Apostrophe on apostrophe

20 year old typo causes bureaucratic diversions

Every year I prepare the legal filings of our Annual General Meeting. This includes Form 11, which details any changes to our bylaws.

In October, the GSS passed several bylaw changes and I dutifully submitted them using the reuired Form 11. Following the procedure requested by the registrar in past years, I simply attached a copy of the new bylaws and sent them in with a note on the form asking them to replace the old bylaws with the new.

Today I received notice the bylaw changes are being "held on file" until I correct them because, as noted in the comments, "Name must be exactly as registered: Student's Society".

Apparently our founding board couldn't use an apostrophe correctly (what would Lynne Truss say?) and the GSS founding documents thus list us as the University of Victoria Graduate Student's Society. Or perhaps there really was only one graduate student back in the 80s when we were incorporated as a society.

Perhaps I should file a complaint about the GSS on this blog. It seems we are doomed to a legally required error... what is a person to do when government demands you maintain a typo to keep your bylaws legal? Perhaps call a special AGM simply to remove the errant punctuation? (Imagine the debate...it would rival the infamous Ince/Pollock semicolon battle of March 20;06!).

So there you have it, dear imaginary reader, my apostrophe on the errant apostrophe and the resulting form filing catastrophe.

Perhaps you are unaware you want to be the grad rep...

That's right! You want to be a grad rep!

Why? Well, how about being part of all the great changes the GSS is winning for our members?

In the past few years, the GSS has won some significant victories:
-payment of tuition in installments
-creation of an english as a second language thesis writing group
-reduction of fee unit requirement for one year programs (ie less tuition)
-worked with other grad students in BC to win the creation of a BC Grad Scholarship program

Grad reps, who are elected in each department and meet monthly at the GSS, have been part of all this. Grad reps also help with all major governance decisions at the GSS: do we renovate the kitchen? do we borrow money to do it? Do we build our own darn superconducting supercollider for Tayfun? Its up to the reps, man.

So think about getting involved. Make sure the problems faced in your department are being addressed. Learn from other departments about how to make your department cooler. (ie. Economics has pet fish. Do you??)

Oh, and btw there is pizza (or other food) at the meetings and we are having a grad rep social one hour into our first meeting Sept 30.

So... now you know. YOU want to run for grad rep and be the coolest grad in your department! Here's how: http://gss.uvic.ca/gradrepelect2008.htm