Meet your 2017-2018 BGSS Council!

To our valued and awesome BGSS family,

We are excited to announce and congratulate the incoming 2017-2018 BGSS Council. Your members include:

Co-Presidents: Valerie Vinette and Amr Omer

Co-VP Communications: Adda-Lee Graham-Paquin and Jason Sadek

Co-VP Finances: Owen Chen and Sophie Viala

PGSS Representatives: Brenda Sanchez and Ippy Nandi

Student Life Representatives: Christina Spinelli, Laura Jones, Yevgen Zolotarov, Emily Ayoub, Kamilia Daldoul, Ariel Donayo, Erin Coyne and Emily Tang

We would like to congratulate the incoming council and let you all know that we are so excited for the upcoming year and all of the exciting memories to come!

-BGSS

View Election Results here

BGSS Elections 2017-2018: Voting Time!

Dear Biochemistry,

It’s time to go to the polls and elect our BGSS Co-Presidents for 2017-18. This morning you should receive an electronic ballot allowing you to cast your vote for president. We are also asking you to vote to accept or not some amendments to the constitution. Polls are open for 2 days – July 10th and 11th.

You could also access the ballot by going into https://pgss.simplyvoting.com and logging-in with your usual McGill credentials.

Our presidential candidates are: Amr Omer, Emily Tang and Valerie Vinette.

There was a bit of a glitch this morning, so you if you’ve already voted you may have to do so again. (Sorry!) As of 11am today it will be re-open and we are going to ask you to rank the 3 candidates with your 1st and 2nd place candidates being the 2 you want for co-presidents. Sorry for the confusion.

If you have any problems voting, please contact Manmeet at elections.pgss@mail.mcgill.ca (and cc laura.jones2@mail.mcgill.ca) immediately.

It’s very important we get as many votes as possible to achieve quorum, so please vote and encourage others to vote. Otherwise we will have to be doing this again soon!

Thanks so much!
Laura Jones
BGSS Chief Returning Officer

BGSS Elections 2017-2018: Campaigning

Dear Biochemistry,

We are very happy to announce the opening of our Campaign period for BGSS President. Our 3 nominees will be campaigning for 2 co-president positions over the next two weeks with our polling taking place on July 10-11th by electronic ballot. You will be voting for your top two candidates.

The Presidential Nominees are: Valerie Vinette, Emily Tang and Amr Omer

Running unopposed for the other positions are:

VP Communications: Jason Sadek and Adda-Lee Graham-Paquin
VP Finance: Owen Chen and Sophie Viala
VP PGSS Rep: Ippy Nandi and Brenda Sanchez
Social Life Rep: Emily Ayoub, Cristiana Spinelli, Kamilia Daldoul, Yevgen Zolotarov, Erin Coyne

We will also be including a referendum question on our ballot. We will ask you to vote to accept some amendments to our constitution drafted by this past year’s presidents.

The major changes include:

Changing the time of the AGM to before elections and the beginning of the council year to the Summer term (to reflect current practices)
Better clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the council positions
Creating a new council position of Social Media Representative, whose duties include expanding BGSS’s presence on social media and easing the amount of work for the VP Communications.
Adding provisions for better communication with the Biochemistry Department.
Cosmetic changes to the language of the constitution.

If you have any questions or concerns about this campaign period or the polling period please contact the CRO at bgss.elections@gmail.com.

Watch your e-mail or this website for your electronic ballot on July 10th and good luck to our candidates!

Sincerely,
Laura
BGSS Chief Returning Officer

Dodgeball is Back!

Hello Biochem,

We will finally have our Dodgeball tournament this Thursday May 25th at 4:oo PM. In order to avoid weather cancellations, we are gonna do it indoors: Tomlinson Fieldhouse (@McGill Gym): COURT A. Address is 475 Pine Avenue West.

We will have one PI team that student teams should beat: Martin Schemeing. Jerry Pelletier, Bhushan Nagar, Alain Nepveu, Ian Watson, and Jose Teodoro.

As of today, we have 2 students registered! Please register your student team (6-8 people) by the end of today by e-mailing juliana.munoz@mail.mcgill.ca.

There will be an actual trophy for the champion!

After the event, we will follow with one of our mythical pub-nights! We will go to Thomson House by 6 PM.

Hope to see you there!

BGSS

BGSS Elections 2017-2018: Nominations

Dear Biochemistry,

As the semester wraps up so to does our current year at BGSS. It’s been a great year and I hope you’ve enjoyed our events.

We are opening nominations for next year’s council!

Nominations will take place from May 12th to May 29th. To nominate yourself simply e-mail bgss.elections@gmail.com with your name and which position you would like to hold. The positions are listed below. Please e-mail us with any questions.

Positions available:

(2) Co-President (runs the meetings, organizes/helps with events)

(2) Co-VP Finance (keeps the books, writes checks, organizes/helps with events)

(2) Co-VP Communications (sends e-mails, keeps minutes, updates website, organizes/helps with events)

(2) Co-VP PGSS Rep (attends PGSS meetings and votes for BGSS, relays info from PGSS, organizes/helps with events)

(5+) Social Life Rep (general member, organizes/helps with events)

We are actively recruiting new members! This is a great way to get involved and meet new people, plus it’s fun! If you have any ideas for our council we would love to hear them.

Sincerely,
BGSS

BGSS Research Day

Hello Biochem,

We are organizing a Research Day for Monday April 24th. This would we be an amazing day to share your research as it will include a poster competition and a talk by student invited speaker Mark Lemmon.

The poster competition will include important awards thanks to the contribution of the department. Prizes will range $1000-1500! This is your change to get the funding for that international conference you are dreaming to go!

This is the schedule of events for the day:

2:30 – 4:00 PM: Poster Session at McIntyre 6th floor atrium.

4:00- 5:00 PM: Talk by Mark Lemmon at McIntyre 504 (Martin).

5:00 – 7:00 PM: Wine & Cheese and poster awards announcement.

You have time to submit your abstract until Friday April 21st using this link. Don’t wait until the last minute!

Hoping to see you all there!

BGSS

March Pub Night (Post St. Patrick)

Hi Biochem,

We hope that most of you were able to enjoy St Patrick’s Day.

Now it’s time to recover from it, by drinking a little bit more and enjoying some good time with your Biochemistry friends. So join us for Post -St Paddy’s Recovery Pubnight on Thursday March 23rd at 6:00 PM.

This time we will going to Irish Embassy at 1234 Rue Bishop. You can meet us at 5:30 PM on the Bellini atrium to walk there together, or at the pub after 6:00 PM.

As usual we will offering free appetizers.

Hope to see you all there!

BGSS

CANDYGRAMS 2017

Hi everyone,

Valentine’s Days is coming. Which means BGSS will be holding the annual CandyGrams event.

Purchase a bag of candies for 1$ from 6 BGSS reps throughout the Life Science Complex and the Glen as listed below. We will then take care to distribute them to the recipient of interest.

Make someone’s day by sending them a bag of sweets, whether anonymously or signed by yours truly!

You must have bought your CandyGrams and submitted the destination card to the seller or in the boxes located on the GCRC and Biochemistry offices by Friday, February 10th at 12 pm.

Goodies will be distributed right on Tuesday, February 14th.

Love!

BGSS

January Pub Night

Hi Biochem,

First, we all want to wish you a very happy and productive 2017!!

Let’s celebrate by getting together again in another pub night. It will happen on Thursday January 26th at 5:00 PM.

This time we will going to Bier Markt at 1221 Boulevard René-Lévesque O (corner Drummond). You can meet us at 5:00 PM on the Bellini atrium to walk there together, or at the pub after 5:30 PM.

As usual we will offering free appetizers.

Thanks,

BGSS

Holiday Happy Hour!!

It’s that time of the year again! Time for our yearly Holiday Happy Hour.

It will be Wednesday, December 14 between 4-6 pm in the GCRC 5th floor atrium.

There will be holiday cheer, drinks and some food to snack on! A gift raffle will also be held for all those that attend. Come join us!

Hope to see you there!

BGSS