Vice-President Finance and Operations Nick Drew has had a stellar year. Gert’s, the most visible part of the FOPS portfolio, thrived under his watch. This year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration at Gert’s broke the single-day sales record, which was previously held by this year’s Octoberhaus—two events which have been very well attended and profitable for Gert’s and SSMU. A multitude of campus organizations have been hosting more and more events at Gert’s, making it a consistently busy hotspot on campus. The daily drink deals have also been a key move, generating reasons for attendance any day of the week. And maybe the biggest change is that people actually want to go to Gert’s. The days of blaring music and empty tables have been replaced by a full bar of eager McGillians.

Although plans for renovations have been going slower than some may have hoped, everyone knows that money is tight. The McGill administration can be difficult to work with, but Drew has worked hard to ensure that the ball gets rolling on the project. The planned renovations include an updated kitchen, which will help with the bar’s food service. Though the food service’s potential has not fully realized, the future looks promising.

Both of the Book Bazaars, the replacement for Haven Books, lost money and were relatively unsuccessful, but this may have been unavoidable. Drew has talked about plans to move the whole process online and form a SSMU Classifieds, which could be a welcome change. However, it’s unclear how useful this would be when we already have McGill Classifieds. Either way, the experimentation was promising and Drew seems to have laid a good groundwork in this regard for Shyam Patel, next year’s VP FOPS. Drew has also worked with Patel to update the Club Auditing process, which aims to make the daunting auditing process much easier for SSMU clubs and services. Finally Drew has been impressive in his tactical handling of the SSMU investment portfolio, which did very well this year.