Wednesday, September 23, 2020
1. Before the pandemic, WURA Executive members met with the University President, Provost and V.P. Human Resources at the JCC (Joint Consultative Committee) Meeting in February. Topics discussed: (Summary of the WURA Volunteer Survey Report, Recognition of WURA members regarding Employment Equity Gains at UWindsor, Request to HR for a List of Retired Non-Union Managers as possible new WURA members, and Approval for Previous Agreements between WURA and prior UWindsor Presidents) have not been discussed much since.
2. At the beginning of the pandemic, for a group of ‘most-at-risk’ seniors, the WURA Executive decided to cancel all meetings, provide a grocery shopping service for our members (Thank You to Carol Reader and all the volunteers), and communicate to our members on a regular basis by e-mail and through our WURA website.
3. As a result, the WURA Spring General Meeting and our upcoming Fall AGM are both cancelled.
4. Some WURA members participated in the campus ‘Virtual Challenge’ in April and May.
5. After 5 months with no solution in sight, except through a vaccine, and seeing that the campus was going to teach primarily online for the Fall semester and possibly beyond, the Executive decided to start meeting online with Teams. After a couple ‘practice’ meetings, the Executive will meet on September 23rd for 45 minutes only, as a start.
6. At this Executive Meeting, we will only discuss those “critical” topics that we would like to make a decision on now, to pass on to the WURA membership, especially since we do not feel that we can have a Fall AGM this year. As a result, we will be asking the WURA members to accept and ratify most of the decisions made by the Executive at this time, except the Nominating Committee Report, where we will ask the members to approve the Executive recommendations by both an online and mail-in vote. These “critical” topics include: a Motion for the Executive to now make decisions for WURA; the Nominating Committee Report and Executive approval; WURA members’ online and mail-in vote on the Nominating Committee Report; the WURA President’s Report and a discussion and decision on the surplus/carry forward travel funds.
7. For other “non-critical topics, we feel a report is only required from these committees at this time, if there is a “significant issue”. We should have full reports from these committees later in the year. These “non-critical” topics and committees include: Treasurer’s Report; Scholarship/Bursary Fund Report; BofG Pension Report; WUFA Contract; Social; and HR Report.
8. With the pandemic, the WURA Travel Grant only had 2 applications this year. The carry forward amount from last year covered this year’s grants. The full $10,000 has been approved to be carry-forwarded to next year. A decision on its use will be made at our Executive meeting of Sept. 23rd, after meeting with Heather Pratt (from ORIS) 2 days earlier to discuss possible uses.
9. Socially, we are proposing a “WEEKLY WALK FOR THE COVID-WEARY” and a “MUSIC JAM”, all socially-distanced, as well as a yet-to-be-decided modified Holiday Luncheon. We are awaiting the President’s agreement if they fit into UWindsor’s ‘Return to Campus’ philosophy.
10. On behalf of WURA, I plan to attend the CURAC online Conference on Sept. 30th, which was rescheduled from the CURAC Conference at UBC in May.