Transparency in Government: SAC’s First Open Meeting

On Tuesday, 3 November, MGCI’s Student Activity Council (SAC) held its first open meeting. The event took place after school in the library and lasted from 3:30 pm to 4:15 pm. SAC meetings are typically around an hour long, and occur every Tuesday after school in the library. Ejay Vidad, SAC’s current President, explained that the purpose of these meetings is to “communicate to each other what our plans are throughout the week and to keep everyone informed.”

The first open meeting of the year invited students from outside SAC to attend and learn more about the council’s upcoming plans and events. There was a total of 21 attendees, 17 of which were members of SAC. The guest attendees of this first meeting consisted of 2 BSAP representatives and 2 representatives from The Reckoner. Guest attendees were welcome to comment on issues during the meeting and voice any opinions of their own. However, they were not allowed to introduce motions or participate in votes. 

SAC meetings are structured around the agenda, which is updated and available online the day before each meeting. The minutes of the meeting and agenda are publicly available to all students, although due to ongoing SAC semester positions elections, this has not been possible so far in the year.

The items on the agenda for this meeting consisted of the Semi Formal dance, senior sweaters, unhealthy food day announcements, discussion of the upcoming Spoken Word Café, and plans to raise awareness for TDSB SuperCouncil meetings. 

Five new members of SAC were sworn in today: Noor Shahid, the Grade 9 representative, Fahmida Tanveer, the Grade 10 representative, Zainab Bohkari, the Grade 11 representative, Frank Hong, the Junior Representative, and Neha Yousuf, the Secretary.

Hisham Yusuf, this year’s Social Convener, reported that the Social Committee was 25 ticket sales away from meeting their 200 seat contract with the selected banquet hall, and expressed his confidence in the Committee’s ability to reach this goal. The event has already broken even in terms of monetary costs. This year’s Semi Formal introduces a new Halal buffet and a new banquet hall venue.  

A discussion of club budget funding followed. SAC revealed that this year only an approximate amount of  five thousand dollars was available to be allocated to student clubs, around eleven thousand dollars less than the sixteen thousand available last year. Vidad explained that this was due to a change in TDSB policy this school year, which now required student ID costs to be pulled from the activity fee, although no concrete numbers were available. An internal investigation led by SAC is ongoing. 

SAC also discussed strategies for raising awareness of TDSB SuperCouncil meetings, which all students are welcome to attend. The next SuperCouncil meeting is slated to occur Monday, November 9, at our very own Marc Garneau C.I., from 5:00 pm-7:00 pm. 

Vidad expressed his hope that future meetings would draw more guest attendees, commenting that many club execs, who are the primary targets for guest attendance, are “committed to looking at the minutes, but they’re not committed to actually staying because SAC is known for having long meetings.” When asked about the greatest incentives towards attending, Vidad said, “In a perfect world, it would be the issues that we talk about. Although we don’t have the money right now to offer food incentives, that could be a possibility in the future.”

SAC meetings are open to any student of MGCI, and run every Tuesday after school in the library.