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The Union of Kingston Students may schedule a second AGM due to unresolved motions

By Sarah Sinclair Jan 20, 2017
Six motions were left unresolved after Wednesday's AGM. Photo Cred: Pia Henham

The Union of Kingston Students (UKS) is looking to schedule a second meeting because The Big Student Meeting (AGM) ended on Wednesday before all proposed motions could be discussed and voted on by students.

If this is not possible, the motions will be passed to the next Union’s Trustee Meeting and voted on by significantly fewer students.

The UKS exclusively told The River that: “The Union recognises the desire of students to discuss very important issues and will look to schedule an extraordinary general meeting so all remaining motions can be voted on by as wider a range of students as possible.

“Today’s meeting was a strong example of democracy at Kingston.”

There were 14 motions in total that had an hour and a half to be fully discussed, debated and in some cases amended by the students present.

The Union’s proposal may please some of the students who attended today’s AGM.

An anonymous student said: “It was completely understandable that we did not have enough time to discuss all the motions properly as there were so many of them but I think it would be more democratic to do it another day rather than us not being able to vote.”

During the meeting, eight motions were debated and voted upon with six being approved and two falling.

Six motions that have not yet been heard, with one describing Kingston University as a “rip-off”, one defending refugees and migrants and another proposing consent classes.

Holly Duffield, a drama and film studies student who submitted the motion on consent classes said: “I’m disheartened that I was not able to talk about my motion which is a personal but prominent issue.

“I wanted a vast number of students to be able to hear about my proposal and be aware of sexual assault statistics in Kingston. It would be great if they could create another meeting.”

By Sarah Sinclair

Sarah is currently studying her bachelors of Journalism with Politics at Kingston University, where she is also the journalism Society's president. She is Deputy Marketing Manager at the pub she pulls pints in, while also working a few other social media projects. She also completed an internship at The Debrief, Bauer Media and PinkNews. Her interest in political journalism spiked while she studied her A-level on government and politics and she also been involved with student politics via the NUS women's campaign.

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