CGCU President and Vice President facing no-confidence votes
Union Council to vote on 8th November over motions which allege both abandoned their duties
Vote of No Confidence (VoNC) motions are being brought against the City and Guilds College Union (CGCU) President and Vice President. The VoNCs have been submitted as papers to be considered during the next Union Council on the 8th of November.
Both motions have the required proposer, and twenty members of the Union (students) as seconders. The motions state that the President “has not once contacted a single member of this year’s committee”, and the Vice President “was in limited contact with a couple of members of committee throughout the summer, which has since ceased”. Additionally, the motions state that neither the President nor Vice President completed their handovers.
The motions state that the President “has not once contacted a single member of this year’s committee”
The motions allege that neither were “at all involved in planning, organisation and hosting of any CGCU activities in 2022- This [sic] includes committee set up, Welcome Week and Welcome Dinner planning”. Neither were spotted manning the CGCU Welcome Fair booth in early October. The CGCU has notably held an annual “Welcome” dinner in October for students and alumni for the last 124 years. This year, it will be held on 12th November.
A student familiar with the VoNC has said that both have been contacted multiple times, and have not been heard from after the motions were put forward.
If successful through a two-thirds majority of those “present and voting”, both members “may not be elected to or hold that office again”, but this disqualification may be removed through an act of Union Council (according to Union Constitution). “present and voting” means elected members who have a voting position on Union Council and attend the Council meeting on 8th November. If successful, the CGCU President and CGCU Vice President positions are expected to remain vacant until the next leadership elections in Summer Term.
The current CGCU President won on a manifesto to “create new opportunities and resolve existing issues for engineering students”, beating out another student who had experience being on three committees at the Union. The current CGCU Vice President promised to “work with sponsorship/ treasurer officers to secure extra funding for events”.
The current Union President was last year’s CGCU President, and in their manifesto, stated that one of her goals was to “establish support for the Constituent Unions in a concrete way”. Previously, raising VoNCs have prompted the member resigning before the motion is considered, and leading the proposer to retract it.
The City and Guilds College Union (CGCU) represent all students from the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial except for those in the Department of Materials and the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, and advocate for the academic and welfare needs of Engineering students. All registered students are automatically members of Imperial College Union (the Union). The CGCU is one of five Constituent Unions that have existed since the foundation of Imperial College London.
