The meeting began with a presentation from the Architects chosen to develop the Beit Quad Masterplan.
After some questions, such as whether changes in the management of current facilities would be more effective than an overhaul, Council accepted that some changes were needed and agreed to a working group developing the plans, especially financial details and funding sources, over the summer, in order to bring back more detailed proposals next term.
Next, Council approved at the second reading those Constitutional changes approved before the guillotine fell at the last quorate meeting; namely, the abolition of the AGM with the intention that posts previously elected at the AGM will now be elected by (on-line) cross-College ballot, and changes to the financial regulations , most notably increasing the amount that can be approved at each level in line with a few years' inflation.
The next paper was more controversial. After the last quorate meeting hit its guillotine, and the follow-up meeting failed to reach quorum due to exams, there was no time for two meeting between 15 and 40 College days apart, as is constitutionally required for constitutional changes. However, the Executive then proposed passing the less controversial changes at a single meeting, with indications that College Council would be willing to accept those changes.
The first changes passed were the establishment of the Postgraduate Association and Deputy President (Graduate Students).
Once these were passed, several members expressed discomfort at the idea of approving the remaining changes with due process, wary of setting precedent regarding anything other than the clearly exceptional matter of the new Sabbatical position. However, eventually the changes were passed, including policy-making powers for SAC, the abolition of the House, Student Development and Health and Safety Committee and the redistribution of their remits to other committees including SAC, and the election of the Overseas Students' Committee chair by all overseas students rather than through the CSC to justify the increasing representational remit of the post.
A further change, which some felt to be less uncontroversial, was an alteration to the Executive committee. As well as adding the new DP(GS) and OSC chair, the election of other members was altered, such that instead of all being elected from Council but subject to quotas for some officer types, members would be elected by the relevant committees: 2 from SAC, one from Academic Affairs and one from Welfare Committee.
however, the highly controversial changes to Council were not pursued any further.
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