A total lack of communication between the Orientation Round Table (ORT) and faculty societies led to financial discrepancies and invoices sent to faculty societies for thousands of dollars more than they expected, says AMS Vice-President (University Affairs) Julia Mitchell.
The report Mitchell’s writing based on the audit she conducted of ORT’s finances isn’t complete because she’s in Florida attending a conference on non-academic discipline. Mitchell said she has already told all the faculty societies what ballpark figures they should expect on their final Frosh Week bills, but the main result from her audit will be a few policy changes.

Engineering students may have to pay up if they ever want another pint at Clark Hall Pub. The Engineering Society voted at a council focus meeting Tuesday night that raising the student fee from $42.26 to $53 is the best way to cover costs associated with reopening Clark Hall Pub.
The pub closed in June 2007 after the AMS, which holds Clark’s insurance, and Residence and Hospitality Services Director Bruce Griffiths, the University’s liquor-licence holder, raised concerns of liability and financial mismanagement.

Computing students face a slate of acclamations in their election, which begins tonight.
Presidential candidate Tamara Redwood, CompSci ’10, said she hopes to increase student involvement in COMPSA. Redwood said she hopes to target first-years and open up new positions such as more first-year interns.

The same envelope of votes was entered twice in a tallying computer program in the first two counts of AMS election results late Wednesday night, resulting in an error the election team didn’t catch until they did a manual recount late Thursday night, AMS Chief Electoral Officer Connor Langford said.
Recount results announced early Thursday morning indicated Team Radcliffe-Wang-St. Clair won by one vote in the second round of preferential voting.

Matt Baxter, a football player for this year’s Ontario champion Western Mustangs, received a two-year suspension Jan. 24. That day, Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) announced Baxter tested positive for Letrazole metabolite, a substance on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) prohibited list.

Sydenham ward councillor Bill Glover hopes a new working group tasked with addressing town-gown relations will propose a bylaw requiring students’ landlords to obtain licences.
The proposed bylaw would require potential landlords for students to have a licence in order to rent their property, subject to property inspections.
The group, established by a motion Glover brought forward in November, is supposed to explore the Aberdeen Street party and student housing issues. It’s expected to report to council in March. Glover said the potential bylaw would only affect student housing areas. The group will decide which areas will be considered student housing areas.

A returning staff writer, Taylor Burns has provided some of the best A&E articles we’ve seen this year. Peppered with wit and graceful turns-of-phrase, Taylor’s stories often offer an alternative lens through which to see the art he writes about. We expect to see this gifted writer back in the pages of the Journal the moment he returns from exchange next year.

Hours after losing to team RWS by a single vote, AMS executive candidates team ACH requested a recount. Team Radcliffe-Wang-St. Clair was declared the winner shortly before 7 a.m. Thursday morning. RWS garnered 2,351 votes to ACH’s 2,350 in the second round of preferential voting in the recount the AMS election team called because the vote was so close.
To request a recount, a team must get 50 signatures and present them to the AMS elections office within 48 hours of the initial count.

Nael Bhanji got what he describes as a goodbye phone call from his parents this December.
“They were actually saying goodbye, mostly because they could hear a lot of shooting outside the house,” he said. “It’s been a bit hard to handle, everything that’s going on at home.”
Bhanji said this Christmas was particularly stressful for his parents, who were running low on food and hadn’t left the house in two weeks. They didn’t let him come home for the break. Bhanji, ArtSci ’08, was raised in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.

Canadian author Lawrence Hill published his book Someone Knows My Name to rave reviews in the United States in November 2007. Earlier that year, the book had been released in Canada with a more explicit title—The Book of Negroes.
The title had to be changed because his publishers thought the word “negro” was too explosive for use in the United States.
Despite being initially annoyed with the change, Hill said he now supports it. He was also allowed to give the novel its new title.

When Commerce Society President Dave Waugh opened an invoice from the Orientation Round Table in late November, he was surprised at what he saw. The bill read $18,858—230 per cent of the bill the Commerce Society (ComSoc) received for Frosh Week 2006.
Waugh said the Orientation Round Table (ORT) told ComSoc to budget for Frosh Week based on their numbers from the 2006 event. Last year ComSoc was given a $10,002.72 bill. They got $1,802.50 in sponsorship dollars, bringing the total to $8,200.20. This year ComSoc budgeted to spend about $2,000 more than last year, but wasn’t prepared for the much larger invoice.

Concurrent Education Students Association President-elect Todd Ormiston and his running-mates got some exciting news last night.

For the incoming Engineering Society executive, there’s nowhere to go but up.
Massive budget cuts, the Clark Hall Pub closure and a racist incident involving males in engineering jackets have amounted to a rough year for Queen’s engineering students.

An exhausted Team WCW was long asleep as the official recount continued until nearly 7 a.m. Thursday morning.
The team’s campaign manager Meghan Teuber managed to wake up presidential candidate Allison Williams, vice-president (operations) candidate Andrew Cameron and vice-president (university affairs) candidate Yanique Williams before the phone call came with news of the team’s loss.