Unigames April Ordinary General Meeting 04/04/2025

tags: committee meeting 2025

Attending:

Gen Allen, Lucy Auckland, Anna Bailey, Jack Joseph Desedirius Bariss, Aryaman Bhoosreddy, Connor Brennan, Jeremy Butson, Ella Dillon, Chris Fung, Oscar Gates, Andrew Gozzard, Jasmine Gilbert, Taylor Home, Lorenzo Iannuzzi, Alistair Langton, Nene Mars, Gary O'Donovan, Ash Sanctis, Jackie Shan.

Meeting Scheduled: 2:00pm

Meeting Open: 2:09 pm

---

Reports

President's Report (Connor)

• Have helped run and organise many RPG events
• Done some in the scenes and behind the scenes management of stuff
• Organised Warhammer tourneys
• Getting my head stuck into [REDACTED] organisation
• Was a PROSH Marshall with our joint team with UniSFA
• Helped facilitate doing MtG related events (think pre-releases) with Good Games Morley, and pretty much every other facet of the club with Tactics
• I've been very tired, BUT, have really enjoyed helping lead this young committee through the year so far, excited for someone to join the fray

Vice President's Report (Gen)

• One month in!
• Have helped run a few events, with a few more on the way!
• Been on a subcom, helped with club carni, done some GMing
• Attended even more meetings lol
• Rough start to the year but proud of everyone on this committee
• tumblr post of the semester thus far

Treasurer's Report (Anna)

• Before Tuesday, there was no Guild Finance system, so I was estimating our account total.
• I completed O-Day grant and Treasurer training.
• I have done quite a few food runs, have replaced the old receipt folder and am testing a replacement moneybox.
• I have done my first EMP and Advertising.

CommBank Balance: $6115.99 Guild Account Balance: $6746.64

Secretary's Report (Nene)

• i have done the minutes weekly and published them either the same day or the day following each time
• i have written one monthly newsletter so far
• i have run or helped run a bunch of events including tcg oday, intro to pokémon, and variety oneshot night, im also on the charity vigil subcom
• i also came up with the april fools joke where we all turned into civets
• being secretary is difficult but i am difficult-er

Librarian's Report (Jeremy)

• Run/helped run 3 events, GMed once and organised TCG ODay
• Helped and had a good time at club carnival
• A few library items put on website/stamped, followed up on lates, working on fixing items and relabeled the RPG shelves
• General event interest form made and put out

Fresher Rep's Report (Jack)

• Fresher campaign organising and aligning
• Ran Social deduction game night which was super fun
• Ran Alien RPG oneshot (two shot... I promise i need to run it)
• Straight Proshing it, and by it, i mean superman
• Refurbished the Unigames Gulag, fresher incarceration down 37%

OCM's Reports (Ash, Ella, and Lucy)

• Ash // initiative: 9 out of d12 (3rd)
  • Ran and helped run various events including RPG O-Day, Variety Oneshot night, TCG O-Day, Intro to MTG, SNOM, and club carnival
  • Working on getting 3 New MTG club decks and making a guide on how to play all the club decks
  • Worked directly with Good Games for copious amounts of booster boxes and pre release kits (It's this Sunday)
  • Precon League planning is done! It will be announced soon!
  • I'm also working on Westmarche stuff (whenever I get the time)
• Ella // initiative: 11 out of d20, then 1 out of d6 (2nd)
  • ♡ proshed it up sooo hard they should name it after me
  • ☆ organised a freaking event I actually had to SPEAK to PEOPLE?? WHAT???
  • ♡ learnt emp
  • ☆ generally was CHEERFUL and MERRY and full of WONDER and DELIGHT
• Lucy // Initiative: 4 out of a d6 (4th)
  • Did a 8pm IKEA trip for clubroom chair pillows!
  • Helped run Intro to Wargames event
  • Assisted with sign ups, setting up and running our club carnival stall
  • Learnt how organise events and to do EMPs!
  • Organised advertising for D20 Oneshot night
• Gary // Initiative: 11 out of d20, then 4 out of d20 (1st)
  • There once was a boy from Cork
  • Whom all considered a good sport
  • He was appointed to committee
  • and was found to be quite witty
  • Until he was found guilty of murdering John Pork

General Updates

• We had a vacant OCM position after a resignation on 12/03. In response, we appointed Gary as an OCM. However, he is now resigning as of the commencement of this meeting, and so we will hold an election for this new vacancy
• Motion to appoint Kush Patel and Ewan Marriott as returning officers
  • We default into Kush Patel and Ewan Marriott as returning officers

Agenda Items

Committee Elections

Ordinary Committee Member

• Standing Nominations
  • Jack Bariss
  • Kate Fistonich
  • Oscar Gates
  • Pippa Sanderson
• Oscar rescinds his standing nomination
• Aryaman nominates Alistair
  • Alistair declines
• Jack and Pippa give speeches and answer questions
• Kate Fistonich is absent and so a speech is read out for her as well as the answers to questions
• Jack Bariss is voted in as our fourth 2025 Ordinary Committee Member!

General Business

• We have some big events coming up
  • Charity Vigil
  • [REDACTED]
• We can put the [REDACTED] dates in the minutes
  • This has been done as of the editing of both these and the 03/04 minutes
• Taylor Home brings an idea about a constitutional amendment to the table, making it so that committee has two weeks from the resignation of a committee member to announce how that member will be replaced, and then an additional two weeks to fill the position
  • Gives committee extra time to appoint a new committee member after a resignation
    • Reactions are positive to neutral
• Also wants to make the section on resignations clearer so that when people resign without giving a specific date of their resignation, it's automatically set as (for example) the following business day
  • Means that committee members can transition out of roles instead of immediately resigning
  • Right now it says you can submit a resignation but does not specify when this takes effect (implying it is immediate), so changing this makes it more clear and easier to understand
    • Reactions are positive

At 2:47pm Aryaman Bhoosreddy, Nix Davis and Ella Dillon leave the meeting, therefore leaving us out of quorum for the remainder of the meeting

• Taylor brings up the discussions that have been had about the voting system for the Unigames elections, ie. our changes between public and private voting
  • For some background information on this, previously Unigames has always done public approval voting, which means calling out candidates names and those who approve of that candidate raise their hand to vote for them
  • Before our AGM on Friday the 28th of February we were alerted to the fact that this does not follow the Guild standing orders on the topic of elections and we are required to do private voting, the AGM (and this OGM) were therefore done with anonymous ballots
  • The style of voting Unigames should follow has been a hot button issue before and since the AGM but the ensuing conversation is not about whether either style of voting is better or correct, it is about how the discussions about our style of voting should take place
• Taylor is encouraging us to decide what form of voting is best for the club and then have us put that into the constitution at the semester 2 OGM, as well as encouraging us to discuss this with club members prior to that meeting
• She understands this is a hot button topic but also encourages committee to think of how to facilitate this in an effective matter
• Connor talks about discussion we had in our meeting that was yesterday (03/04):
  • Before we facilitate discussion about this we would like to wait for the updated standing orders that are coming
  • We would also like to have this discussion on Facebook and we are still discussing how to moderate this effectively
    • The reasons for wanting to use Facebook are due to its forum style comments, meaning that under one post multiple conversations can be had about different but related topics
  • Taylor on Facebook: As someone who has no interest in using Facebook unless absolutely necessary, enforcing that it has to be on a particular platform is not great for access, and the Unigames Facebook group is a closed group, so anyone who does not have Facebook or is not a member of the Unigames group can not see the discussion
• Lorenzo Iannuzzi has some thoughts about the voting as well:
  • They see only two paths regarding discussion online:
    • Formulate your opinions before the OGM (in private, with friends, etc), where we have a timed two hour debate for people to hash it out
      • Connor thinks that having people separate into groups to discuss this could encourage more insular opinions and may not lead to productive discussion
      • Taylor on a time limit for general meetings: Concerned about setting a hard limit on discussion rather than having strong chairing to make sure the meeting does not go in circles, also having a hard limit leads to filibustering and obstruction of proper discussion
      • As well, there is so much detail in our discussions, Taylor doesn't want to push the club into having voters making uninformed decisions for the purpose of having shorter conversations
      • Taylor on private discussions: If we are forcing people to have the conversations privately and not allowing them to take place in club spaces, how can we expect people to formulate their ideas in advance, and how are they meant to be asking questions and getting themselves properly informed?
        • Lorenzo clarifies their point, they did not mean to say people can't talk about this in public, they just meant not having moderated discussions, like in a Unigames discord thread for example
    • Facilitate semi-informal, moderated debates that people can engage in and that can be written up
  • They don't believe that online discourse is the best way to have this discussion and it would be best in public as tone is difficult to infer over text
    • Taylor about online discourse: There are indeed issues with tone and such but the members need to be responsible for doing their best to make their tone, ideas, opinions etc clear, and we should try to have moderation so that it's a discussion back and forth rather than a group chat
    • People should also enter these discussions in good faith, if one or two people come in and cause problems on purpose to get stuff shut down, that's bad
    • Lorenzo on time limits: unfortunately we have to presume good faith, and if we set a time limit we have to presume good faith that people won't filibuster, and the chair should be shutting down circular arguments for these purposes
• Lorenzo's suggestion: if you do want to use online communication, perhaps a mailing list? Mailing lists are able to distinguish between conversations, people can give sources, it is better than discord where you are limited to 4000 characters (and its live), an email can be as long as you'd like and you can take your time writing it
  • Taylor agrees that if people are interested in using a mailing list that committee should look into that, it could be good for people who have formulated their ideas already and want to put forward arguments, but is concerned the format might not work as well for asking and answering clarification questions due to the slow format, but it's good to consider different options
• Connor: standing orders haven't come yet, we have time to think about how to facilitate these discussions, his DMs are always open for questions and discussion, it's something we (committee) have to look into and figure out
  • It will be months to wait for the rules and to know what will be up for discussion, so it's alright to wait
• Taylor: My point in bringing up having committee designated to moderate this is that historically, without framework, the discussion has devolved quickly and she would like to avoid that in the future
  • Basically, her main goal is to have the ability for club members to discuss this in whatever way is easiest for them, but also in a way that doesn't go off the rails
• Connor says we may benefit from an action item based around investigating methods to have this discussion, this would be a long term thing
• Taylor says we could have set times for people to meet in person and discuss these things, and to hash out the writings of motions, amendments, etc
• Connor affirms that his DMs are always open to feedback

Meeting closed: 3:02 pm