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Inter­est Group Policy

Sec­tion 1 — Objective

1.1 — The Man­i­to­ba Med­ical Stu­dents Asso­ci­a­tion (MMSA) rec­og­nizes the vital role that inter­est groups play in enhanc­ing the med­ical stu­dent expe­ri­ence. With this pol­i­cy, the MMSA aims to improve inter­est group sus­tain­abil­i­ty and account­abil­i­ty while increas­ing trans­paren­cy regard­ing fund­ing allo­ca­tion and group formation/​turnover.

Sec­tion 2 — Interpretation

2.1 — For the pur­pos­es of this policy:

  1. An ​“inter­est group” or sim­ply a ​“group” refers to any MMSA Exec­u­tive-cer­ti­fied (i.e. ​“offi­cial”) asso­ci­a­tion of MMSA mem­bers. Only these cer­ti­fied groups shall enjoy the rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties out­lined herein.
  2. A ​“return­ing inter­est group” refers to any inter­est group that is apply­ing for offi­cial inter­est group sta­tus and was rec­og­nized as an offi­cial inter­est group dur­ing the pre­vi­ous aca­d­e­m­ic year.
  3. A ​“new inter­est group” refers to any inter­est group that is apply­ing for offi­cial inter­est group sta­tus and was not rec­og­nized as an offi­cial group dur­ing the pre­vi­ous aca­d­e­m­ic year.
  4. An ​“aca­d­e­m­ic inter­est group” refers to an inter­est group that orga­nizes events for the pur­pose of pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion, knowl­edge, and skills rel­e­vant to a spe­cif­ic med­ical field.
  5. A ​“com­mu­ni­ty inter­est group” refers to an inter­est group that does not meet the above require­ments for an aca­d­e­m­ic group. These groups typ­i­cal­ly orga­nize events that rep­re­sent spe­cif­ic pop­u­la­tions of patients or allow med­ical stu­dents to express their inter­ests out­side of the med­ical field with like-mind­ed peers.
  6. “Exec­u­tive” refers to inter­est group lead­ers, whether they are referred to as Pres­i­dent, Chair, Coor­di­na­tor, or any oth­er lead­er­ship title as des­ig­nat­ed by their respec­tive group.
  7. “MMSA Exec­u­tive” refers to the MMSA Exec­u­tive Coun­cil, as orga­nized in Arti­cle III, Sec­tion 1 of the MMSA Con­sti­tu­tion. The Vice Stick Inter­nal is pri­mar­i­ly respon­si­ble for the man­age­ment of inter­est groups.
  8. “Pro­ba­tion” refers to sta­tus an inter­est group may be placed under should they make a minor vio­la­tion to this pol­i­cy (such as an inabil­i­ty to host two events in one year, or host­ing an event that has been dou­ble-booked with anoth­er event), as out­lined here­in. Fail­ure to over­come pro­ba­tion­ary sta­tus in this sub­se­quent year will be grounds for dis­missal for the group in ques­tion, as per the dis­cre­tion of the Vice-Stick Internal.

Sec­tion 3 — Rights and Responsibilities

3.1 — Inter­est Group Rights

  1. All MMSA mem­bers have the right to par­tic­i­pate in, apply to lead, or apply to cre­ate an inter­est group, as well as attend events put on by groups.
    1. An MMSA mem­ber may be part of the exec­u­tive coun­cil of a max­i­mum of 2 inter­est groups.
  2. Inter­est groups are eli­gi­ble to apply for fund­ing from the MMSA.
  3. Inter­est groups have the right to hold events sanc­tioned by the MMSA.
  4. Inter­est groups may adver­tise their events to MMSA mem­bers on social media, keep­ing in mind that the aim is not to over­whelm ded­i­cat­ed col­lege or class groups.
    1. Groups may not send mass emails to the MMSA mem­ber­ship via the class list­servs or oth­er­wise. Email adver­tise­ment of events shall be lim­it­ed to those stu­dents who have con­sent­ed to email cor­re­spon­dence by sub­scrib­ing to an inter­est group’s mail­ing list.
    2. Groups may adver­tise their events on the shared MMSA Face­book page, as well as their class Face­book pages.
    3. Groups should post their events on the MMSA web­site cal­en­dar. Sign-up for group events should go through the MMSA web­site event sign-up, and not through Google Sheets or oth­er plat­forms unless a valid rea­son is offered and approved.

3.2 — Inter­est Group Responsibilities 

  1. Groups must abide by munic­i­pal, provin­cial, and fed­er­al law.
  2. Groups must be free from inten­tion of per­son­al or cor­po­rate finan­cial gain.
  3. New and return­ing groups are required to com­plete the rel­e­vant annu­al Appli­ca­tion Form and sub­mit it to the Vice-Stick Inter­nal as out­lined herein.
    1. Group con­duct must be in agree­ment with the infor­ma­tion put forth in their Appli­ca­tion Form for the dura­tion of the aca­d­e­m­ic year.
  4. Groups may have either one or two Executives.
    1. Exec­u­tives must ensure that their cur­rent con­tact infor­ma­tion is up-to-date on the MMSA web­site, either by updat­ing their con­tact infor­ma­tion in their group appli­ca­tion, or by noti­fy­ing the Vice-Stick Internal.
  5. It is the duty of each group to main­tain finan­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty by:
    1. Mak­ing judi­cious use of its finan­cial resources for the ben­e­fit of all MMSA members;
    2. Keep­ing accu­rate records of finan­cial assets and expenses;
    3. Uti­liz­ing all fund­ing grant­ed by the MMSA, or noti­fy­ing the Vice-Stick Inter­nal or MMSA trea­sur­ers if fund­ing can­not be appro­pri­ate­ly used, such that these funds can be real­lo­cat­ed to oth­er groups.
  6. Groups are required to hold a min­i­mum of 2 pro­grams per year.
    1. Groups should seek to pro­vide pro­gram­ming that com­ple­ments rather than repro­duces med­ical curricula.
    2. Groups must main­tain an up-to-date atten­dance list and bud­get for each event. These items must be includ­ed in their annu­al application.
  7. Groups book­ing spaces on cam­pus must adhere to the Sem­i­nar Room Pol­i­cy out­lined by the Rady Fac­ul­ty of Health Sciences
    1. Groups may be held finan­cial­ly liable for events that require exces­sive clean­ing on the part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Manitoba’s Phys­i­cal Plant Services.
  8. Exec­u­tives must sub­mit pro­gram infor­ma­tion to the MMSA web­site cal­en­dar as soon as it is avail­able, and at min­i­mum one week before the event is sched­uled to occur.
    1. Inter­est groups will not be allowed to book an event at the same time as anoth­er inter­est group event or MMSA event. Pri­or­i­ty of book­ing event for an allot­ted time spot will be exe­cut­ed on a first-come, first-serve basis. The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Rep­re­sen­ta­tive will noti­fy groups in a time­ly man­ner if their event con­flicts with anoth­er pre­vi­ous­ly sched­uled or sub­mit­ted event.
    2. Any con­flict­ing event that is orga­nized to be held dur­ing anoth­er MMSA-host­ed event sched­uled through the MMSA web­site cal­en­dar will not be regard­ed as an MMSA event, and thus will not be privy to the ben­e­fits of MMSA sanc­tioned Inter­est Groups events, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to:
      1. MMSA fund­ing for that event;
      2. Adver­tise­ment on the MMSA cal­en­dar and/​or web­site for that event;
      3. Adver­tise­ment on the Med 1 – 4 Face­book page as an Inter­est Group event for that event.
    3. Groups who vio­late the dou­ble book­ing pol­i­cy (ie. who choose to still host an event though it vio­lates the dou­ble book­ing pol­i­cy) will be placed on pro­ba­tion for the remain­der of the aca­d­e­m­ic year, and must over­come their pro­ba­tion­ary sta­tus in the sub­se­quent year (sim­i­lar to Sec­tion 8.1.d.iv)
    4. Excep­tions to this rule will be con­sid­ered on a case-by-case basis by the Vice­S­tick Inter­nal where rea­son­able (eg. for groups with reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled events)
  9. Inter­est Groups may take atten­dance at events. If MMSA mem­bers who have signed up for the event do not attend the events, Inter­est Group Exec­u­tive are encour­aged to share this infor­ma­tion with the Vice-Stick Inter­nal so the mat­ter can be fol­lowed up appropriately.
  10. Inter­est Groups should aim to sub­mit a pro­file on one event per year to be fea­tured on the MMSA website
  11. At least one Exec­u­tive from each group must be present at the annu­al Inter­est Group Infor­ma­tion Night in Sep­tem­ber, or sim­i­lar event as planned joint­ly with the Depart­ment of Stu­dent Affairs.
    1. If no Exec­u­tive is able to attend, anoth­er stu­dent may be cho­sen to attend as a replace­ment, at the dis­cre­tion of the Vice-Stick Inter­nal and/​or Asso­ciate Dean, Stu­dent Affairs.
  12. Out­go­ing Exec­u­tives must sup­ply incom­ing Exec­u­tives with all group infor­ma­tion and doc­u­ments nec­es­sary to the suc­cess­ful run­ning of the group in a tran­si­tion report. The con­tents and for­mat of said report shall be at the dis­cre­tion of the out­go­ing Executives.

3.3 — MMSA Exec­u­tive Respon­si­bil­i­ties (per­tain­ing to inter­est groups)

  1. A com­plete list of inter­est groups and their Exec­u­tives will be made wide­ly avail­able for ref­er­ence on the MMSA web­site. As per Sec­tion 3.2.d, Inter­est Group Exec­u­tives are respon­si­ble for ensur­ing con­tact infor­ma­tion is up-to-date.
  2. The MMSA Exec­u­tive (name­ly the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Vice-Stick Inter­nal, and Senior Stick) will help to main­tain an up to date MMSA Events Cal­en­dar, in an effort to aid inter­est groups in adver­tis­ing their events and pre­vent sched­ul­ing conflicts.
  3. The MMSA Exec­u­tive (name­ly Senior and Junior Trea­sur­ers and the Vice-Stick Inter­nal) will make all group registration/​funding deci­sions in a fair and time­ly fash­ion, as out­lined herein.

Sec­tion 4 — Inter­est Group Organization

4.1 — Each inter­est group shall be man­aged by a coun­cil, con­sist­ing pri­mar­i­ly of one or two Exec­u­tives plus one or two Med­i­cine I Representatives.

  1. Exec­u­tives shall serve a term of one aca­d­e­m­ic year, typ­i­cal­ly dur­ing Med­i­cine II.
  2. As their title sug­gests, Med­i­cine I Rep­re­sen­ta­tives shall serve a term of one aca­d­e­m­ic year, dur­ing Med­i­cine I.

4.2 — Upon the con­clu­sion of the aca­d­e­m­ic year, Med­i­cine I Rep­re­sen­ta­tives shall tran­si­tion to become the incom­ing Exec­u­tives for the next aca­d­e­m­ic year. Such tran­si­tion should be accom­plished using a tran­si­tion report, as out­lined in Sec­tion 3.2.l.

  1. Out­go­ing Exec­u­tives may remain a part of their inter­est group’s coun­cil in an advi­so­ry role, at the dis­cre­tion of the new Executives.

4.3 — Exec­u­tives may choose to adver­tise and appoint addi­tion­al coun­cil mem­bers as deemed necessary.

  1. Poten­tial posi­tions may include sub­spe­cial­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives, sec­re­taries, trea­sur­ers, etc.
  2. A giv­en inter­est group coun­cil shall not exceed six addi­tion­al mem­bers with­out the con­sent of the MMSA Executive.

Sec­tion 5 — Inter­est Group Exec­u­tive Appointments

5.1 — As out­lined in Sec­tion 4.2, Exec­u­tives are not appoint­ed from the gen­er­al MMSA mem­ber­ship; instead, the Med 1 Representative(s) is/​are pro­mot­ed from with­in a giv­en inter­est group at the con­clu­sion of each aca­d­e­m­ic year. 

5.2 — Selec­tion of Med 1 Rep­re­sen­ta­tives shall occur in Sep­tem­ber on an annu­al basis:

  1. Exec­u­tives must inform the Vice-Stick Inter­nal of the titles and num­bers of posi­tions they would like to fill with Med 1 Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at least one week before appli­ca­tions are distributed.
  2. Two weeks pri­or to appli­ca­tion due date, the Vice-Stick Inter­nal shall noti­fy the first year med­ical stu­dents of the impend­ing selec­tion process, indicating:
    1. Which inter­est groups have been approved by the MMSA Exec­u­tive for the cur­rent aca­d­e­m­ic year, and are thus eli­gi­ble to appoint Med 1 Representatives;
    2. Descrip­tions of said groups;
    3. Roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties of the posi­tions avail­able; iv. Appli­ca­tion forms and infor­ma­tion rel­e­vant to the appli­ca­tion process;
    4. Appli­ca­tion deadline.
  3. Appli­ca­tions shall be returned to the Vice-Stick Inter­nal, who will then dis­trib­ute them to the rel­e­vant inter­est groups.
  4. Exec­u­tives may then select which appli­cants they would like to join their coun­cil. The Vice-Stick Inter­nal should be informed of selec­tions with­in the fol­low­ing week such that announce­ment of the appoint­ments can be made to the MMSA membership.

5.3 Selec­tion of addi­tion­al inter­est group coun­cil mem­bers shall occur con­cur­rent­ly with the process out­lined in 5.2.

  1. Exec­u­tives must inform the Vice-Stick Inter­nal of which addi­tion­al posi­tions they would like to appoint at the same time as their request for Med 1 rep­re­sen­ta­tives, such that these posi­tions can be includ­ed in the call for applications.

5.4 Stu­dents may not serve on the exec­u­tive of more than two inter­est groups in one aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Sec­tion 6 — Annu­al Appli­ca­tion Pro­ce­dures (New Inter­est Groups)

6.1 — In order to apply for offi­cial new inter­est group sta­tus, the pro­posed Exec­u­tives must sub­mit a com­plet­ed New Inter­est Group Appli­ca­tion Form to the cur­rent Vice-Stick Inter­nal. The appli­ca­tion form can be found on the MMSA web­site and shall include:

  1. A stat­ed pur­pose of the group;
  2. A descrip­tion of the group, which will be dis­played on the MMSA website;
  3. One or two pro­posed Exec­u­tives and their con­tact information;
  4. A min­i­mum of one fac­ul­ty advi­sor for aca­d­e­m­ic inter­est groups (this does not apply for com­mu­ni­ty groups).
  5. A min­i­mum of twen­ty MMSA mem­bers, who are not the Group’s Exec­u­tives, who have endorsed the Group via signature;
  6. A pro­posed bud­get and sched­ule of events for the year (i.e. a list of activ­i­ties and when they will be held, and any pro­ject­ed costs and revenues)
    1. This aspect of the appli­ca­tion may be filled out on the Inter­est Group Bud­get Pro­pos­al Form.

6.2 — In order to receive offi­cial MMSA recog­ni­tion for the cur­rent aca­d­e­m­ic year, groups must be approved by the MMSA Executive.

  1. Final deci­sions will be made 1 – 2 weeks fol­low­ing sub­mis­sion of the application.
    1. The MMSA Exec­u­tive reserves the right to dis­al­low the for­ma­tion of a new inter­est group on the basis of over­lap with pre-exist­ing inter­est group (in terms of man­date, med­ical spe­cial­ty, or pro­gram­ming) or at their dis­cre­tion upon review of the appli­ca­tion out­lined in Sec­tion 6.1 and the cri­te­ria out­lined in Sec­tion 9.1.
      1. If a Group is refused offi­cial Group sta­tus, a writ­ten expla­na­tion will be pro­vid­ed to the pro­posed Executives.
      2. Groups whose for­ma­tion was dis­al­lowed may sub­mit a writ­ten appeal to the MMSA Senior Stick with­in 1 week of learn­ing of the deci­sion. The Senior Stick will review the appeal, and must bring it to MMSA Exec­u­tive to be dis­cussed and vot­ed upon at the next coun­cil meeting.
    2. The time­line for deci­sions regard­ing new inter­est group appli­ca­tions may be extend­ed to coin­cide with return­ing inter­est group appli­ca­tions, as out­lined in sec­tion 6.3.
  2. Fol­low­ing approval, the appli­ca­tion will be reviewed for fund­ing by the MMSA Exec­u­tive. For details on fund­ing allot­ment, see Sec­tion 9.

6.3 — New inter­est groups are encour­aged to apply in the spring or ear­ly sum­mer, such that they align with stan­dard inter­est group coun­cil appoint­ments and MMSA fund­ing allo­ca­tion pro­ce­dures, as out­lined in Sec­tions 5.2, 5.3 and 9.

  1. In order to align with the annu­al coun­cil appoint­ment pro­ce­dure, new groups must sub­mit their appli­ca­tion by June 30th (or the date set by the Vice-Stick Inter­nal) of the pre­ced­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year.
    1. Groups that do not meet this cut-off date will still be able to appoint mem­bers in con­junc­tion with the Vice-Stick Inter­nal using a sim­i­lar pro­ce­dure to that out­lined in Sec­tions 5.2 and 5.3.
  2. In order to align with MMSA fund­ing allo­ca­tion pro­ce­dures, new groups must sub­mit their fund­ing appli­ca­tion by Sep­tem­ber 30th (or the date set by the Vice-Stick Inter­nal) of the aca­d­e­m­ic year in which they wish to receive funding.
    1. Groups that do not meet this cut-off date must present a plan to oper­ate the remain­der of the year with­out MMSA fund­ing. (See Sec­tion 9 for more detail.)

Sec­tion 7 — Annu­al Appli­ca­tion Pro­ce­dures (Return­ing Inter­est Groups)

7.1 — In order to renew group sta­tus as a return­ing inter­est group, the incom­ing and out­go­ing Exec­u­tives must sub­mit a com­plet­ed Return­ing Inter­est Group Appli­ca­tion Form to the Vice-Stick Inter­nal by June 30th (or the date set by the Vice-Stick Inter­nal). The renew­al form will include:

  1. A turnover report con­tain­ing the names and sig­na­tures of both incom­ing and out­go­ing Exec­u­tives and their con­tact information;
  2. A min­i­mum of one fac­ul­ty advi­sor for aca­d­e­m­ic inter­est groups (this does not apply to com­mu­ni­ty groups);
    1. The fac­ul­ty advi­sors may dif­fer from year-to-year, but groups must con­firm an annu­al com­mit­ment from at least one fac­ul­ty advisor.
  3. A report on pro­gram­ming under­tak­en dur­ing the year and their budget;
    1. Exec­u­tives may at this time choose to also sub­mit a bud­get and pro­gram­ming pro­pos­al for the upcom­ing year, or they may defer doing so until Sep­tem­ber 30th (or the date set by the Vice-Stick Inter­nal) of the upcom­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year, as this is the dead­line imposed upon new inter­est groups in order to be con­sid­ered for fund­ing, and groups will have appoint­ed their Med 1 Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at this time.
  4. Revi­sions to any pre­vi­ous­ly sub­mit­ted group infor­ma­tion, as war­rant­ed (e.g. group name or description)
    1. These revi­sions must be deemed by the Vice-Stick Inter­nal to be in line with the objec­tive of pre­vi­ous iter­a­tions of said group. If changes are not deemed be in agree­ment with pre­vi­ous group man­dates, the Exec­u­tives must sub­mit an Appli­ca­tion to form a new inter­est group.

7.2 — In order to receive offi­cial MMSA recog­ni­tion for the fol­low­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year, groups must be approved by the MMSA Executive.

  1. Final deci­sions for return­ing groups will be made by July 15th (or the date set by the Vice-Stick Internal).
    1. The MMSA Exec­u­tive reserves the right to dis­al­low the renew­al of a return­ing group on the basis of over­lap with anoth­er group (in terms of man­date, med­ical spe­cial­ty, pro­gram­ming), or at their dis­cre­tion upon review of the appli­ca­tion out­lined in Sec­tion 7.1 and the cri­te­ria out­lined in Sec­tion 8.1 and 8.2.
      1. If a group is refused offi­cial sta­tus, a writ­ten expla­na­tion will be pro­vid­ed to the Executives.
      2. Groups whose renew­al was dis­al­lowed may sub­mit a writ­ten appeal to MMSA Senior Stick with­in 1 week of learn­ing of the deci­sion. The Senior Stick will review the appeal, and must bring it to MMSA Exec­u­tive to be dis­cussed and vot­ed upon at the next coun­cil meeting.
  2. Fol­low­ing sub­mis­sion of a bud­get and pro­gram plan, the MMSA Exec­u­tive will review these doc­u­ments for funding.

Sec­tion 8 – Eval­u­a­tion and Assessment

8.1 — The appli­ca­tions for group sta­tus as out­lined in Sec­tions 6 and 7 shall be eval­u­at­ed using the fol­low­ing criteria:

  1. Per­ti­nence of the group for MMSA members;
  2. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty (i.e. pos­si­bil­i­ty for group continuation)
  3. Pro­posed event plan and budget;
    1. Aca­d­e­m­ic groups should aim to con­duct sev­er­al types of ses­sions, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to:
      1. A work­shop rel­e­vant to the Group’s man­date. This may include tech­ni­cal skills, clin­i­cal skills, or oth­er hands-on or direct inter­per­son­al sessions.
      2. An event fea­tur­ing clerk­ship stu­dents or res­i­dents. Hav­ing a clerk­ship stu­dent or res­i­dent in a super­vi­so­ry role for a clin­i­cal skills work­shop is not suf­fi­cient for this category.
      3. A ​“Why this spe­cial­ty?” session.
  4. Num­ber of events held in an aca­d­e­m­ic term;
    1. All groups must hold a min­i­mum of two events per year to main­tain return­ing group status.
    2. If a group fails to hold a min­i­mum of two events per year, a writ­ten expla­na­tion must be pro­vid­ed to the Vice-Stick Inter­nal along with the Return­ing Inter­est Group application
    3. Groups must not host events that are held dur­ing anoth­er MMSA event (as per Sec­tion 3.2.h)
    4. Groups who fail to hold a min­i­mum of two events per year, or who host a dou­ble-booked event, will be placed on Pro­ba­tion for the fol­low­ing year should their return­ing group appli­ca­tion be suc­cess­ful. Fail­ure to over­come pro­ba­tion­ary sta­tus in this sub­se­quent year will be grounds for dis­missal for the group in ques­tion, as per the dis­cre­tion of the Vice-Stick Internal.
  5. Unique­ness of group and avoid­ance of over­lap with the pro­gram­ming and man­date of an exist­ing Inter­est Group.

8.2 — The appli­ca­tion for return­ing group sta­tus as out­lined in Sec­tion 7 shall also be eval­u­at­ed using the fol­low­ing addi­tion­al criteria:

  1. Aver­age atten­dance at pri­or events;
  2. Diver­si­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty of pri­or events;
  3. Stu­dent sat­is­fac­tion with pri­or events;
  4. Over­all his­to­ry of group professionalism.

8.3 — Suc­cess or fail­ure of one cri­te­ri­on is not suf­fi­cient for the approval or denial of group sta­tus. A glob­al review of how each group sat­is­fies all of the cri­te­ria will be made in order to approve groups in a holis­tic manner.

Sec­tion 9 — Fund­ing Allo­ca­tion Procedure

9.1 — To be eli­gi­ble for Doc­tors Man­i­to­ba Fund­ing from the MMSA Exec fund­ing, a com­plet­ed Inter­est Group Bud­get and Pro­gram­ming Pro­pos­al Form must be pro­vid­ed pri­or to Sep­tem­ber 30th (or the date set by the Vice-Stick Internal).

  1. Bud­gets should include assess­ments of known or pro­ject­ed costs for all planned events, as well as any known or pro­ject­ed rev­enues to be col­lect­ed dur­ing the year.

9.2 – Doc­tors Man­i­to­ba Fund­ing will be allo­cat­ed on an annu­al basis, at the Octo­ber MMSA Exec­u­tive coun­cil meeting.

  1. The MMSA Exec will make every effort to accom­mo­date groups apply­ing for approval fol­low­ing the cut-off date; how­ev­er, those who miss the dead­line must present a plan to oper­ate the remain­der of the year with­out MMSA fund­ing, as this is the like­ly scenario.

9.3 — Fund­ing will be allo­cat­ed using the fol­low­ing prin­ci­ples, list­ed by rel­a­tive weight of importance:

  1. Prac­ti­cal­i­ty of the bud­get request;
  2. Num­ber and size of planned events;
  3. Assess­ment of event qual­i­ty, orig­i­nal­i­ty, and planning;
  4. Demon­strat­ed suc­cess­ful use of pre­vi­ous group funding;
  5. Extent and avail­abil­i­ty of exter­nal fund­ing for the group in question;
  6. Total avail­able MMSA funds for that period;
  7. Degree of med­ical stu­dent attendance

9.4 — In addi­tion to the afore­men­tioned principles:

  1. Prac­ti­cal or cre­ative learn­ing expe­ri­ences will be val­ued more high­ly than food.

9.5 Exec­u­tives must retain receipts for all pro­gram­ming expens­es in order to be reim­bursed by the MMSA Trea­sur­ers through the Doc­tors Man­i­to­ba Fund, as per the Treasurer’s instructions.

Part 10 – Accountability

10.1 — Grounds for inter­est group dis­band­ment include, but are not lim­it­ed to:

  1. Seri­ous breach of any of the respon­si­bil­i­ties out­lined in this policy;
  2. Com­mit­ting an offence that breaks any fed­er­al, provin­cial or munic­i­pal laws or oth­er­wise dam­ages the rep­u­ta­tion of the MMSA and/​or Uni­ver­si­ty of Manitoba;
  3. Fail­ure to take ade­quate pre­cau­tions to lim­it lia­bil­i­ty while host­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in high-risk events or activities.

10.2 — If an inter­est group is believed to have con­tra­vened one or more of the grounds for dis­band­ment, the Exec­u­tives will be noti­fied of such com­plaint in writ­ing by the Vice-Stick Internal.

  1. This com­plaint may take the form of a warn­ing (lead­ing to pro­ba­tion) or a direct motion to dis­band said group, depend­ing on the nature of the pol­i­cy breach.
    1. If a warn­ing has been issued, said inter­est group will be con­sid­ered to be on pro­ba­tion for the remain­der of the aca­d­e­m­ic year.
    2. Groups who accrue mul­ti­ple warn­ings in a sin­gle aca­d­e­m­ic year may be sub­ject to a motion for dis­band­ment, regard­less of the sever­i­ty of the indi­vid­ual breach­es in policy.

10.3 If a group believes that they have not met the grounds for a warn­ing or a motion to dis­band, the Exec­u­tives may sub­mit a writ­ten response to the Senior Stick.

  1. The Senior Stick, Vice-Stick Inter­nal, and Vice-Stick Exter­nal will then con­vene to review both the com­plaint and the group’s response. If suf­fi­cient grounds for pro­ba­tion or dis­band­ment are deemed to exist, the group will be noti­fied in writ­ing by the Vice­S­tick Internal.
  2. If the group wish­es to dis­pute the deci­sion of this com­mit­tee, they may sub­mit a new appeal to the Senior Stick.
    1. If this should occur, the Senior Stick will present the case to the MMSA Exec­u­tive at the next con­vened coun­cil meet­ing. Fol­low­ing a dis­cus­sion, a final deci­sion regard­ing pro­ba­tion or dis­band­ment will be made.

10.4 — Con­se­quences of disbandment:

  1. Loss of inter­est group sta­tus and all priv­i­leges there­by con­ferred for the inter­im, includ­ing rights to hold and lead MMSA-sanc­tioned events;
  2. Repay­ment to the MMSA Exec­u­tive of any monies pro­vid­ed to the group that have not yet been spent at time of disbandment.
  3. Dis­band­ed inter­est groups may apply for approval in the fol­low­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year using the process out­line in Sec­tion 7, with the addi­tion of a report detail­ing the pre­vi­ous inci­dent and what can be done in the upcom­ing year to avoid sim­i­lar incidents.

Devel­oped July 2015 by the MMSA in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Queens University’s Aes­cu­lapi­an Soci­ety and the Stu­dent Med­ical Soci­ety of Saskatchewan.

Revised Jan­u­ary 2018 with sup­port from 2017 – 2018 Inter­est Group Exec­u­tive and with feed­back from the 2017 – 2018 MMSA Exec­u­tive Council.