17 maj 2021

Chapter meeting 2 - longest SM2 yet?

An unusual amount of items on the agenda led to the longest chapter meeting 2 in several years with financial statements, three motions and eighteen elections to be decided. Some technical limitations also created one of the most confusing meetings. Esset reported live from the digital meeting as always and here is a recap in English.

Image from chapter meeting 1, in February 2020. Last week's meeting was digital like the two before.

53 members were present at the start of the meeting with meeting presidents David Westin and Kalle Escher starting the meeting as usual. After the traditional formalities, chapter president Oskar Sundström informed the meeting about the chapter’s operations since the last ordinary meeting in February. Some key points have been the updated chapter grants, given by the ABE school to its corresponding chapters, which were increased by 63 000 kr. This news came as a surprise to many since the grant previously was to be reduced due to differences between the other chapters according to the school. Oskar went on to talk about several task forces introduced by the board, including a group for digitalization headed by Kalle Mårtensson, a group for the new environmental policy headed by Ossian Ahlkvist and Oskar himself, and the jubilee committee. Despite extensive marketing, no one has applied to head the latter group. Problems concerning the compliance to coronavirus regulations in OaSen continue and Oskar again raised a warning that KTH may close all chapter halls if these problems continue. The chapter has also had several digital events, including “chapter day 2.0” where the committees of the S-chapter had a chance to market themselves to the year ones. However, his disappointment with the attendance by the first-years was evident. But on the other hand, Oskar informed the chapter about a very successful digital event held by QBM, which we might expect more from if the restrictions continue.

The next speaker, vice president Elin Lindgren presented a follow-up on the chapter’s economy in relation to the budget. The largest surprise presented was that the Lava work fair greatly exceeded the profit goals. In the budget decided in December 2020, Lava was projected to net-zero profits from a 1.1 million turnover due to much lower company participation in this year’s digital work fair. In previous years, the fair has garnered a 500 000 kr profit to be used to cover many of the chapter’s other expenses. Now, Elin explained that due to the costs this year being much lower than expected the project was able to reach an even larger profit than last year. For this reason, the procurement of a new car which was put on hold due to the uncertain economic situation was again put on the table.

As the information points of the agenda finished, it was now time for the board of 2020 to present the annual report for their operational year. Last year’s president Mario Ishak, who jokingly introduced himself as Don Covid, presented their follow-up of the operational plan and report very briefly before handing over to the last vice president Jesper Andersson. Jesper presented the financial statements and concluded that the chapter made a profit during 2020 despite changes projecting the chapter to make a record loss. He raised a note of caution and said that it is problematic that the chapter year after year has large differences between the budget and the final outcome since the chapter is a non-profit organization that should balance costs and income. Lastly, the auditors Frida Carlsson and Karolina Näsén presented their evaluation of the board, recommending the chapter to follow the suggestion of freeing the board from responsibility and establishing the financial statements. The meeting decided accordingly.

The next part of the agenda concerned three motions submitted to the meeting. The first meeting concerned Qlenod, the group responsible for selling overalls and patches as well as taking care of the chapter’s historic belongings. Simon Jändel, responsible for the group argued for the creation of three more roles, splitting up the responsibilities into three parts:

Qluddkonsulent - Responsible for patches and merch
Qalaskonsulent - Responsible for events organized by the group
Qunnighetskonsulent - Responsible for safeguarding traditions and older possessions of the chapter.

Simon’s own role, Qlenod, was also to be changed to Qlenodintendent. The chapter meeting approved his motion, thereby increasing the number of officials in the chapter.

Motion number two was presented by the Lava work fair’s head of marketing Karolina Landgärds. The motion consisted of two parts, the first concerning adding another version of the logo to the regulations and setting an official colour scheme for the graphical profile. The second part of the motion treated the whole chapter’s marketing strategy and sought to formalize the rule that the chapter’s central marketing channels should be reserved for Lava during the three weeks leading up to the fair according to the group. Questions were however raised that the proposed formulation was unclear and did not cover which events and types of marketing should be allowed. The current regulation, a part of the marketing guidelines, has been controversial with many differing opinions on what types of marketing and events can be held during February. Member Karl Mårtensson therefore argued that the chapter meeting should not make this change to the regulations until a more specific proposal has been developed. The chapter meeting decided to accept Lava’s first part of the motion but rejected part two, allowing for the chapter meeting to make a decision on a revised second part.

The third and final motion concerned the composition of the chapter board with Ossian Ahlkvist and Oskar Sundström arguing that one of the members should be responsible for environmental sustainability in order to follow up the chapter’s environmental policy. The chapter board, Oskar Sundström excluded, answered that the motion could be misinterpreted as the creation of a specific role with responsibility for sustainability work. They therefore suggested an alternative formulation that the board should decide which board member or other committee should be responsible for the S-chapter’s sustainability work. At the meeting, Ossian and Oskar agreed to this change and the meeting decided to accept the motion with the board’s changes.

After a short dinner break, the election of new officials went underway. Before the meeting, the nomination committee’s candidate list stood empty for seven out of fifteen positions but as the meeting went on several members presented their candidacy at the meeting, many of them with this year’s officials. The election of vice toastmaster was the only election in which there was any competition, with Jonas Rissén winning and accompanying Gabriel Manne for the 2021/2022 period. The result of the other 18 elections is shown below.

Due to the sheer amount of elections and the fact that the meeting presidium could not meet to coordinate, the whole meeting was characterized by many “technical breaks” as Kalle Escher and David Westin tried to navigate the many polls to be administered. Combined with relatively complex discussions about the motions, there was quite a lot of confusion which seemed to resolve itself as the meeting went on. All in all, the last meeting of the semester was quite a long one with many decisions to be made. But as the meeting reached its end after four and a half hours and 35 members remaining, the mood still seemed to be high as the chapter starts to prepare for the summer vacation.

Karl Mårtensson

Editor-in-chief

Saga Ugarph

Writer