Your Friendly Src Coordinator

It's that time again. The Annual General Meeting of the Students' Association happens on March 19, i.e. next Wednesday. At this, the most important student meeting of the year, many issues will be discussed, but I would like you all to give some thought to one of these in particular-the question of Executive honoraria. At present the President of the Association is paid an annual honorarium of $1000, the secretary $250, the treasurer $200 and all other Exec members $50. In my opinion, these figures which have not been changed for several years years, are totally unrealistic.

Over the years the presidency of the Students' Association has become almost a full-time job. Quite frankly it has had to. With so many issues confronting students-assessment, workloads, bursaries, etc. and the administration of the everyday affairs of the Association to be responsible for, it is just not possible to expect the President to accept $1000. Other students' Associations have recognised this and have raised their presidential honoraria accordingly. It is past time we followed suit.

The treasurer and the secretary are grossly underpaid. How long can we justify paying an individual responsible for literally hundreds of thousands of dollars a mere $200? It is not a question of paying people for the amount of time they spend (we couldn't possibly afford that!) but of recognising in concrete financial terms, the amount of responsibility they have to bear.

The issue of ordinary executive honoraria is not so straightforward, but my own view is that either the present $50 should be dropped altogether or substantially increased. The current figure doesn't even cover expenses!

It is about time that members of the Association decided just how much they expect of their officers and whether or not they are prepared to pay them accordingly.

See you at the AGM

John Roseveare