This week’s union General Meeting was cancelled as a result of poor turnout. Yet again, a low turnout of under 300 meant the meeting did not reach quorum and the motions proposed were suspended. The trend of low turnout has consistently dogged UMSU, which also suffered low participation from students in last week’s elections. The problem of low turnout is unfortunately a characteristic of student politics at the university. The last time the GM was well attended was in November when an amendment to the controversial twinning arrangement with Al-Najah university on the West Bank was proposed, resulting in huge interest and a consequent turnout of over 3,000 students.
Continue reading ‘Dismal turnout as yet another GM fails to meet quorum’
Monthly Archive for March, 2008
The full results of this years elections and there has been an near clean sweep for Student First, led by Rob ‘Mr Incredible’ Pinfold.
Election night events began with the disqualification of Alex Castro, the current Communications Officer. Castro was running for the position of International Students Officer. His disqualification came after negative campaigning by a supporter and Castro?s abuse of his current position to send out campaign emails to students ? a measure banned under current Union election rules.
Some candidates suffered a nerve-racking wait for the results to be announced. The majority of votes were close and at one point there was a difference of a mere 3 votes in the General Secretary count. Tensions increased, culminating in a euphoric celebration broke out as Rob Pinfold was declared General Secretary for 2008/2009, defeating the incumbent Tom Skinner who was standing for re-election.
The results are in and it’s a virtual whitewash for Students First. Take a look at our UMSU Election Count video and catch up with some of the candidates we featured earlier.
From 9AM-5PM, Tues 4th-Thurs 6th March 2008 you can vote for the members of next years executive. Simply cast your vote at either of the Manchester University Student’s Union buildings.
The candidates you elect will be your only representatives as students and will be responsible for all that goes on in our students union. They will have a huge effect on your interaction with the uni, so choose wisely. This decision matters! Manifestos for all the candidates can be found in the SU foyer.
In response to Johnathan Fitzsimons article on the recent UMSU hustings, Im inclined to agree with the sentiment if not the wording. Having covered Union politics at the University for over a year, I find it hard to disagree with his appraisal that our union is failing its members. However, to suggest the recent hustings were ‘horrendously’ organised is, in my view, more than a little unfair considering the superb work put in by this year’s returning officers to involve as many students as possible. Indeed in comparison to the hustings last year, they were a paragon of student involvement. Whilst the turnout was still embarrassingly low for a student body of 40,000, it did at least show progress.
