CTA AGM 2013

Last night was the CTA AGM. This meeting, held the last Wednesday of May most years, is where Coquitlam Teachers elect their executive committee, pass the budget, including fees, and discuss issues in education through motions and reports.

Last night I was successfully elected for a two year term as Local Rep, a position I am excited to take on. I am so grateful to the teachers who voted for me, most appreciated!!

Last night, Charley King was elected as our new CTA President, as Teresa Grandinetti steps down as past president and returns to the classroom in September. Chris King stayed on as 1st VP and Ken Christensen was elected as 2nd VP.

Ken resigned from his LR position and Jason Giles was elected for a one year term as LR, while Henry Theissen and myself were elected for the two year terms as LRs.

Finally, there were five members at large elected: Shelly Hawley, Natalie Malakoff, Sheila Drysdale, Mike Galliford and Deither Malakoff (who dropped down from 2nd VP running)

After the elections however, things got even more interesting.

While the gym started off packed with over 300 teachers, many left after elections. One teacher, for whatever reason, decided to call quorum and after a count it was discovered that there were only about 132 teachers left. Quorum is 150 teachers. This teacher decided to call quorum, which is allowed and is in the rules of order, but meant the meeting ended immediately and will now need to be rescheduled.

Now, we started the meeting with quorum, 300 teachers, well over 150 needed. The meeting has been set for a year (no joke, the CTA office books the gym well in advance and spends hours upon hours planning and preparing for the meeting) and all the teachers still there, then had to go home.

Now, we wait as the CTA Office tries to reschedule this meeting before the end of the school year (finding a venue, printing budgets again, booking the accountant to come review and answer questions on the budget, etc. etc.) It is another evening teachers have to spend away from their homes, families, friends, committments, to be at the meeting, which may not have quorum again.

I guess my frsutration is that in the past, even without quorum, business has continued, because those who want to be there are, and it is open to all teachers, it is their choice to attend, or not, to stay, or not....

More frustating is that this teacher left promptly, and I still do not know WHY she called quorum... was it in protest of the budget and proposed fee increase? Was it because she hoped to achieve something in particular?

No idea...

But, we got through only about half of the business of the meeting and will have to attend another meeting again in the next couple weeks...

That meeting will address the budget and all other matters we did not get to, my question is this... will be have quorum? Will teachers return to a 2nd meeting? Will others who weren't at 1st meeting attend?
Time will tell.