Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti

President's Message with David Agosti — Welcome Back?!

January 12, 2022

It’s déjà vu all over again – Yogi Berra
Welcome back (!?). I started a draft of this communication before the winter break with the intention of welcoming APSA members back...

Conversations with the President — Welcome Back?!

November 02, 2021

Welcome back?!
I started writing this communication from the president at the end of August as a September message and then got busy with return-to-campus. 

Conversations with the President — June Updates

June 3, 2021

“But goodness,” continued Piglet,“difficult days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be there for you, Pooh.”

It’s sometimes easy for everyone at the University to forget that in the midst of COVID recovery, bargaining, ESA hours of work, etc. “regular work” still needs to be done, so I wanted to shift gears a bit for this month’s Conversations with the President.

Conversations with the President — May Updates

May 6, 2021

"May the fourth be with you!"

Wait... Revenge of the Sixth?

(More nerd trivia —  the first May the fourth Star Wars days began in Canada)

It's been six months since our AGM, and over a year since COVID started, so I wanted to update APSA members on a number of "APSA-wide" items that have been ongoing during that time.

Conversations with the President — March Updates

March 1, 2021

This conversation is more of a reminder/to-do list, so I'm going to get right into it: CRA — Home Office Expense Deductions A reminder of the tax deductions you can access if you are/were working from home during COVID. For more information, please see the dedicated Home Office Expenses sub-page of the SFU Finance department page.

Conversations with the President — FREE MONEY!!! (COVID, Working from Home, and CRA Tax Deductions)

February 13, 2021

According to Google Analytics, my most popular "Conversations with the President" article to date was the one on "Free Stuff and Discounts," so I thought I'd be dramatic when titling this post.

President's Message with David Agosti

January 13, 2021

2021: Hold my beer.

Since our AGM at the end of November and my last “Conversations with the President,” it seems like the world has taken two steps backwards instead of one step forward:

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — AGM 2020

November 10, 2020

Nothing outlasts the Energizer bunny, well, except... "This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather." —Phil, Groundhog Day

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — Professional Development

October 6, 2020

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." — Inigo Montoya The Princess Bride And that word is... professional development. Technically that's two words...

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — Delegation

July 30, 2020

How do trees join online meetings? They log in. Sorry, that's all I've got this month, but, speaking of meetings APSA has regular meetings with the Human Resources department. In a June meeting, we …

Conversations with APSA president, David Agosti — Check-In

July 7, 2020

Stardate 3067.2 Personal Log Dr. Bonnie Henry, the XIVth, has announced that socialization in groups of up to 100 people is now permitted, so long as we continue to wear our masks ... We're into month four (!!!) of dealing with COVID-related impacts on our work and all parts of our …

Conversations with David Agosti — What is APSA? part 2

May 1, 2020

During these times of quarantine and pandemic, people often take the opportunity to reflect. How much toilet paper does the average person use in a month? Should I change out of my pajamas before noon? And most importantly... what is APSA?

Conversations with APSA president, David Agosti — COVID-19 synopsis

April 3, 2020

As I write this, COVID-19 continues to provide challenges to all of us in both our work lives and especially our personal lives. On a personal level, I find there is a fine line between prudence and paranoia... between too much and just enough information... between things that are relevant to me and things that are not.

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — What does the president do?

March 2, 2020

First of all, thank you to those who responded to my last conversations regarding discounts and free stuff. Lakshmi is putting everything together, and we should have some information out to everyone shortly.

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — Free Stuff and Discounts

January 21, 2020

FREE STUFF!!! I hope that got your attention —it’s certainly top of mind for me since I just received my Christmas VISA bill. As a continuing SFU employee, APSA members get certain “free” perks of employment — meaning we get access to things that people outside the SFU community would need to pay for like:

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — EFAP

January 3, 2020

Hello APSA members, Welcome back to a New Year at SFU! I hope that you had a restful week off and are ready for 2020 (he says… during the first week of classes and budget prep). … any of the above areas, and think you'd like some support with achieving that goal, keep EFAP in mind. It's free for …

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — Happy Holidays

November 26, 2019

Hello APSA members, Thank you to all of you who attended the AGM last month. We passed new bylaws, introduced the members of the board for 2020 and discussed negotiations. You can find out what happened in more detail in the 2019 AGM minutes.

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — AGM

November 1, 2019

As many of you know, the transit strike took effect on Friday, November 1. As I've mentioned before, I'm the Director of Parking & Sustainable Mobility Services. We're currently strategizing on offsetting the impact that the strike will have on the SFU community... We present you, our members, with what we've been doing over the past year. The …

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti Committees

September 26, 2019

Welcome to another September at SFU. I’m sure by now you’ve got an email from the Salary and Benefits committee asking you to fill out a survey. This lets us know where the gaps are and help form our mandate for bargaining. So go on and fill out the survey, there may even be a draw for coffee at the end.

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — Committees part 2

August 26, 2019

Before we get back into our committee discussion, I wanted to remind members to use your professional development funds this year. Contact HR for preapproval and submit your receipts to Learning and Development before it's too late. So, back to last month's discussion. We talked about the Advocacy Committee, the Board of Directors and the Finance Committee. Let's talk about the remaining committees.

Conversations with David Agosti — Education and Professional Development

July 29, 2019

We've been discussing what APSA does for its members. We've covered negotiations, advocacy and this month I'd like to talk about APSA's initiatives on education and professional development. So what exactly are the types of education and professional development APSA offers?

Conversations with David Agosti  Advocacy

June 20, 2019

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Vancouver and Surrey socials – it was great to meet all of you (and I still have my balloon lightsaber of power). Voting is open for the APSA Board, so make sure and vote.… work environment, and sometimes we find ourselves faced with bullying, harassment, or a toxic work environment. …

Conversations with David Agosti  Negotiations

May 31, 2019

Last month we talked about what APSA does for its members (Negotiate, Advocate, and Educate). This month I'd like to get into specifics and talk about negotiations.

Conversations with APSA president, David Agosti — What is APSA?

May 1, 2019

We've been very busy at APSA recently as many things have been happening. We've had the Volunteer Luncheon, the Salary and Benefit Committee is readying for negotiations as our contract ends on June 30, 2019... When people ask me what APSA is, I like to respond with, "We're somewhere between a union like CUPE and a …

Conversations with APSA President, David Agosti — Introduction

March 26, 2019

I want you to know that Job Evaluation is completely separate from the Market Survey that the TCRC has been advocating for. If you are curious, generally speaking, Job Evaluation looks at internal comparisons while a Market Survey looks at external comparisons...