IGNITE offers students gift cards for joining members meeting

Humber College’s student government, IGNITE, hosted their annual special meeting of the members virtually on Wednesday, Sept. 10 with all attendees auto-muted and not visible on screen. This meeting happens annually at the start of the fall semester to briefly introduce students to the newly elected board, present the impact report and receive the audited financial statements for the fiscal year.

The special members meeting along with the annual general meeting previously was held in person prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, since the pandemic, IGNITE meetings that were open to the public moved online indefinitely.

Lionel Campbell, the board administrator manager, told Skedline via email, “In our ongoing commitment to inclusivity, recognizing our presence across multiple campuses, we acknowledge the growing convenience of virtual events for our student body.”

In order to attend, students had to register online for the event in advance in order to get their unique access link. IGNITE incentivized students to join by offering $25 Uber Eats gift cards (purchased by the union with part of their annual operating budget) to the first 150 participants to join the meeting.

The process, however, was not as straightforward for some students. Kaila Simpson said she heard about the meeting from friends and wanted to register because she has attended previous events hosted by the student union. “When I went to sign up, there was nowhere for me to actually get a ticket, so I assumed it must have been sold out or something,” Simpson said.

The session began promptly at five minutes past 11 a.m. after they reached a quorum of at least 50 attendees. Camera and microphones were disabled for all excluding Shanell Roye, the chair of IGNITE’s board of directors, the meeting presenter. Students were only able to ask questions in the chat.

Lauren Martin, a Humber film student, said she attended looking forward to the gift card, but was also interested in hearing about the union’s student outreach efforts.

IGNITE covered in their impact report the number of students that they served with specific events and initiatives, but there were no specifics shared on their programs or resources available this year.

“I wanted to have learned more about student support, specifically financially,” Martin said.

Following the impact report summary, there was a quick presentation by Robert Wilkes, a partner at BDO, who explained the key points of IGNITE’s financial audit that is done every year by BDO.

Martin said that while the session was informative, “it was not particularly useful.” Roye stated that the meeting would end with a question and answer session with her and the union’s CEO, Ercole Perrone.

Perrone did not appear to be present in the meeting screen, and all student’s questions in the chat were answered in chat reply. There were no questions taken verbally and no verbal answers given from IGNITE representatives.

The next open meeting will be the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in March of the winter 2024 semester. Students can keep up to date on future meetings and events through IGNITE’s website.