Last night was the MSU Recognition Night where student leaders invited by the MSU and the University wine and dine, and awards are handed out. The Honour M went to a good candidate this year. I have not heard about the other awards.
I was noticeably excluded from the invitations list this year, and was the only MSU committee member to not get an invite. I am also Silhouette staff which should have got me an invite.
Of course, being MSU public enemy number one and having been “blamed” for The Silhouette covering the story of the University President having the highest salary of any University President in Canada, I am not exactly popular.
The funny thing is that I would not have attended anyway. I received an invite last year and turned it down after attempting to arrange to pay for my own meal. I feel that the night is too MSU and does not get the true student leaders on campus, the people that volunteer day in and day out to run student clubs without any profile, thanks, compensation, or pay.
I, again, call on the MSU to look into how this night is organized, how much it costs and who is not invited and then ask themselves if this is good use of student money? You want to have a recognition night, no problem, do something in Quarters and invite the people that really get things done; grassroots leaders. I know I would attend.
you’re saying the many people recognized (much of which are on clubs, or do work day in day out for no pay) do not deserve a night of recognition..? we also have a VOLUNTEER recognition night that all hardworking volunteers are invited to. Also there are countless amounts of clubs on campus, and in order to not show bias or preference as to which clubs are more important we would have to invite all of them… do you realize how many people that would be???!!?!? it would essentially be another charity ball sized event. Furthermore, simply because you choose not attend an event as you feel it is a waste of money, i feel it is extremely important to attend to congratulate and recognize people like; Azim Kasmani, Aaron Orkin, Jax Calheviero, socs, the MSA, are all people or groups who have dedicated countless hours to bettering student life on campus joey and deserve our respect and deserve to be recognize… the legacy they all leave behind at this university will be ten fold to the things you do in the spirit of ‘fighting for students’. It is shameful that you would take something away from the many people who get no recognition other then student rec night after all their hardwork.
Regards, Kyle Park
ps, you should have come, you missed your call out in the swan song!
Dude big party April 14 at 8 PM in Quarters. Everyone’s invited. Grassroots leaders and even Treeroots are invited. It’s sortof a Recognition night after the Recognition night.
Should be blast!
Joey, doesn’t McMaster screen its students for literacy? Evidently Mr. Park evaded that requirement, since your arguments against the event are that it’s a huge waste of money, not that students shouldn’t be recognized. Had he been able to read, he would have seen just that.
It’s a false dichotomy on Mr. Park’s part to assume the only way to recognize the worthy is by throwing a huge party on student money.
Kudos to Joey for standing up for what’s unpopular. He’s one of the few that does this on regular occasion.
dont worry joey, i heard it wasnt that great. but i heard popham made a splash.
Hey Joey,
Actually, as i recall, you resigned from all the MSU committees you were sitting on, so not sure why that should then constitute an invite?
Plus, not all sil staff are invited, it is all the paid editorial/coordinator positions that are, the volunteers (as kyle pointed out) are recognized at volunteer rec night.
Also, an invitation for club executives is placed in every single club mailbox, as well, all the academic society execs are invited too. There are often mix ups in addresses or distribution of invites, but the invite list is actually quite diverse and extensive (roughly 500). And this is in addition to student leader workshop dinners organized by the student relations committee (to which club executives and academic society execs are invited), as well as the MSU clubs recognition night which will be occurring at quarters next week on the evening of the 26th.
Also this year i arranged to have performance groups that had done particularly notable events during the year to do two performance sets at the start of the evening, both Mac Dance Club and Mac Musical Theatre’s Hair did presentations and stayed for dinner. Did you happen to attend either of their shows and support student arts Joey? Because i didn’t see you there, nor at any other show or performance event throughout the year.
And to address at least one more comment, the invitations were organized through myself, one of our administrative assistants, and one of our office clerks, so your point about the Peter George salary story is flimsy at best. The office of the president has no bearing on who gets invited, in fact i actively refused and reduced the amount of university admin employees typically invited, so that i could make more room for more students to be invited.
Lastly, whether EFRT, SHEC, or any other MSU service is apart of the MSU or not, they are all still students from all faculties and years working/volunteering for them, so to put down rec night by generalizing saying it is too MSU centric undermines all the hard work they do. Have more respect Joey.
R
The resignations from committees was effective Sunday night, no one had prior knowledge as such an invite was in order.
I like how you point out that the paid positions get the fancy dinner and the volunteers just get a free drink at Quarters. Makes me point even stronger, that this is a waste of student money. The list includes the overwhelming majority of MSU paid staff. The only people that do not seem to go that are paid staff are the cashiers at the businesses.
The volunteers get a night where a lot less money is spent on them.
It shows where the MSU priorities are.
In terms of the “Joey does not support the arts angle”, I understand that as a threatre student it is very important to you and that you believe it is an insult for people to not attend productions. I went to one last year. This year, I am too busy volunteering in the community and at the Silhouette to make it out to these events. One must prioritize. I love to spend a few hours enjoying a play, but I do not have that kind of time for myself.
On top of the above, I have a job off-campus which is how I pay the bills.
I wish I had an on-campus job but the MSU did a good job of going after me with BS student code of conduct charges resulting in me not being able to get an on-campus position.
Oh and on the waste of student money thing too… actually a significant amount of the evening is money sponsored by the alumni association, so yeah, not a big “waste” at all.
As well, “I like how” i am about to point out that the volunteers outweigh any paid staff by a huge amount at Student Rec Night. As, besides the fact that SRA members are volunteers, for example, the SWHAT coordinator may be paid, but their exec is not, nor is the EFRT exec (honorarium), nor are the maroons exec, nor are the GLBT coordinators, nor are the Diversity coordinators, nor are the Bread Bin coordinators… and the list goes on. And that list is only in addition to the large number of award nominees, clubs, IRC, Academic society, and SOCS people that attend, who are once again, volunteer, or at the very least not under the MSU payroll.
Additionally, don’t “assume” that because i am theatre student that is the only reason why i like arts, Joey, assumptions make an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” Plus i, and i am sure many students from every faculty who enjoy and take part in theatre and art events would find such an assertion very offensive and degrading. This is aside from the fact that i am also, and for two of my years here, was solely a political science student like yourself. Plus, in all my years here i have supported arts while being involved in student politcs, socs, the sil, macgreen, macndp, poli sci association, working part-time jobs off campus, maintaining atleast 30 units per year, and yes, like you, volunteering in the community (which i also still do). So don’t give me the too busy, take a break from blogging from time to time and enjoy something more stimulating bud.
And as for jobs on campus, as i recall at the end of first semester you were employed in the all night study program in the musc, which unless i am gravely mistaken, is on campus.
Why would it even matter if you supported the arts or not? They can support themselves can’t they? Though I guess your lack of attendance must have really … affected … the performances….ok so maybe not but…You should have gone to…be there? God damn it why don’t you support the arts? what kind of a Joey Coleman can you call yourself if you don’t support the arts. There are more things in heaven and earth, Joey, than are dreamt in your philosophy you know? If 17,000 undergraduate students can support the arts and attend plays why do you have to be the only one that hasn’t gone to see a play? Or an arts…thingamagiggy?
God bless those graduating engineers.
For shame JC, for SHAME!!!! (oh and just to be sacrilegious too, for good measure, Jesus Christ = JC = Joey Coleman. Eat that…priests?)
PS did you take in the Kipling pranks today? The absolute logistic marvel of it all is amazing
You are correct that I was hired by the student centre for a week. Being non-MSU, non-University, I was able to apply and get the job. Once they found out my status with the MSU, I was let go.
Blogging is stimulating for me. I enjoy it and I get to perform somewhat of a service doing it too.
Kipling, I did take in some of the pranks. Sadly, I had a busy day chasing down a few stories and stuff. Plus I was in Toronto for a dinner/social event.
Also, I did not assume that was the only reason that you support the arts. I did point out that as a threatre major, it was clear that you did. I would hope one likes threatre studies if one is taking it. Just like I hope one likes political studies if one is taking them as a major.
“in all my years here i have supported arts while being involved in student politcs, socs, the sil, macgreen, macndp, poli sci association, working part-time jobs off campus, maintaining atleast 30 units per year, and yes, like you, volunteering in the community (which i also still do). So don’t give me the too busy, take a break from blogging from time to time and enjoy something more stimulating bud.”
I think he deserves a medal. Hey take some of those fees I pay for services of the MSU I don’t use and buy yourself one. Make it nice and shiny too, Mr Moran.
Oh oh oh and also get a shirt with a list of things you’ve been involved in on the back and the front (your choice where the list starts, I felt like being generous this time) so that you can go around and say “HEY EVERYBODY I DO SO MANY THINGS. LOOK AT ME. I’M THE AWESOMO 4000″ though I guess we should stick to the 3000 for now seeing as how the 4000 is in Stage Alpha (you know, the one before Beta?). Still gotta work out that whole mercilessly kicking kittens (go alliteration!) bug. Though you should see those suckers fly. All I’m gonna say is “It’s good!” (that’s a football reference in case you were pondering its meaning).
So AWESOMO 3000 it is. That’s the base model you start at. We will have to deduct 500 cause you can’t decide if you’re a politician or a theatre student (though I guess the difference is negligible at best, nonetheless, I don’t make the rules, I just follow them). Another 600 deduction for the comfy office you’ll be sitting in thanks to my money (yea yea you’re a student too and blah blah blah paid for it too…yada yada yada FUCK I just quoted Seinfeld, now Drew’s gonna be all over this like George over food in a garbage can).
Brings you down to the AWESOMO 1900. Pretty nifty title if I do say so myself. But I will be paying you for sitting on your ass whoops arse..hmmm butt? I don’t know what you artsies call it, let’s go with posterior. So that’s going to cost you 900 more awesomeness points.
So, AWESOMO 1000!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! You can go have a cookie. Or a “training retreat.” Whichever one wastes my money more. You decide (see I’m not as bad as my subjects think I am, I allow decisions). Anyway I must go randomly…To Be Continued
Why exactly is Ryan Moran looking up Joey’s employment history and putting it on this blog? And then listing all of his volunteering qualifications? Am I the only one who finds this a little weird…isn’t the campaign over? (Still trying to win voters, I see…)
I’m glad my ~$400 in MSU fees are going to good use – paying Execs to live on blogger websites. I see where the HUGE surplus is going.
P.S. Ryan please reduce MSU student fees thanks. And thank you for not supporting the $500,000 “donation”.
-d
I attended Student Recognition Night. Was the night focused around ‘grassroot’ student leaders? I don’t think so. Was it focused around clubs? Not really, there is a club award night for that. It is nice, however, for volunteers within the various groups and services to be invited to a free dinner. All MSU club leaders were invited (I’m not sure how many showed up though). That’s how I got my invite, we all had the chance to RSVP before the attendee list was full. I’m not sure who else was invited to the dinner outside of MSU clubs, and this was my first time attending such an event. I do know though that the people at my table consisted of 3 club leaders (myself – macinsiders.com, mmedia society, and the gaming club), as well as MacGreen, and the rest were CFMU.
Popham’s ending was the highlight, where he sang a comedic song. There were some moments in the song mentioning you Joey. I guess we can officially announce that you have become a celebrity figure within the MSU!
Food was decent and the music was great. Do I think the same sort of event could be held at Quarters? Probably so. In fact, there was an MSU Clubs recognition night held at Quarters which went well. However, I felt special for those 3-4 hours because of the fact that it was setup as an extravagant night, right down to the flowers at each table. I wouldn’t have felt the same way towards the night if it was held at a campus bar. The night makes those who attended feel like they are being pampered for a night for all their hard work (at least thats what I assumed the purpose behind the night was).
Does student recognition night = students money well spent? Well, that’s not a black and white answer. However, I respect all of the volunteers who work within McMaster and the MSU, and therefore I don’t personally have an issue with them enjoying one dinner together with their fellow volunteers. Volunteers are dedicating their time towards every student on campus, therefore all students benefit from volunteers.
However, I do have a slight issue with paid, full-time staff being there who didn’t heavily contribute to benefiting campus life. In my own opinion, if you’re being paid then that is how you are being recognized for your work. I agree with Joey on the point that a student recognition night should be primarily focused on “the people that volunteer day in and day out [...] without any profile, thanks, compensation, or pay”, no matter what service or group they are from. It is those people who work behind the scenes without pay that respect a free dinner much more than those who are being paid for doing their work. That being said, in order to keep the ‘prestigious’ theme going you need to have important non-voluntary people there such as a few university administration and high level MSU staff, including the Clubs Administrator and MSU Events… who contribute first hand to bettering student life.