On March 24th, 2024 the Trent Central Student Association (TCSA) held a meeting of its Board of Directors, whereby it ratified the results of its Spring Election and put together a Presidential Committee, which shall select one of the Association’s Directors to serve as President over the summer, until the Fall 2024 By-Election.

Opening this meeting was the presentation of Executive transition reports by the TCSA’s outgoing Executives. These were mostly made up of a summary of each Executive’s Event planning and Committee participation over the year, with President Aimee Anctil sharing a list of  materials she put together to prepare the next TCSA President for their role.

This section featured a list of general tips as to how to conduct the day-to-day operations of the TCSA, as well as a syllabus of Anctil’s most formative readings, films, and podcasts. Among the works recommended to her successor were Sarah Ahmed’s What’s the Use?, Arthur’s own Growing Pains podcast series, and bell hooks’ The Will to Change.

Each new Vice President will receive a Transition Report from their predecessor, with the new VP of Health and Wellness’ being sourced from 2022 VP of Health and Wellness Carter Tongs, as the past two VP Health & Wellnesses have failed to serve a full term.

The Association also ratified previous proposed changes to their operating resolutions, committing to offset any purchase deemed ‘unethical’ with donations to unspecified charitable organizations.

The results of this year’s Spring Elections were subsequently presented to the Board for ratification. This year’s reported election turnout was 16.24% of the Student Body, a significant fall from last year’s 22.72% and 2022’s 18.63%, and a mere 1.24% past the minimum threshold for referendum quorum.

Association Resources Manager Wendy Walker attributed this drop in part to Trent’s recent email migration to Outlook from Gmail, which filtered emails containing the ballot to its ‘Other’ session, making them less visible to students. Walker reported hoping to use the summer term to get together with colleagues to discuss “realistic approaches and how we can better engage students” and how to “figure out some of these kinks”.

Arthur also questioned Walker about the election’s quorum (minimum turnout threshold) of 15%, or 1509 students, a threshold which, despite the entire election’s purported turnout of 16.24%, was not met in total votes cast for any candidate or referendum questions. Walker explained that the Association considered quorum met owing to the large number of abstentions. “Even if a student skipped over a question, that still counts as them abstaining and counts towards the overall voter quorum,” she explained.

Article VIII. 46 of Robert’s Rules of Order, which binds the TCSA’s elections, states that an abstention is an abstention from voting—not a vote cast—and therefore does not count towards voter turnout. According to Robert's Rules, only if the TCSA received 1509 non-abstention ballots for any of the Referenda or Election questions, should they have ratified its changes.

The TCSA’s Elections and Statistics Page shows that the issue with the most non-abstention votes, the vote for the next Vice President of Campaigns & Finance, received 1254 votes. As previously observed by Arthur editor Evan Robins, none of the TCSA’s policies met quorum and should have been ratified, according to the word of their own policy.

Despite this apparent discrepancy, the TCSA voted to ratify the results of its election, and these results were carried.

Next year’s Board of Directors will feature Chase Kilbourne as Mature Students Commissioner, Sckyda Soviel Subay as Racialized Students Commissioner, Anshika Gaur as Vice President of Campaigns and Equity, Iyiola Alade as Vice President of University and College Affairs, and Kyra Myderwyk as Vice President of Health and Wellness.

Aimee Anctil will be replaced as President by a Director who will have to send a Letter of Interest to Wendy Walker, and be reviewed by a Presidential Committee, made up of President Aimee Anctil, Lady Eaton College Prime Minister Noah Edwards, Otonabee College Commissioner Jonathan Naylor, Off-Campus Commissioner Dustin Hannah, and Otonabee College President Ashley West as an alternative. 

Despite being internally appointed by a Committee with no non-Director representation, the appointed President will have the same level of authority as one elected by the whole of the Association’s membership.