Last Monday, the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) Council met in the Engineering Common Room, where it approved the budget for this year and discussed student federation politics.
Budget approved with $16,000 projected surplus
VP Finance David Bailey led a discussion on the budget, asking for straw polls after presenting the budgets of each executive member, then holding a vote at the end of the presentations for the approval for the budget as a whole.
During the discussion, Bailey noted that the Open Air Pub (OAP), held at the beginning of the school year, made over $72,000 in profits. This year, EUS incurred an extra $15,000 in costs for OAP, mostly due to extra security presence and the provision of portable toilets at the event, which Bailey said had been pushed for by the University. Despite these additional costs, the event increased its profits by $2,000 from last year.
Council also decided to allocate an additional $5,000 to OAP lite this year. EUS donates the profits from OAP Lite, held in the spring, to the President’s Choice Children’s Charity. Provigo, which provides a large amount of food for OAP, is a subsidiary of Loblaw Companies, which also owns President’s Choice. Council allocated this money to OAP Lite for an additional donation to the charity in case OAP Lite does not turn a high profit. This, according to Bailey, was important because EUS’ relationship with Provigo is crucial to the success of OAP and OAP lite.
Bailey also explained the low equity budget, noting that equity-related projects get funding from external sources, such as the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU).
“Equity is really expanding its activities this year. There are a lot of external groups that are willing to support these sort of initiatives; we’ve got sponsorship from SSMU, sponsorship from [the McGill Engineering Student Centre]. So, the way it worked out is we’re only budgeting $300. Pretty much every event is getting directly that money back through SSMU funds,” said Bailey.
The approved budget includes a $16,000 surplus, which, according to Bailey, is a healthy cushion, especially considering that council has run deficits in the past couple of years.
Bilingualism in Quebec and Canadian engineering federations
During his report, VP External Marc-Olivier Granger said that he had attended two meetings of the Quebec Confederation for Engineering Student Outreach (QCESO). Granger told Council that at the first meeting, held in May, he brought up a motion to make all QCESO events bilingual. This would apply to the Quebec Engineering Competition and the Quebec Engineering Games.
Granger also said that he had attended a meeting of the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES), where he put forward a motion that had been brought up by EUS executives last year to have more French representation in CFES.
“It’s the other way around, so now we’re to have a better representation of French. I think it’s fair that if I’m pushing here [in Quebec] for better English representation that I support the same opportunities at CFES,” said Granger.