CGE Executive Council Meeting Minutes – October 31, 2013
In attendance: Mindy Crandall, Lizz Hardardt, Shannon Andrews, Béatrice Moissinac, Thomas Morrill, Sneha Gantla; guest members Joey Hulbert, Dennis Dugan, Forrest Parker, Eric Coker, and Sean McGregor; Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon
Meeting called to order at 11:30 AM
Minutes from 10-24-2013 Meeting – Didn’t get to this.
Email Decisions – (1) Approved all-member email. (2) Next CGE topic for Barometer: “right to work” legislation.
AGEL Debrief with Dennis and Joey – Dennis, Joey, and Ashley went to UIUC last weekend for the fall conference. There wasn’t a very big turnout and the beer was terrible. The event was good though. On Friday they did “Organizer 101” and then went out for petition signatures about a state tax reform. Later they talked about “right to work” and “paycheck deception” legislation and the need to be proactive against it. These are really relevant to us (and we’ll definitely need to have more conversation about them among the membership before we publish something in the Baro). Joey enjoyed gaining new perspective from other locals and learned more about bargaining. There was a workshop on health insurance led by GTFF folks where Joey and Ashley got a lot of information we’ll be able to use here. There was also a “community roundtable” where local folks talked about their collaborations with the UIGEO. Dennis went to additional workshops on grieving harassment/discrimination cases (kind of sad because no one’s sure how to do it really well; lots of fear of retaliation) and on being a conscientious employer (takeaways: solidifying employment philosophy, longer term for staff organizer contracts).
Writing Center – Shannon and Thomas are meeting with Dennis from the Writing Center, tomorrow, at 1 PM at E-Café.
Social Hour – (1) We’re realizing the need for more EC participation in being the social hour anchor (ie, Ashley shouldn’t have to do it every week). (2) We’re just going to cancel it this week because no one is really available and hey, it’s Halloween. Do yer own socializing. Shannon will announce that.
Trivia Night – This is NEXT Tuesday! One person has told Shannon he can write some of the questions, and Shannon’s willing to be the question-asker. Mindy will also contribute some questions.
Brew-Off – Shannon and Ashley are collecting volunteers (and their one-day permits and IDs). Lizz is willing to be a driver. People have definitely been buying pre-sell tickets but we haven’t run out of them.
E-Campus Tuition Issue – (1) Shannon’s appointment letter this term said e-campus tuition would not be covered by grad assistants’ waiver. This is not true: we have confirmation from OSU HR about coverage. (2) Sneha and Dennis add that Public Policy grads are verbally prohibited (but not in writing) from taking e-campus courses. We need to bring this to Jeri/HR’s attention so they can reprimand/correct the department leadership.
Fairshare Notification Email – This has been drafted and Mindy will send it out later today.
Dues Lit Piece – We’re going to put together a “What dues/fairshare pay for” piece, but it’s not ready yet.
Dues Stuff – Looks like OSU may have messed up deductions for some people who were previously classified as “associate members” ($10 dues). Angela and Ashley will work on getting this fixed for November.
GMM Debrief – We had pretty good turnout! We need to come up with a better plan for how to manage kids who come with a lot of energy. Side conversations were sometimes an issue as well, and we could probably try to rearrange tables a little better so people can pay attention better. There was pretty good member participation though. We had too much food left over, so we’ll try to reduce that somewhat next time.
OSU “Culture of Service” Meeting – We were invited to a meeting among various campus group leaders. We were not given a chance to provide input on when it would happen, and they scheduled it for the exact same time as next week’s EC meeting. Sneha is willing to attend.
“Left Bank” – It’s happening again this Saturday morning. Béatrice feels like it’s a pretty big waste of our time because we don’t usually end up talking with any grads. Sneha thinks it’s good for CGE to have a presence in Corvallis outside of our little grad community and thus volunteers to staff the table this time.
Steward Council – This is on Tuesday the 12th. We’ll send an email to the reps to announce it and request input for the agenda.
Newsletter – Officers should take a few minutes to make edits and/or input.
Meeting adjourned at 1:03 PM