Two new roles created to fulfil general manager duties

A new staff member has been hired by MAWSA to fill the newly created role of an impartial general manager for all four student associations through MUSAF. 

Trudy Englebretson will serve as an unbiased director for the general associations single SLA, according to MAWSA President Tessa Guest. 

“Her role will also be to review each of the general associations’ services, in order to highlight variances and inequities between associations. She will also be looking at ways our associations’ services could be aligned in future,” Tessa said. 

Tessa said that MUSAF was not in a state to hold an employee currently, which meant that MAWSA is Trudy’s official employer. 

“This is only a temporary arrangement until MUSAF is able to act as employee. All parties are putting measures in place to ensure Trudy is unbiased in her decision-making,” she said. 

Three of the four general student associations’ general managers have departed so far this year without immediate replacements, with only ASA retaining theirs. MUSA and M@D had both stated at the time that they believed the roles would be no longer be necessary after the SLA negotiations, with both general managers taking voluntary redundancies. However, with any vote on the organisational merge postponed until next year, it seems associations are hurrying to fill in the gaps left by previous departures.  

This new role has come not long after MUSA created its own new Head of Operations role. The position has been filled by Dean Hyde and is designed to oversee staff and operational concerns, according to MUSA President Fatima Imran.  

Independent student campaign group Students for a Democratic University said in a statement to Massive they believe MUSA’s new role is very similar to the axed general manager role. 

“We’re a bit dubious about the new ‘Head of Operations’ position that’s been created at MUSA (sounds awfully like a General Manager position, doesn’t it?),” they said. 

While they are stoked to see positive changes for the student associations like MUSAF working to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the delay in the wider governance merger to next year, they are still disappointed by a lack of communication and seemingly conflicting statements from MUSA.