At the recent Annual General Meeting of the Association the matter of a fee increase was deferred to a Special General Meeting to be held in the second term. This was understandable, as the number of people attending the A.G.M. was unrepresentative of the general student body. It was commented that the information presented, purporting to justify the fee increase recommendations, was inadequate. Further information is now available and is presented in the following article.

V.U.W.S.A. has built up a fairly sound financial base. However about 1969 capital commitments were made which have recently caused the executive some embarrassment. The executive has never planned its financial commitments nor has it had an investment programme providing cash for capital expenditures when necessary. This year the executive had to sell $10,000 worth of Wellington City Council stock, at a loss, to realize $5000 which a previous executive agreed to loan to the Rugby Club. This has forced us to act; a new investment programme has been implemented to provide cash when it is needed for approved capital developments benefiting students. Hopefully this new investment plan will lake care of all long term financial commitments. (However, as mentioned later, the Ski Club loan is giving some difficulties.)

The Association's current (operating) financial position is less secure. The bulk of the operating income comes from a $5 allocation of the present $19 Students' Association fee. Other sources of income are commissions on magazines and life insurance, and interest on investments. Above are the Association budgets for the years 1970-1974. This year the budgeted income is $29000 out of which expenditure of $34000 has to be financed, i.e. there will be a current operating deficit of approximately $5000. Reference to the above budgets discloses few areas of expenditure that are controllable. Those expenditures that are "controllable" are heavily influenced by politics. These can be classified as club grants and national body levies. I propose to look at them in detail.