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Vision of the Guild |
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Originally this was the page where I'd outline what I planned to do once I was President of the Guild...but there's not much point doing that now. Instead what follows is a brief article on where I think the elections could have been improved, and generally what's wrong with the Guild. Might as well start at the beginning, and the lack of advertising about standing for a position in the first place. A one week period in which to find out the elections were happening, to find out what each position involves, then make a manifesto, get people to nominate you, and then hand in the form in no where near enough. Two weeks would make far more sense. Plug the hell out of it in Redbrick with articles on each of the Sabbs and what they do. On to hustings. The BurnFM and Guild TV hustings were very good ideas in principle, the only problem being that who on Earth was ever going to sit through listening to them all? And releasing the GTV recordings on the last day of the campaign, what happened there? Generally the hustings were badly advertised. The uni centre speeches should have gone first, to allow people to understand what people's campaigns were about before the opportunity for questions in the so-called 'slanted hustings' later on. Having the hustings outside Avanti - why? Are they deliberately trying to hide them away? Put them the other side of the building outside Waterstones, or outside the library - somewhere where people pass by. Questions for the BurnFM hustings - how were people supposed to know about this? ADVERTISE IT PROPERLY. And for goodness sake, make it easy for people to find the place where they're supposed to email the questions to. I didn't listen to the debates, but I think it would have been a good idea to hold them in Joes or somewhere with a live audience. Make it properly like Question Time with questions from an audience and then the panel debating. This I, and therefore I assume a chunk of the student body, would have been interested in attending. The rules. I had a number of people asking me about rules and regulations. I don't understand why all of these rules aren't written down and updated each year. Problems were had this year with simple things like people not knowing they had to have their names on their banners. The slate rule should have been explained. There seems to be an assumption that since elections committee know what things are and how they happen, everyone else automatically should too. As to some of the things that were considered 'free and fair use' items, I think a lot of the campaign teams were shocked at what they managed to get passed. Tip for next year - get online voting. I hear it almost happened this year, so it should definitely be in place by next. Start getting it organised now. Unlike Facebook, which just ended up pissing people off with constant messages, online voting will increase participation. Most people deliberately avoid campus on voting days to ensure they keep away from being hounded by candidates shoving flyers in their faces and shouting 'have you voted yet?' in their faces. Which brings me on to the gimmicks. Double edged sword here: a person can't win unless that have a good gimmick and plaster it everywhere on campus, but then these gimmicks are the reason people run away on voting days. I know a number of 'good' candidates who have lost in the elections due to attempting to forget the gimmick and run on policies. It's a shame that there's not real way of getting these policies across in the current system. <I should really organise these thoughts a bit better, as currently I'm just writing them as they come into my head.> The sheer number of candidates/positions. This may be helped by online voting, when it will be easy to look up who each person is, but at the moment unless voters go with a list written down about who they're going to vote for, there's no way they'll be able to remember who they thought was best for each position once they reach the ballot box. Having to make a mark for each sabb and non-sabbatical position, and then face ticking a million more boxes once you get into transferable votes, takes a lot of time. I personally have in the past taken the first few positions seriously, but after having gotten so far just ticked stuff at random. The rule breaking. I didn't get to hear about most of what went on this year. From what I can gather there were a number of things done which annoyed other candidates. I always find this surprising. Is being on the exec really that important? I mean, you don't actually have that much power if you win, and it doesn't actually look that fantastic on your CV either - a number of past-exec I've spoken to have ended up spending most of their time in interviews trying to explain what being on the exec actually involved. On the exec you're supposed to be setting a good example to the rest of the student body, helping them with their problems - is it really a good idea to start your term by behaving in this way? Anyway, that's some of what I think.
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WHO'S SIDE ARE YOU ON? |
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