Meeting began at 3pm sharp in the TAU offices

In attendance : Chris Pomeroy, Pres. Keith Chapman Russo, Mike Ciletti, David Zwart, Jessica Lynam, Amanda Bellino, Elise Boneau, Erdal Terleivatan, Jason Trowbridge, Jamie McCandless, Julie Dare Houck, Brendan Weaver, Meghan Cook, Lisa Horton, Michelle Erwin, Josh Muia, Dan Kueh and Julie Roos. (If I missed you or misspelled your name let me know)

It was noted that the Stewards Council sat with a constitutional quorum.

The meeting began with Steward Trowbridge reporting on B-Team meeting held last Wednesday. He read several articles that the B-Team had composed covering student salaries. After some discussion, it was suggested that final two articles, an overpayment clause and a payment ceiling clause, be cut because they may favor administration policies without intending to do so. All agreed that the B-Team's progress is excellent.

The B-Team will meet again this week, Wednesday Nov. 1 at 7pm with our AFT contact Alyssa. They encourage more stewards, especially from outside the College of Arts and Sciences, to participate, otherwise the contract will be written mostly by math and English students.

The Council then heard from Organizer Pomeroy, who is now the official organizer for TAU. He discussed four items:

1) The problem of data entry which should be reduced with the FOIA list, which we plan on getting soon.

2)He introduced the draft survey for the bargaining team, which can be found at taubargain.pbwiki.com. This survey will be used to collect data and start organizing conversations. If you would like to make suggestions, the password is "tauyes." Please do not share this password with the administration, as we do not need survey suggestions about how horrible unions are.

3) Organizer Pomeroy also opened some brief notices about mail. We have not received any word back from the administration on our proposed opening dates for bargaining. Steward Horton suggested looking into a P.O. Box as our postal arrangements now are awkward. Organizer Pomeroy said that the suggestion was a good one and he would look into it this week.

4) In order to keep the meeting short, all Stewards should contact Organizer Pomeroy this week to discuss their departments, as well as any efforts to organize in historically unrepresented departments.

Pres. Russo then tabled the discussion in order to proceed with officer nominations and elections. Steward Weaver argued that the elections should not take place at that time, because nominations had not been made earlier (they could not be because of a lack of quorum) and there was not sufficient time to get input from the general membership. It was objected by Pres. Russo that the elections were contained within the constitution, and it was unclear if a quorum would be sitting next week. Steward Weaver replied that a delay of one week was not substantial and called for a vote on the issue. There was some considerable debate on the points of the constitutional requirements, general membership participation, and the need to fill the executive offices. Eventually, the vote was taken at 13-2 in favor of postponing the actual election until the next meeting in order to encourage general membership participation.

Nominations were then opened, and after discussion, nominations, declined nominations, and haggling the nominations stand thus:

Presdient: David Zwart (history)

Vice-President: Jason Trowbridge (math), Josh Muia (chemistry?)

Information Officer: Julie Roos (English), Jamie McCandless (grad college), and Amanda Bellino (Spanish)

Treasurer: F. Michael Ciletti (history), Jamie McCandless (associate members)

Any other nominations should be made to Pres. Russo within the week. Steward Muia requested that before the elections, some information should be provided about the nominees at next week's meeting. All agreed without a vote, and without specifying the method to present information. Elections will take place on November 5th, 3pm.

The agenda for the next meeting 11/5

1) Report from B-team

2) Organizing report

3) Elections

The meeting was adjourned at 4pm sharp.

Please let me know if any corrections should be made and we will approve these minutes next meeting.

Steward McCandless