Background

AGM on Wed 5th February 2014

Annual General Meeting

Time & Date

Wed 5th February 2014, 15:00 - Wed 5th February 2014, 16:00


Location

SU HQ Central Meeting Area

Description

*Remote voting is now available* (up until the AGM at 15:00): 2014 election

The AGM is the opportunity for members to vote on changes to the society's constitution, and also the time for members to elect the new executives of the society.

Changes to the society's constitution include adding new executive roles. The idea of creating a new position dedicated to advertising the society and events (provisionally called a 'publicity officer') has been discussed by multiple members, and will likely be proposed at the AGM. If you would like to stand for this position (should it be created) then you should go to the meeting and stand on the day.

Exec are traditionally expected to fill in slots for the LAN rota (at least one exec must be present at all times during LANs), attend every exec meeting (usually there is one meeting per week), periodically check their emails (and maintain the spam that comes alongside having emails written on a webpage in public redirect to your inbox), and remain active on IRC in the #exec and #compsoc channels. Decisions made in the meetings usually require a majority agreement from the exec.

Additionally, each exec position has a specialised set of extra roles.

Both president positions have a responsibility to oversee the budget working with the Secretary and Treasurer on general society matters.

The Academic President's role involves keeping the academic activities of the society running including academic talks, competitions, trips and sponsorship.

The Gaming President's domain is recreational computing activities (LANs and Friday gaming). They are responsible for setting up the gaming equipment and looking after it in general.

The Secretary is in charge of handling society paperwork (non-financial, booking rooms, etc.), taking minutes & reading the agenda in meetings, writing the weekly newsletter, as well as looking for society sponsorship.

The Treasurer is in charge of handling financial paperwork, and advising on the budget and spending.

The Technical Officer is the ambassador between the exec and the tech team and is responsible for maintaining our servers, maintaining the website, and communicating with the users of our technical services.

The Socials Officer arranges & announces social activities for the society, including the weekly pub social and special socials for LANs and one-offs.

To stand for an exec position you should express your intent before the meeting, traditionally this is done by submitting a manifesto. You may email your manifesto to secretary@uwcs.co.uk . DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING INTENT/MANIFESTOS IS THE DAY BEFORE THE AGM AT 15:00. If no intents/manifestos are submitted for a position then anyone attending the meeting is willing to stand on the day instead.

Manifestos will be interpreted as plain text.

You must come to the AGM in order to stand. After deciding on changes to the constitution we will allow speeches from those standing, and then the local votes will be made and counted.

You may also vote remotely, the system for this shall open on the day of the AGM.

Only full members are allowed to vote at the election. You must be a full member at least 72 hours before the AGM to vote/stand.

If you have any questions about any of the positions, you may wish to contact the respective current exec.

*Currently submitted manifestos*

*Academic President*

*Chris Leonard*

I'm standing for Academic President because I am unhealthily addicted to this society (like many) and I want to do it justice.

After being an exec for a year I am confident I would do a good job as your Academic President. Not only am I serious about the Academic side of the society but I am also a regular at gaming. I am always open-minded about changes within the society, and also respectful of the reasons behind our traditions (however seemingly benign).

My main agenda would be to reach out to academically-minded members and Computer Science students more for ideas for future events within the society, and also to keep running (and provide more) events/facilities for such people to help or entertain each other with programming or computing in general. In the near future this could mean a member-run set of lightning talks, or some form of competition/event on the cluster (once it is set up).

In meetings I would continue to support the idea that the Computing Society is there for people of all levels of academic interest, and also for gamers with all sorts of gaming backgrounds. Also, as is a custom in our exec, I shall always aim to try and fill in if for whatever reason an exec is heavily burdened with exec duties or whatever life throws their way.

Thank you for reading, if you want to ask more contact me by email: secretary@uwcs.co.uk (or ask during the questions period at the AGM).

*Secretary*

*Tom Hoare*

I’m a regular attender of LANs and pub social, and semi-regularly attend Friday gaming. I’m highly organised and will have no issues ensuring room bookings, minutes and newsletter emails are kept up to date. I would also have no reservations about contacting companies for potential sponsorship, although I understand this isn’t needed with the current state of society finances.

I’m also active on IRC as MisterMarmite, so can be easily reached and keep up-to-date with society information.

I also come drama-free and tend to be a voice of calm, so potential for society issues

An issue I can forsee is a lack of technical knowledge on computing, as I joined through gaming rather than academic channels. If any programming skills are needed, I’m very willing to learn, but would need teaching.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you at the AGM.

*Technical Officer*

*Rayhaan Jaufeerally*

I would like to stand for the position of Technical Officer of the University of Warwick Computing Society in the year of 2014.

I believe that I have the technical knowhow and motivation to successfully fill this position. Having worked with and maintained servers in the past, I feel comfortable keeping the servers in good working order as well as being available to debug any issues that may arise.

Furthermore, if I should be elected as technical officer, I will do my best to continue the acquisition of the CompSoc cluster, which will enable members of the society to have access to a large amount of processing power for learning about parallel processing. In addition to this, spare capacity on the cluster can be used to host virtual machines which can be used for development or learning system administration in a safe environment.

Finally, I would like to be able to use my knowledge of programming languages and frameworks to enhance he current software in use by CompSoc, namely: BadgerBot the IRC bot, Aoko the music server, and our Django powered website.

Regardless of whether I am elected for an executive member position or not, the University of Warwick Computing Society will always be an important part of my life, and I shall always do everything and anything in my power to benefit the society and its members.