SRC Roll CAll

hi guys,

i just thought that i would put out my point of view on the src which i think is valid and should be considered

i know that having the new SRC roll call would be really convenient for the presiding members as it would create a place where we can condense our usually 40 minute once a week meeting into 5 smaller ones of 8 minutes long.

But i think that the SRC is there for the students- we already appear to the rest of the school as a closed ' exclusive' group but the truth is that everyone and anyone is allowed to attend one of our meetings so they can put their input etc

Without the 'open' frum (by the way we should really advertise that SRC meetings are open but thats another [point since we wont be having them anymore] students really have no accesibility to what is going on.

As Mr Carritt said : accesibility is the key to natural justice/role of law.... something like that.

anyways thats my main point and i think its pretty significant--> the morning meetings to collect money for haiti etc... dont happen a lot throughout the yyear and it has only been in the past 2-3 weeks wih the roses/welcome dance that the SRC have been required to attend more regular meetings, come to school earlier... etc.

Think about what you think, because i think that having a place where we discuss our major ideas that could possibly alter the school can and should not be made in roll call where the other students dont have the possibility of attending.

BYe

SRC students are accessible for the entire duration of each school day. Students do not need to turn up to meetings to voice their ideas and opinions, they just need to tell an SRC student to raise it at a meeting. And my experience shows that this is how it works at school at a ratio of about 50:1 (that is, for every 50 students that raise an issue to be discussed at an SRC meeting, about 1 non-SRC student actually attends a meeting). This is actually a very conservative ratio. I could not tell you the last time that a person turned up to an SRC meeting to voice an opinion other than in 2008 when 2 students attended with the intent to declare the SRC unconstitutional and end it. Every time in the past that we have advertised open meetings we have had an overwhelmingingly mute response. In fact, the last time we conducted a full school survey to investigate the needs & wants of the student body, we received about 6 constructive comments from a community of 930 students.

A casual examination of our political system will reveal that this is how our democracy functions - the interests of constituents are represented by representatives.

On another level, the idea of an SRC roll call was the result of an idea put forth by SRC students to Ms Moxham, and in no way was an idea of her making. It is therefore a student initiative. The intent of the students is to make the SRC more functional, efficient and responsive. It is an experiment with merit.

Of course, this is just my opinion also and I encourage you to engage in the debate.

Wait, so is the SRC roll-call definitely happening? I haven't heard anything about it. I think it would make the SRC look (even more) exclusive but that shouldn't stop other students approaching an SRC rep to offer a comment. I guess it does mean that Pagani can crack down on the reps who aren't turning up to the meetings...

SRC roll call is due to start next week - full details are to be confirmed.

The SRC roll call is not a complete substitute for meetings. Certainly, it means that things that need to be discussed only within the SRC can be done quite quickly and it allows communication to happen a lot faster, especially to those lazy people who don't check this forum very regularly. We will also make a permanent roster dividing the SRC amongst the other roll calls in the school so that whenever there is fundraising or announcing to be done during roll call time, SRC members will always go to the same roll call classes (rather conveniently, there are 32 roll call classes in the school apart from SRC, and there are 32 members in the soon to be SRC roll call. This means that 2 people working together only need to go to 2 roll call classes in one morning and we can cover the whole school).

However as you know our roll call won't cover the new Year 7 SRC representatives when they get elected and we can't isolate them at all - quite the opposite. Monday meetings should still be on but the time needed will (hopefully) be drastically reduced, as long as the SRC can cooperate and get through things.

As for accessibility, I agree completely with Mr Pagani. The SRC will always be accessible through its members, not just meetings, and no one from the wider school EVER turns up to meetings. Sure we can advertise it but I don't think anyone in the school really feels the need to go. However there are other things we can do - James and I both think that we should open a suggestion box of some sort, which hopefully wouldn't be violated by people posting stupid comments. In addition to this I have a major survey planned up so to say that we aren't allowing the school to have their say in the SRC is completely false. Sure, we might appear to be exclusive, but with a little bit of letting people know, we won't appear to be any more.

Think of the SRC roll call as taking the weight off the Monday meetings, besides it's extremely convenient for fundraising and announcement purposes, and allows us to ensure communication for the SRC every single day - not just on a Monday.

I understant now- I heard that roll call would completely take over weekly meetings

which i thought didnt make sense

but yes i agree with the idea of a suggestion box and a permanent roster

Cool Glad we sorted that out.

Suggestion boxes have been used in the past and although a great idea in theory, again they were used only for the amusement of the writers.

An alternative is a more active SRC presence within each year. The student reps in each year should, as a minimum, address their group at each year meeting to convey SRC plans and ask for suggestions. Year Advisers are actually desperate for student input at year meetings because they are so long and they need to fill otherwise dead space/time.

Also, all SRC students will need to attend their former roll call for Boost sessions and year meetings.

Will it be in the common room? Or somewhere in cohen?