Trinity College Dublin Student Union (TCDSU) Council meetings are to be conducted entirely online this year due to restrictions on gathering in large groups.
Speaking to Trinity News, TCDSU Electoral Commission (EC) Chair Yannick Gloster explained that Council will be “run live on zoom” with only the voting members of council in the zoom call.
Non-voting members will be able to follow along live on Facebook or Youtube.
Gloster explained that as non-voting members are allowed to speak at Council, the members of the EC will be “monitoring those chats on those other platforms to give the opportunity to everyone to speak their opinions as they might normally at a normal Council”.
“I will be relying heavily on the members of the EC to moderate and give access to people who would like to speak,” he said.
Gloster confirmed that the dates for the Council are “still being finalized” between the union’s sabbatical officers, the Chair of Council, and the Secretary of Council. This is in adherence with the SU Constitution, which states that “ordinary meetings of Council shall take place as decided by the Sabbatical Officer Board in consultation with the Chair of Council and the Secretary to Council”.
Speaking about considerations made when adapting to the new online format, Gloster said that “the biggest thing that we (the SU Council) have to think about is engagement”.
“We hope to promote Council by email and through the different social media channels of the SU to make it clear that it is something that everyone (and especially class reps) can and should participate in,” Gloster continued.
“In modeling off of how the Union of Students’ in Ireland (USI) was run last year, we think that we are prepared to have a successful and smooth online council.”
Ordinarily, TCDSU Council meets in the Stanley Quek lecture theatre of the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) approximately once per month during academic semesters.
