UPDATE: CUSU Cock-Up Causes Conference Confusion

UPDATE:

CUSU voted on honorary memberships last night. Gerard Tully was not put forward for the honour, but was nominated in a motion by Charlie Bell. They argued over the honours for two hours last night, with incoming President Ros Old vocally opposing his nomination.

On a large majority, CUSU Council decided to award Tully with life membership.

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Bizarre events at CUSU have revealed rifts between President Gerard Tully and other members. 

This week Gerard Tully was the cause of a spat between officials after he failed to file any motions for the NUS Conference in April.

Gerard didn’t send any passed motions to be discussed at the NUS, for which he has now apologized. But some angry CUSU members have taken this as an opportunity to denounce Gerard’s actions as “pathetic” and “failures.”

In a furious email sent by CUSU member Sam Wakefield, he trashed Gerard’s decisions. The contents of this message were leaked to The Tab.

“I wish to convey to you how appalled I was by your conduct at Council on Friday, and in particular by the way you trashed your sabbatical colleagues in what I feel was a pathetic attempt to avoid taking responsibility for your own failures.”

Sam criticized what he saw as Gerard blaming his sabbatical team together, “You were all so busy running elections, running around furiously, not really sure what you were doing, and during the course of this collective mayhem you all *unavoidably* jointly failed to do something you were *all* meant to do.”

Trouble in paradise

This has been viewed as an exaggeration by some CUSU members. The NUS conference only spent a short amount of time debating student submitted motions. Joel Fenster, the appointed NUS-CUSU delegate, said that “it wasn’t an issue at all.”

“In reality nothing we were debating in CUSU was rare. To use what happened as a judgement on Gerard’s presidency is a big misunderstanding.”

The Tab has learned that Gerard spent around 5 hours debating motions to submit, which would only have been minor amendments. In actual fact the NUS Conference only spent a short amount of time actually debating Student Union ideas.

This exchange is apparently part of wider fighting and political intrigue fracturing CUSU.

CUSU’s Graduate Union Development Officer Charlie Bell said “This ludicrously overblown and dubious complaint about frankly irrelevant motions is a direct attempt to undermine Gerard, and has been going on all year, masterminded by the pathologically jealous Sam Wakefield, who was categorically trounced for the Presidency by Gerard.”

Sam “needs to get a life, get a real job, get over himself, and get lost.”

Also causing trouble and strife in CUSU is the annual Honorary Life Membership award. Normally a way of recognising those who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in their student careers, this year’s nominations have been muddied by CUSU in-fighting.

Charlie told us that “Gerard is evidently an ideal candidate for the award: he’s done so much for CUSU.

“The Sabbs who vote for the award are pretty wet individuals. Sam is pulling the strings.”

The Tab spoke to Sam Wakefield, who did not wish to comment.

When asked what happened, Gerard said “It was a cock-up and it was my fault.”

“I’m not that interested in engaging with petty politics. I’m interested in finishing the job that I have.”