DIRECTOR OF FINANCE WORK BLOG

[steveleenow]

Happy new year.

Wow, it's once again been awhile since I last posted. I keep promising not to let time drag on in between posts and yet it does. Since my last post, I've moved to a new place in South Surrey that it is very close to the Surrey campus and I found the other day that I'm only a 20 minute drive from the Langley Campus if I head along 32nd Avenue in South Surrey. I really like being in my new place - my allergies are under control as I'm able to keep the place organized - no longer do I have all my belongings crammed into a 10 by 10 space. And my studio space is setup so I can do more artwork.

But I digress.

Here's what I've been up to the last few days...

Thursday, January 15, 2009: (~4pm - 9:30pm on Surrey Campus): Attended and chaired the KSA Council (Board of Directors meeting from 4pm until later... I forget when the meeting ended. Following the conclusion of the Council meeting I stayed on campus until about 9:30pm, helping Kari Michaels and Vanessa Knight move furniture and equipment out of the KSA Cafe Lounge space and into other areas in preparation for the Underground 09 club night.

Friday, January 16, 2009... (1. ~10:30am - 1pm on Surrey Campus; 2. ~4:30pm - 11:00pm): 1. Went to Home Depot and picked up muchly needed supplies for keeping the cafe lounge area clean. This included a new professional mop bucket as the old one had broken wheels. I helped move some more items and did some cleaning in the lounge before going to class. I also signed some cheques! 2. Later in the day I helped with more prep work for the Underground event and was chosen to oversee the ticket booth where we sold entrance tickets, drink tickets and coat check tickets. Some great people were assigned to various tasks - John O'Brian manned the coat check and Kari Michaels lead up the drink ticket sales while I looked after the door sales. Overall it went well. Final numbers are not yet in but we did a quick count at the end of the night and the KSA made approximately $400 off ticket sales, and $500 off of alcohol sales (beer and coolers). And I believe another $40 was in the coat check by donation tip jar. Altogether, we brought back about $1,000 on the event which is very good. More than 170 people were in attendance - the majority of whom were students. Later in the evening, after the event was over I helped with some of the preliminary cleanup.

Saturday, January 17, 2009... (~1:30pm - 4:00pm): More cleanup of the cafe lounge. I primarily assisted with mopping the floors and moving furniture. Kudos to Nathan Griffiths, Vanessa Knight and Kari Michaels for being amazing and on campus before 8am.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009... (~1:00pm - 4:30pm): Worked on the final draft of the budget which I should be able to send out later tonight. Aside from sending a number of e-mails, I also worked on the executive board meeting agenda and the finance committee agenda.

That's it for now folks!

[steveleenow]

Thank-you for re-electing me to my position, for what is likely going to be my last year at the KSA. I am humbled to be able to continue serving the students of Kwantlen.

And on with documenting what I do...

I haven't done much related to Finance portfolio this weekend - and as such, I'm going to start a work blog related to my work as Chairperson.

[steveleenow]

As I noted in my last post, most of my work over the past few days has been related to my extra duties as Chairperson. But I have done some finance related work this week, as follows:

Monday, February 9, 2009 (12:30pm - 6:00pm - 5 1/2 hours in Downtown Vancouver): I met first with our legal counsel and with our general Manager, Desmond Rodenbour, over lunch at White Spot where we discussed issues related to the upcoming provincial election campaign that the KSA will be launching, as well as our breach of fiduciary duty civil suit and prep for the 2pm meeting we were going to have with Gary Wozny, the KSA's auditor. At 2:00pm, we walked over to Gary's offices (which were across from the White Spot) and we met with Gary to discuss his response to the questions we had about the 2006 and 2007 post audit memorandums. Gary was able to answer all the questions we had and will be finalizing the post audit memorandums for those years alongside the post audit memo he develops for 2008 and all of them should be out and posted in April 2009.

[steveleenow]

I haven't posted lately, but here is a summary of my work over the last week of April and into May...

Monday, May 25, 2009: (~4:30am - 8:00am - 3 1/2 hours): E-mails; updated replicon timesheet for last two periods for submission; e-mailed Deep about banning a number of spammers on forums and deleted spam posts from these forums; e-mailed Ashley about a number of executive meeting submissions I'll be sending her today and tomorrow (those procedures and at least one of the sex-ed policies); researched and booked truck rental so that we can move those concrete pic nic table benches from the Newton campus this afternoon.

Thursday, May 21, 2009: (A. ~1:00pm - 2:00pm - 1 hour; and B. 8:00pm - 11:30pm - 3 1/2 hours): A. Sorted more files at my desk in Surrey - so want to get it organized. I just have so many files at my desk! B. More work on the procedure updating project.

Wednsday, May 20, 2009: (~1:00pm - 6:00pm - 6 hours): Did more work on preparing files for posting - many are now ready to post... (in the next week or so I'll get them uploaded to the site).

Tuesday, May 19, 2009: (A. ~2:00pm - 4:00pm; and B. ~6:00pm - 7:00pm): A. Attended / chaired Runner newspaper General Meeting; and B. Went to Home Depot with Robert to look at supplies for repairing pic-nick table benches.

Sunday, May 17, 2009: (A. ~12:30am - 4:00am - 3 1/2 hours; and B. 10am - 1:30pm - 3 1/2 hours): Yet more work on preparing scanned agendas / minutes from 1990s for posting.

Friday, May 15, 2009: (~3pm - 5:30pm - 2 1/2 hours in Surrey): Signed cheques and a letter regarding CFS; met with Derek and Desmond over general issues while working at my ongoing sorting and organizing of files at my desk; had a phone meeting with Desmond & DJ regarding student paper.

Thursday, May 14, 2009: (~10pm - 11:30pm - 1 1/2 hours): Reviewed postings of minutes, agendas and notice of meetings as posted for past meetings and upcoming meetings.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009: (A. ~10:00am - 11:30am - 1/2 hours in Richmond; B. ~Noon - 2pm in Richmond; and C. 8:00pm - 11:30pm - 3 1/2 hours): A. Attended Executive Board meeting; B. Attended Council meeting; C. Continued work on ammendments to procedures.

Monday, May 11, 2009: (A. ~5:00am - 9:30am - 4 1/2 hours; and B. 8:00pm - 11:30pm - 3 1/2 hours): A. Worked on sex-ed policies so I can finally get them to next executive board meeting. B. Worked on reviewing procedures posted online > started changes to promo products and event attendance procedures to reflect current practices.

Saturday, May 9, 2009: (~6:00am - 10:00am - 4 hours): More work on getting the minutes and agendas from the 1990s preped for online posting.

Thursday, May 7, 2009: (A. ~6:00am - 7:30am - 1 1/2 hours; B. ~9:30am - 12:30pm - 3 hours; and C. ~6:00pm - 7:30pm - 1 1/2 hours all on Surrey): A. Prepared for meeting with CIBC - reviewed financial statements from 06-08; reviewed court situation; reviewed fee changes. B. Meeting with CIBC / carpooled with Rolando to meeting. C. After my Thursday class to check e-mails, and sorted files at my desk.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009: (~Noon - 7pm - 7 hours on the Surrey Campus): Attended the executive board meeting; sorted files at desk; went to Newton Campus with Robert Kovacic to prepare pic nic table benches for moving.

Monday, May 4, 2009: (~6:00am - 8:30am - 2 1/2 hours; and ~3:30pm - 7:00pm): E-mails; more prep work on the 1990s minutes / agendas (a seemingly never ending task).

Saturday, May 2, 2009: (A. ~2:00am - 4:15am - 2 hours 15 m; B. ~5:00pm - 10:30pm - 5 1/2 hours): E-mail; checked phone messages on my KSA phone line; more prep work on 1990s minutes / agendas (this involves pulling out individual sets of minutes from a master file that has all the scanned documents in it).

Friday, May 1, 2009: (~Noon - 6pm - 6 hours on the Surrey Campus): Finalized my summer schedule & e-mailed it; edited hours worksheet; meeting with Desmond re: work & projects; did a bit of work on legal case; further work on editing the old volunteer procedure.

Thursday, April 30, 2009: (~2:00pm - 6:30pm - 4 1/2 hours on the Surrey Campus): Attended the Kwantlen Polytechnic University's naming committee as the KSA student rep; met with Rolando re: credit; started to figure out what I need to do to finish getting stuff for lawyers.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009: (~9:00pm - 10:30pm - 1 1/2 hours): Checked e-mails; Reviewed updated regulations document; prepared summer hour schedule. The set in stone hours for which I can usually be found in the Surrey Campus main offices from May - June, 2009 will be from 2:00pm - 6:00pm on Mondays and Wedensdays.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009: (A. ~7:00am - 9:30am - 2 1/2 hours; B. 9:30pm - 10:50pm - 1 hour 20 m): A. Searched old hard drive files for copies of old volunteer procedures; as well as monetary funding procedures for clubs / programs that used to be in place - started proposal for bringing those things back. B. Checked e-mails; updated some meetings on the kusa calendar, more prep of 1990s minutes / agendas.

Monday, April 27, 2009: (~5:00pm - 9:30pm - 4 1/2 hours): Checked e-mail, continued work on preparing scanned minutes / agendas from the 1990s for posting online.

Saturday, April 25, 2009: (~6:00am - 9:30am - 3 1/2 hours): Checked E-mail, continued work on preparing scanned minutes / agendas from 1990s for posting online.

[jonathanyaniv]

As I noted in my last post, most of my work over the past few days has been related to my extra duties as Chairperson. But I have done some finance related work this week, as follows:

Monday, February 9, 2009 (12:30pm - 6:00pm - 5 1/2 hours in Downtown Vancouver): I met first with our legal counsel and with our general Manager, Desmond Rodenbour, over lunch at White Spot where we discussed issues related to the upcoming provincial election campaign that the KSA will be launching, as well as our breach of fiduciary duty civil suit and prep for the 2pm meeting we were going to have with Gary Wozny, the KSA's auditor. At 2:00pm, we walked over to Gary's offices (which were across from the White Spot) and we met with Gary to discuss his response to the questions we had about the 2006 and 2007 post audit memorandums. Gary was able to answer all the questions we had and will be finalizing the post audit memorandums for those years alongside the post audit memo he develops for 2008 and all of them should be out and posted in April 2009.

"all of them should be out and posted in April 2009."

Where are they? Not that I really care, but I am sure the students do :p

[steveleenow]

It's a good question - it is my understanding that the 2008 ones are being drafted now. Our auditors have been very busy the past few weeks, wrapping up work in other areas (tax season just ended) and I hope to get confirmation shortly about when we will get hold of the old post audit memorandums. My April estimate was a best case scenario.

As I noted in my last post, most of my work over the past few days has been related to my extra duties as Chairperson. But I have done some finance related work this week, as follows:

Monday, February 9, 2009 (12:30pm - 6:00pm - 5 1/2 hours in Downtown Vancouver): I met first with our legal counsel and with our general Manager, Desmond Rodenbour, over lunch at White Spot where we discussed issues related to the upcoming provincial election campaign that the KSA will be launching, as well as our breach of fiduciary duty civil suit and prep for the 2pm meeting we were going to have with Gary Wozny, the KSA's auditor. At 2:00pm, we walked over to Gary's offices (which were across from the White Spot) and we met with Gary to discuss his response to the questions we had about the 2006 and 2007 post audit memorandums. Gary was able to answer all the questions we had and will be finalizing the post audit memorandums for those years alongside the post audit memo he develops for 2008 and all of them should be out and posted in April 2009.

"all of them should be out and posted in April 2009."

Where are they? Not that I really care, but I am sure the students do :p

[steveleenow]

Thanks again for your question Jonathan. In response to your post, I followed up with our auditors and they note that they are on track to having the memos done by the end of June at the latest. As I suspected, and mentioned below - April and May have been busy months for them finishing off audits and tax issues for their clients. They are also working on the audited statements for the Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society ("PIPS" which produces the new student newspaper, "The Runner"), and those statements will be presented to the student body this Wednesday at 6pm in the KSA Grassroots Lounge (Surrey Campus).

It's a good question - it is my understanding that the 2008 ones are being drafted now. Our auditors have been very busy the past few weeks, wrapping up work in other areas (tax season just ended) and I hope to get confirmation shortly about when we will get hold of the old post audit memorandums. My April estimate was a best case scenario.

As I noted in my last post, most of my work over the past few days has been related to my extra duties as Chairperson. But I have done some finance related work this week, as follows:

Monday, February 9, 2009 (12:30pm - 6:00pm - 5 1/2 hours in Downtown Vancouver): I met first with our legal counsel and with our general Manager, Desmond Rodenbour, over lunch at White Spot where we discussed issues related to the upcoming provincial election campaign that the KSA will be launching, as well as our breach of fiduciary duty civil suit and prep for the 2pm meeting we were going to have with Gary Wozny, the KSA's auditor. At 2:00pm, we walked over to Gary's offices (which were across from the White Spot) and we met with Gary to discuss his response to the questions we had about the 2006 and 2007 post audit memorandums. Gary was able to answer all the questions we had and will be finalizing the post audit memorandums for those years alongside the post audit memo he develops for 2008 and all of them should be out and posted in April 2009.

"all of them should be out and posted in April 2009."

Where are they? Not that I really care, but I am sure the students do :p

[steveleenow]

Monday, May 25, 2009: (~12:30pm - 6:00pm - 5 1/2 hours in Surrey): I went to U-Haul on 84th & King George Hwy to pick up the rental truck I had reserved earlier in the day. I choose U-Haul as it was very inexpensive to rent a truck for a 24 hour period of time (about $20 plus a low, less than $1 per kilometer charge), and as such the rental of said truck should cost less than $50. The truck was brought back to the Surrey campus by me, where I met with GM Desmond Rodenbour, Mature Students Liaison Robert Kovacic and Cloverdale Assembly Coordinator John O'Brian to go to the old Newton Campus to rent a truck for moving two concrete pic-nic tables to the Surrey campus. The move was successfull, although difficult > the concrete tables, even when taken apart and in pieces, were very heavy. I snapped a few photos of the benches and will post them to the KSA flickr sometime in the near future.

[steveleenow]

Tuesday, May 26, 2009: (A. ~7:00am - 7:15am; B. 9:45am - 10:15am; C. ~10:30am - 2:30pm; D. 11:15pm - Midnight): A. Checked and responded to various e-mails; B. Returned the rental truck to U-Haul; C. Meeting with Desmond regarding work and projects; created a summary of current committee membership to identify which voting members of council are not currently on a committee, and e-mailed it to the executive; attended council; reviewed budget update provided by Financial Controller Rolando Navarro, and asked Rolando questions about it via e-mail; sent a motion regarding releasing money for increasing our parents bursary endowment to the executive for approval at our meeting tomorrow; D. Sent an e-mail to our lawyer David Borins concerning our civil suit; reviewed executive minutes our Records Coordinator Kari had sent; browsed the reports section of our Replicon timesheet system to see what the system is capable of producing; and revised my hours for May-June and submitted them via e-mail to Desmond (and posted said hours to these very forums.

[steveleenow]

Wednesday, May 27, 2009: (~8:00am - 4:00pm - 8 hours in Surrey): Checked and responded to e-mails from David Borins regarding the civil suit; and I concacted the RCMP regarding possible criminal charges that the KSA is hoping will be pressed. I met with Robert Kovacic briefly about what supplies we need to finish fixing the one pic-nic table that we moved. I also reviewed minutes for financial motions and updated the copy of the budget that Rolando is using; and in addition, I reviewed general ledger accounts on overspent line items and posted a spending summary update online for council members and other interested parties to access. Specifically, that document is posted here: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2558.pdf

Finally, I attended an executive board meeting, where we passed $750.00 to buy a cargo van that the Society will use to move stuff from campus to campus, as well as to our external storage locker. We also tabled a motion to release $10,000 towards increasing the current endowment of the parents bursary.

[steveleenow]

Friday, May 29, 2009: (A. ~12:20pm - 1:15pm - about an hour in Richmond; B. 2:00pm - 7:00pm - 5 hours in Surrey): A. I first attended the Richmond Campus, to see if a volunteer meeting was happening that had been previously scheduled - but unfortunately it wasn't. So I talked with Richmond Director Reena Bali and Richmond Officer Nicole Joe about Council, Finance Committee, and the structure of Campus Councils as currently setup in 2009 at the KSA. B. I went to Home Depot with Robert Kovacic to buy supplies for repairing the concrete pic nic tables that we had brought over earlier this week. I signed off on a fees collection letter that was sent to Kwantlen. I also checked and responded to a number of e-mails. Finally, I started cleaning the executive offices as it had become quite dusty and it was bothering my allergies. And while I cleaned, I installed a number of updates to my computer.

Thursday, May 28, 2009: (~9:00am - 10:30am - 1 1/2 hours in Surrey): I attended a meeting of the Kwantlen Surrey-Cloverdale Space Planning Committee as a KSA representative. Following that meeting, I met briefly with General Manager Desmond Rodenbour & Registrar Jody Gordon regarding communication Kwantlen had received about CFS fees.

In total, from May 23 - 29, I worked about 30 hours on KSA related tasks.

[steveleenow]

Wednesday, June 3, 2009:: (A. 9:00am - 10:20am; B. ~11:00am - 7:00pm - 9 hours, 20 m in total): A. Attended the Student Spaces Planning Principles Committee of Kwantlen as the KSA's representative; B. Went to financial records locker with Rolando; attended part of the executive board meeting; met with RCMP; assisted David in the review of documents related to court case; finished council meeting report.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009: (A. ~11:10am - 11:40am; B. ~1:30pm - 1:50pm - 1 hour in total): A. Checked and responded to e-mails; reviewed the FreeFind search engine service I signed KSA up for to ensure it was working. B. In office briefly - reviewed with Josephine the installation of Accounting software onto a laptop for use at meeting with David / Desmond; checked and responded to e-mails.

Monday, June 1, 2009: (~11:00am - 7:00pm - 8 hrs in Surrey): Preppared for meeting with KSA legal counsel David Borins & Desmond and then met with David & Desmond to review documents related to the KSA's civil suit. Later in the day, I went to the KSA's external locker to look for more documents!

Sunday, May 31, 2009: (~6:00pm - 7:30pm - 1h 30m): Printed to pdf the web registration course listings and polished up the safer sex policy that will be brought to an upcoming executive board meeting.

Saturday, May 30, 2009: (~10:30am - 11:15am - 45m): Started report to council.

[steveleenow]

Thursday, June 4, 2009: (~10:30am - 2:15pm - 3 hours 45 min): Moved items from Surrey to the storage locker with the help of Amy and Robert Kovacic. I also sent in my report for next Tuesday's council meeting (attached).

[steveleenow]

Monday, February 15, 2010: (~7:00pm - 11:30pm ~ 5 hours): I'm back after awhile of not posting... I'm an ass for not keeping this blog more up to date. Tonight, I'm working on uploading minutes and agendas for our board of directors meetings that happened in 1994... my goal is to finish the outstanding and missing documents from 1994-1999 by the end of March... Here they are:

July 11, 1994 Minutes: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2696.pdf
July 11, 1994 Agenda: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2695.pdf
June 27, 1994 Minutes: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2694.pdf
June 13, 1994 Minutes: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2692.pdf
June 13, 1994 Agenda: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2691.pdf
May 30, 1994 Minutes: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2690.pdf
May 16, 1994 Minutes: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2689.pdf
May 16, 1994 Agenda: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2688.pdf
May 4, 1994 Minutes: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2686.pdf
April 19, 1994 Minutes: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2685.pdf

There are more documents from 1994 to be posted and they will be posted over the next few days although my ultimate goal is to try and have 1994 finished tomorrow.

I've also been looking through old e-mails and forwarded some interesting stuff from 2007 to current people in the KSA. Some of the forwarded topics included, but are not limited to: 1) vendors that the KSA used to bring on campus as a source of revenue; 2) a green promotional product company that the KSA has considered working with in the past; 3) a few e-mails concerning the civil suit; and 4) some old draft ideas for a student union building.

Finally, although this is more Chairperson work - I sent an e-mail to non-elected staff as well as elected officials (mainly managers and those elected officials who submit written reports to Council) to ask them to start thinking about the year that has just passed so that they can help inform what goes into the KSA's annual general meeting reports to the membership. We've done a lot over the last year and I want to make sure all of the appropriate information gets forwarded on in a nice summary of the 2009-10 year in the life of the KSA.