After today's meeting, the 48-year-old institution's future at the University of Wollongong is still hanging in the balance, according to a statement by UniMovies committee chairman Peter Castle.
Below is the full text of the statement posted on the Facebook page:
My meeting with Melissa Thompson of Advancement Division and Alf Maccioni of Pulse went as expected.
Melissa indicated that UOW has no place in their governance for UniMovies as we are. The only place they feel we can go is under the Pulse Clubs & Societies umbrella. While I expressed concern that the sample constitution (at least the one cached on Pulse's website although Alf could not say if it hasn't altered again) was fairly specific about students being the only people who can be on the committee (except for sport clubs who only need two), Alf seemed to think this was flexible. The other clauses that concern me are those involving financial processes including what happens if the club is disaffiliated/dissolved.
So we're going to have yet another meeting next week with Alf and the person who runs clubs. While skeptical of a solution being found I have to have a positive approach to a solution being found. Again I will keep all posted.
One of the points I made re UniMovies being a future student club was the difficulty of getting students to join UniMovies. I posited the option of separating the process of showing movies from watching movies. UniMovies has always kept the two together by saying membership provided free admission to all our screenings but for a large amount $100. This has probably been a deterrent to students joining UniMovies. So, what if UniMovies became a club dedicated to showing movies. A membership could then be even feeless. We'd seek anyone who was interested in the process of presenting movies to join. I admit that there would be some difficulty providing a purpose to those who did not become a member of the management committee. As part of the presentation, UniMovies would then charge an admission fee to attend an individual movie, and a 'Season Pass' covering all shows. Would students, staff and alumni still be interested in joining such a UniMovies?
What do our friends think?
