EGM Procedures/RulesThe purpose of this page is to help explain what a General Meeting is, why we are having an Emergency General Meeting (EGM) and most importantly what you can do during the meeting as a voting member.

KUSU General Meetings have a quorum of 100 student members. This means that 100 or more people need to be present for the outcome of a vote to be officially binding – in other words to successfully ensure your elected representatives do what the motion says. If there are less than 100 people present an indicative vote can still be taken, but it won’t be officially binding.

You need to be a student member of KUSU to vote, and as such you will need your student ID at the meeting to vote. Non-members are welcome to observe the meeting but cannot vote.

KUSU holds at least one General Meeting, the Annual General Meeting (AGM) each year. This has already taken place for the 2012/2013 academic year.

This additional Emergency General Meeting (EGM) has been called because a petition was received by KUSU with the required 200 signatures of its student members to trigger a meeting.

The motion is an ‘Emergency’ because it relates to something that has become relevant or come to light since the AGM took place, so could not have been discussed there.

EGM’s do not conduct any of the additional business of an AGM such as annual reports and budgets, they only discuss the policy motion that has been submitted.

You will see here that there are 2 motions being discussed. The first motion is the motion submitted with the petition that has triggered the meeting. The second motion can be discussed because it relates to the same subject as the original motion.

The meeting is chaired by a member of the part-time executive of KUSU, elected by a meeting of the executive. The Chair will be neutral except in the instance of a tied vote, where the Chair would give the casting vote.

The Chair receives support from members of KUSU staff in chairing, facilitating and keeping an accurate record of the meeting. These staff members are also neutral and will not take part in the debate.

The panel discussion and the question and answer session will take place first but will not be part of the formal business of the EGM, which then follows after this.

The Chair will take speeches of 2 minutes both for and against motions. For amendments those speaking in favour or against will have 1 minute. The Chair can then take further rounds of speeches at their discretion. You can put in a request for an additional round of speeches to the procedures desk.

As well as voting in favour or against each of the motions, as a student member you can also do the following:

o Ask a point of clarification (find out something you do not know), put in a point of order (for example if you don’t think the meeting is following its own procedures, or is not accessible) or put in a procedural motion. It is at the Chair’s discretion whether these are then accepted.

o Propose an Amendment – any amendments submitted in advance will be dealt with early on in the motions debate, but amendments will also be accepted on the day and will then be debated at an appropriate time as the debate progresses. There is an Amendments Guide, and a blank amendments form at the back of this pack.

As you will see from the amendment form in your packs, there are 3 things you can do in an amendment. You can remove text from a motion, reword existing text in a motion or add additional text to the motion. The form asks you to identify which of the 2 motions you are amending and whether it is the notes, believes or resolves section you wish to amend. Additional copies of this form will be placed in the room for people wishing to submit more than one amendment.

All of this can be done by conducting the KUSU procedures desk (“EGM Operational Panel”), where a member of staff will receive your amendment and answer any questions you have about doing that, or about any of the other things you can request to do at the meeting.

Finally, there is a vote on each of the 2 motions. The motion either passes or falls on a simple majority of votes cast. If a motion is passed, it then becomes the policy of KUSU. Voting will be raising your hand in the air whilst holding up your student card.

Motion Amendment FormPage 1 of 2

Which Motion would you like to submit an amendment to? (Tick relevant box)

Motion 1 – Freedom of Palestine Motion

I would like to edit the Notes sectionThese must only be factual information

I would like to remove the following clause from the Notes sectionPlease write which clause you would like to remove e.g. 4. a) i., 6. c), All of 7.

I would like to add the following clause to the Notes sectionThe Notes section can only contain factual information! It cannot contain any political views, assumptions or any predictions.

I would like to edit the Believes sectionThis section must contain only opinion, predictions, political beliefs, point of views etc.