What is Wrong?

So what is wrong with SRC. Let's start over. Point One: Hugh Blank, in a letter to Salient, criticised the clique running SRC with its "cliched rhetoric and psuedo-intellectual clap-trap". Not letting the masses push their ideas forward. Point two: Mark Sainsbury, standing on a "grassroots student" platform, attacked bureaucratism and swept in as a rep to NZUSA May Council. Point three: A hundred students clapped vaguely.

The three major citicisms of SRC at present are of a leadership that is rather repressive, disliked for its bureaucracy and "rhetoric", and paradoxically not good at leading, giving direction. The reception that this gets is obvious from each SRC and the lack of people at it.

The criticisms are sound, but they're essentially distructive, not suggesting improvements (Hugh Blank's improvements centre on form rather than content - and run into the same problems as advertising).

Destructive criticism has us strong points Like the year's beginning, when some of us went off the rails. The fierce attack then was clearly needed (tho' should have been received better). The distrust of Exec stemming from this (and the attack on Don Carson's activities at ASA) has continued. It showed itself at the AGM when all the annual reports were rejected. What this means is not clear. Its even less clear what can be done about it.

The AGM also saw a mass exodus when hassles over technicalities of constitution or accounts cropped up. While taken to excess here there is no doubt that constitutions and accounts are necessary. They are a part (and only a part) of ensuring that an Association works well for its members.