[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [ProgSoc] ProgSoc space/power/bandwidth; structure of the wireless support deal.



On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 08:24 +0700, Roland Turner wrote:
> Erm, how did that happen?

This happened because members made commitments on behalf of the society
that should never have been made without detailed discussion among the
executive. Here's some context:

	"No. No. Hell no."
		-- Robert Howard (CTO), 30/01/07

	"Please say "we're interested" but do not say "yes"..."
		-- Myself (President), 30/01/07

I still can't fathom how an email ended up being sent shortly after that
saying we'd do it.

As far as I can tell, Peter Gale had approached CK regarding the offer
to support UTS wireless. Part of the conversation included Peter
outlining how he often has to convince the faculty that Progsoc should
not pay for bandwidth, specifically alluding to the fact that in recent
times, ITD has been forced to pay their own way. Talk of loosing our
room also arose, although I'm unsure whether it was just a rumour or if
Peter raised concerns of this happening.

As President at the time, I probably did the wrong thing by not
immediately approaching the University and getting some kind of formal
acknowledgement of Progsoc's present and future standing with regards to
our room and Internet access.

Prior to this, I'd informally approached Tharam Dhillon who was Dean of
FIT at the time to discuss treatment of Progsoc by the faculty and
University as a whole. This was mainly over two problems:

1. Members of the Progsoc executive (myself included) were thrown out of
O'Camp in 2006 by the Associate Dean of FIT, which meant we were unable
to talk about Progsoc to prospective members (the new students IT). 

2. Progsoc was told it could no longer book rooms within building 10
(FIT).

I decided I'd speak to the Dean about what the hell was going on, during
which both the room booking and access to O'Camp were granted.

Perhaps as Roland says, it's time for the current executive to seek
formal acknowledgement of the University's commitment to Progsoc. As it
stands, it seems as though the interests of both parties are
conflicting. This conflict could lead to Progsoc straying from its
charter and loosing what Progsoc has always stood for.


Cheers,

--
Nathan de Vries

Attachment: smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature