As a result of last week's meeting, SRC now has some formal policy on the National Union of Israeli Students controversy, but unless you're Don Carson, or Jewish, you probably won't understand why.

It resulted from a motion, not on the agenda, which provided the most lively (i.e. least lethargic) discussion to come out of Wednesday's two-hour endurance trial.

The Union Hall was filled with students who seemed more interested in eating lunch than attending the meeting, as the opening formalities were ruthlessly dealt with and a few reports trickled in. Gyles Beckford gave a brief report on National Executive, Tony Ward complimented the National and International Affairs Officers for doing a good job on the cable-car forum and the Rockefeller visit respectively, and David Cunningham resigned from his position as a Council rep.

None of these seemed to cause so much as a ripple among the masses but I thought I heard one keen student say, 'What the hell is SRC?' so interest isn't entirely dead!

I'm Feeling Rather Bored

.......And so it came to pass that Student Representatives were elected. This took quite a while, as Tony Ward went through the long list of committees requiring reps. Some committees managed to attract a sufficient number of nominees to fill the positions - otherwise people were co-opted or dragged on, or existing reps volunteered to talk their mates into it.

It was all very funny and entertaining for a while, but the contrast between the refusal to withdraw all student representatives, and now this almost total disinterest in standing or nominating others for the positions we so bravely defended, once more weakens the validity of any SRC policy.

As it turned out, there were never enough nominations for any committee to require an election, and even then Tony Ward must have been hard put to hear the half-hearted 'ayes' when the meeting voted that all nominees be accepted.

For those who really are interested, the Welfare Officer is Chris Sylie, and the Prof. Board reps are Tom Duggan, Peter Aagaard, and Chris Wylie. The Arts Faculty reps are John Ryall, Lionel Klee, Lindy Cassidy, and Mike Freeman, and the Languages and Literature reps are Anne Dwyer, John Kinder, Rachel Scott, and someone else who'll be jacked up later.

Robert Toothill and John Grainer have taken two of the four positions on the Commerce and Administration Faculty Committee, and John volunteered to talk a couple of mates into filling the other two vacancies. The Science Faculty rep is Ellen Forsch, and there are still three vacancies there.

There are several more lesser known committees - nearly all managed at least one nomination.

Enthusiasm runs high!

I'm Getting Drowsier and Drowsier

......And so we turned to consider Rod Prossers motion that SRC elect an assessment committee of ten people, comprising of students from each faculty. The idea, he said, was to 'promote student involvement in educational areas' and he hoped to see the committee 'spearheading the assessment campaign' There was no discussion on this, and it was passed.

In another motion, he wanted to recommend to the Executive that the four SRC policy officers each get an honorarium of $192 a year. Gyles Beckford said that the Executive had already granted $600 for the four officers with $100 to 'play around with' That seemed to satisfy Rod and the motion was withdrawn, without a dissenting voice believe it or not!

Yet another motion from Rod Prosser, who is fast becoming as inevitable as Lloyd Jobson, suggesting that the four officers each have a committee of five to help them. This, he said, was really only formalising committees that sort-of-already exist.

This motion was also passed with no discussion, not even from Gordon Cameron. Gordon wasn't actually there, he's just a mate of mine wh wants his name in Salient. See you Thursday, Gordon.

My Eyes are Closing

Now we get down to general business where we find a motion which had been 'left off the agenda' according to Gyles Beckford. This means that nobody (except for those who formulated it) know what the motion was until the mover, Eric Freedman (possibly even more inevitable than Lloyd Jobson) got up to talk about it.

The motion, which was in four parts, dealt with NUIS, and the core of it was that VUWSA affirm that dialogue not war among the people of the Middle East is the way to peace, and that any democratically elected body representing students of a particular area, say NUIS as a random example, has the right to membership of any international students' association, such as ASA.

The change was led mainly by Eric Freedman and Adrian Shiner with the strong support of Jewish Society members. Don Carson provided the strongest opposition (amidst hisses and jeers) backed up by one or two other speakers.

Don used his old argument of the motion repressing the right of the Palestinian people to self determination, and a debate arose as to whether Palestine really existed anyway.

It seems there is a thing called GUPS (pronounced 'GUPS') which is the General Union of Palestinian Students. GUPS, we were told, represents all Palestinian students, and if we recognise GUPS we must be recognising the state of Palestine. On the other hand, NUIS, being a democratically elected body, represents Palestinian students too, provided they live in the state of Israel. Once again, if you find the esoteric arguments confusing, you should have heard the debate. When the motion was finally put, it was passed.

I Must be Dreaming

As I left the hall I was approached by someone who had come in late, and asked if the NUIS motion had come up under general business. When I replied that it had, he said, 'So we're back to that. SRC is The Pressure Group Of The Week Show again.'

Some people think that the NUIS motion was the most important thing to come of the meeting. I think the most important, and dangerous thing was the general disinterest and apathetic acceptance displayed by most 'ordinary' students there. Hopefully it's just a low spot on the enthusiasm graph. If SRC has to die, there must be more dignified ways than this.