News Brief: KSA approves motion to hold SGM, announces notice for student-requisitioned meeting had ‘irregularities’

The Kwantlen Student Association approved a motion to hold a special general meeting (SGM) “as soon as reasonably possible” during a council meeting held on May 28 at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Surrey campus.

The date for the meeting will be determined by the KSA’s executive director, Timothii Ragavan, based on discussion with KPU about availability for a meeting space, the motion read. 

Ragavan proposed the motion. He is a non-voting member of the KSA.

As per the Societies Act, the notice of the meeting called by student members of the KSA on May 30 should have been sent to the student body 14 days in advance of the meeting, Ragavan’s motion noted. The motion also read that the notice should have been posted on the KSA’s website on May 8, followed by email notice and posters across campus by May 15. The posters should also include, in “sufficient detail,” the business of the meeting.

Ragavan’s motion noted the requisitionists made errors in the notice of meeting they called for May 30, which were that no notice of meeting was posted at least 21 days in advance on KSA’s website, the notices provided by email and affixing posters was done on May 16 rather than May 15, and there were less than 30 posters per campus. 

The motion also stated that the notice did not include “sufficient detail for members to form a reasoned judgement on the business to be proposed at the general meeting.”

The KSA did not recognize the May 30 SGM “due to the irregularities with the requisitionists’ notice of meeting.”

“[Fourteen] days before May 30th is May 16th, members have no control over the KSA website, so the members can get away with this error, I believe the text of the special resolution was on the notice given by KPU and in posters, appointing someone is an ordinary resolution, we should all know that much. We are no-one to decide the validity of the meeting,” Faculty of Health Representative Harmanjot Grewal wrote in the meeting’s Microsoft Teams chat.  

“We did a mistake, we called the meeting to be held outside the required timeframe and that’s on us, members have the right to have their own valid meeting,” Grewal added. 

The council also held executive committee meetings on May 22 and 28. 

The committee approved $7,507.50 in funding for the Muslim Student Association’s June Eid Al Adha gift baskets in a non-meeting motion presented at the May 22 meeting.

In his report, Goyal said that he is in conversation with Cherylynn Bassani from the sociology department at KPU to find ways to support her research on gendered violence. 

He is also in discussion with the chemistry, physics, and biology labs at KPU to support funding for lab equipment such as lab coats and goggles. Goyal also met with the club executives to appreciate them for their work the past semester with movie tickets and student price cards. 

After meeting with the sustainability coordinator, Goyal said there have been talks to upgrade the community garden boxes, putting out plant seeds at KPU campuses, potentially increasing the limit for the Sustainable KSA SPUD gift card, and looking into increasing student incentives.

Goyal is also looking into upgrading bike lockers in collaboration with the MultiPass coordinator. 

At the meeting on May 28, the executive committee approved $2,600 for the KPU African and Caribbean Students Association’s (SOCA) Cultural Night. An amount of $1,700 was approved for the Creative Writing Guild’s Kwantlen Poetry Project, in addition to approving $2,827 for the KSA’s Summer Welcome Week event. 

The committee also approved $632 for the student union’s FIFA tournament, $287.43 in connection to meeting with club executives, $200 to the KPU Cricket club for live telecasting the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) final match, and $215 for the Kwantlen IT’s Git & GitHub 101: Version Control Beginners event. 

The roster for the KPU Sustainability Club was also renewed until April 30, 2026 at the meeting. 

The next KSA council meeting is scheduled for June 11 at 1:00 pm. Interested students can email info@kusa.ca to join.