn't even be bothered to post this job opening on their own website. Who's left out of the current executives' friends who hasn't been hired to work somewhere in the SFUO? Well, sadly, it looks as though that insider culture will continue: where the SFUO hiring process isn't based on experience, competency or merit but on who you know and what your political beliefs are (in other words, if you're a member/supporter of the New Democratic Party - NDP, that's half the battle).

Rumour has it that he has been hired by the recently elected NDP MP Mylène Freeman. She recently graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Political Science from the McGill University. Picard has been working behind the scenes at the SFUO since his mandate as VP Communication ended in May 2008. For example, he has been the Secretary at a number of SFUO BOA meetings at the beginning of the 2008/2009 academic year. He has also frequently present at numerous conferences to which the SFUO executive has participated: many Canadian Federation of Students' AGMs and workshops (see the images below). He was also present at a City of Ottawa Interim Transit Commission meeting, that took place during the February 2011 reading week, which I in fact attended. That meeting was dealing with the cost of the U-Pass pilot program. For most of the meeting, he simply stood at one side of the meeting room and observed.

All in all, nobody really ever clearly understood exactly what he did during his tenure as the SFUO Executive Coordinator. It's apparent that he wasn't much help to the 2010/2011 executive when the internal unrest broke out which placed Tyler Steeves, Ted Horton and Alex Chaput on one side and Amy Hammett, Sarah Jayne King and Paige Galette on the other. In fact, some whispered that it was Picard's overly active participation during executive meetings that was the root cause of the executive infighting. A former LaRotonde journalist, Antoine Trépanier, published this article back in February 2011. The article title's English translation: An employee taking up a lot of space. The article outlines Picard's involvement in everything from attending executive meetings, alleged election interference, and more. Well, now we wait and see who will be hired to replace ol' Franky.