Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

We had Council last night. Oh I do love a good Council. It was great, people got properly wound up about things. As you might have seen on Spencer's blog, there was an exciting moment when 13 people voted in favour of a motion, 7 voted against and 7 abstained. Initially the Chair rule that the motion had not passed, claiming that 13 is not a simple majority. However, a neat little procedural motion from Sam overturned his ruling, so when a re-vote gave us the same figures again, Mr Chairman ruled that the motion had passed.

I'm glad he let it pass the second time, otherwise we'd have had a serious miscarriage of justice. According to Wikipedia:

A simple majority simply means more than half of the votes cast. It does not include abstentions or absent members. It is more strict than a plurality vote, but less strict than an absolute majority vote. It is the most common requirement in voting for a measure to pass, especially in deliberative bodies and small organizations.

I think the problem was that Steering was defining a simple majority as a majority of voting members, and saying that 27 people were voting, but in fact people who abstain are not voting members. And 13 is clearly the majority of 20. However, big up to Mr (temporary) Chairperson for bringing pink wafers.

Anyway, it certainly got me fired up. I went to the pub afterwards with ROSTRA Tim, Seren Emma, Sam, Vicky, Spencer, Tom and Dizzy, and (happily) the debate continued there. Had a nice chat with Vicky on our way to the cash machine about JCRs and whether they should be formally linked to the SU or not. We both agreed that if there was to be a formal link it would have to be one shaped to suit JCRs, not throwing them in with the higgledy-piggledy jumble that is Standing Committees.

Stage Crew also became a Standing Committee last night. I think the Standing Committees need sorting out. It doesn't make sense to have lighting and sound technicians in the same category as Nightline or a radio station in with the Elections Committee. We shouldn't be afraid of putting additional structures in place to deal with the diverse committees currently lumped under this one category.

Oh and the great news is that the procedural motions have been updated, so we can now amend policy motions in Council instead of having to reject them outright. Hoorah!

Right, I have an hour and ten minutes before my lecture. Maybe I'll just sit here imagining I'm playing tunes while taking personality tests and reading news websites. Or I could go to Morrisons for some nice fresh croissants (I bought four stale croissants in Late Stop yesterday: don't do it!).