THE MTS AGM; OMG.

For the past 3 whole days, I have been attending The Manitoba Teacher's society Annual General Meeting.  Just to give a little background to those who need it, teachers in this province belong to 2 unions.  Their local one (such as Louis Riel Teacher's Association, or mine, the Winnipeg Teacher's Association) AND a provincial union as well; Manitoba Teacher's Society.  (Why 2 unions, you ask?  That's another discussion and debate all together- some for it, most against.)  So every year, there is an Annual General Meeting for delegates from all the little local unions to come together and talk about some big education issues, the budget, our retirement fund, (re)elect the MTS executive, and a host of other tidbits.  This Annual General Meeting (AGM) is held over 3 days.  3 very, very long days.  This year I decided to request to attend.

I think it's important to be informed.  This school year, I am one of the delegates from our school to attend our local union meetings (WTA), so I thought that it would be taking it a step farther to attend the MTS AGM as well, as seeing as our school had not been represented at this meeting for a long while, show our solidarity in attending.

First came the pre-meeting; called the "Binder Meeting".  At this gathering about 3 weeks before the AGM, you are presented with the largest binder you can purchase that has all the information you need for the upcoming meeting.  Over the next 3.5 - 4 hours, the local union went over said binder, including all info you needed as a delegate to vote in an informed way.  READ: information overload. I went home very apprehensive of the upcoming AGM.

Then the AGM.  3 days of intense discussions.  Session started at 9, broke at 12 for lunch, reconvened at 1:30, went to 5.  No breaks.  All talk, with some raising of hands.  LOTS of arguing over small points of contention.  At this AGM, each local union has an opportunity to raise amendments to policy.  There were 100+ amendments to talk and discuss over these 3 days, in between other official reports, called "timed items" (timed items to be held at specific times in the schedule, hence the name).  Timed items often were dry, consisting of retirement info (looooong way away), budget (numbers- YUCK), Provincial Executive elections, or other speeches carrying little interest.  During these times I found myself amusing myself as I could, and creating doodling pages that describe visually the time I had on my hands.  Day one:

  I simply took a "FYI" memo and decided to decorate.  This is usual of my meeting diversions; in order to focus better, I busy my hands.  Some do marking, some puzzles, I artistically doodle. I do not in any way consider this art, but it makes me happy to create it.  :) During the lengthy budget talks on Thursday, this is what I got done.
Day 2: 

I got a little more creative the second day, and found the dividers in the binder a much better doodle surface.  On Friday I used the "union-speak" words of the AGM as a platform to create this page.  Words such as "amendment", "delegate", "A or B resolutions" inspired me. Most of this was done during the TRAF (Teacher's Retirement Allocation Fund) talk.
Day 3:

Day 3 I took a different style.  I took a collective look at all the acronyms of all the local unions, and patterned them around the provincial union, MTS.  The medium size letters around MTS are all the local unions in the city of Winnipeg (Pembina Trails Teachers Association, River East Transcona Teacher's Association, etc), and the handwritten ones are all the rural unions (Borderland Teacher's Association, Portage la Prairie Teacher's Association, etc.). Amusing.  I didn't have a lot of time today, as it was Saturday and business was at a quicker pace, but complete none-the-less.  :)

Just to show you that I was not close to the sole person amusing themselves as they see fit, one person that caught me eye was a gentleman from the AEFM (French Teacher's union) that was making the most intricate origami.  He was passing them out, and I got this one:

An eagle.  Amazing, Eh?  He also made numerous frogs, dinosaurs (a T-Rex, awesome!!), and others.

All kidding aside, the AGM makes very important decisions about the welfare of teachers.  While so much is political rhetoric, the well-being of the teaching profession follows guidelines developed at these meetings.  Everything from professional development, to prep time to terms of disability is discussed, with so much more in between.  I am happy I was a part of it this year.  Future years, well, we'll have to see how I feel after catching up on sleep missed, work at school, cleaning at home, and time missed with family.

Oh, and for the teaching community out there, here's a newsflash:  As of September, it's no longer a "SAG" conference, it's a "SAGE" Conference.  (Special Area Groups of Educators).  Cool, eh? No more sag jokes.

Today when I arrived home today after 7 hours of meeting, I found this:

...and I curled up on the couch next to them.  Nice.
Thankfully, I have tomorrow to put my affairs in order before heading back to work.  :)