Again, (again, again) it begins... (SU Elections)

Crash

Its not the nicest day for manifesto spamming - in a lecture now and might do some on my way out...

mcguirkj

He got the fourth highest first preferences, but came third by a whisker after transfers.

3 Votes Donal, 3 damn votes!!!! (You'd think you could have stuffed them in your pocket or something)

xebec

mcguirkj wrote:

3 Votes Donal, 3 damn votes!!!! (You'd think you could have stuffed them in your pocket or something)

Are you insinuating that Donal is somehow corrupt?! Only kidding But it did make for interesting counting... I'm happy I won't be doing that this year!

osd

Any campaign websites or manifestos online?

R

xebec

http://clairetighe.googlepages.com (I haven't finished it yet!!)

http://www.voteneil.com (leads to his Bebo page)

These are the only two I know about at the moment...

xebec

http://clairetighe.googlepages.com (I haven't finished it yet!!)

http://www.voteneil.com (leads to his Bebo page)

These are the only two I know about at the moment...

nutball

<snip>

shay_562

Of the posters, best is probably Barry Keane - I love the little *ping* on his teeth, and the BK logo is fantastic. Worst could well be Ray, unfortunately - like xebec said upthread, he loses points for the lack of a last name (never give the electorate too much credit for intelligence) and for the "Hey hey vote Ray" slogan. Hopefully his manifesto will be better...on the subject of manifestos, have only seen two so far, Neasa's and Bartley's, so I'll reserve judgement until a later date.

osd

I just read John's. Seems very like Quinn's last year. Not too happy about the use of the tcdsu.org email address in the manifesto for some reason.

mcguirkj

Is anyone else finding it difficult to find manifestoes? I was based in the Hamilton and the Museum Building today for around 5 hours of lectures and only picked up 2 (No to Coke, and Claire Tighe). There were one or two Tracey ones around the Hamilton.

Was about to come on here saying how none of the Dep Pres candidates had mentioned what they would do with the website, but just read Claire's manifesto (the website omits the section on 'publicity aims' unless I'm going blind). Bit surprised at the overall lack of websites this year.

I heard a few people won't be getting their manifestoes out until the middle of the week. Anyone been lecture-addressed by a candidate yet? I'm curious whether anyone will bother coming into SS Engineering

mcguirkj wrote:

3 Votes Donal, 3 damn votes!!!! (You'd think you could have stuffed them in your pocket or something)

xebec

xebec wrote:

http://clairetighe.googlepages.com (I haven't finished it yet!!)

http://www.voteneil.com (leads to his Bebo page)

These are the only two I know about at the moment...

Thats my vote spoken for!

I am far too easily swayed!

mizz.yelof!!!

Myth wrote:

Is anyone else finding it difficult to find manifestoes? I was based in the Hamilton and the Museum Building today for around 5 hours of lectures and only picked up 2 (No to Coke, and Claire Tighe). There were one or two Tracey ones around the Hamilton.

Was about to come on here saying how none of the Dep Pres candidates had mentioned what they would do with the website, but just read Claire's manifesto (the website omits the section on 'publicity aims' unless I'm going blind). Bit surprised at the overall lack of websites this year.

I heard a few people won't be getting their manifestoes out until the middle of the week. Anyone been lecture-addressed by a candidate yet? I'm curious whether anyone will bother coming into SS Engineering

a lot of candidates are indeed leaving the manifestos until wed thurs and fri. this mainly the new tactic for this year simply due to the fact that last year after 2 days of throwing the stuff at everyone they realised they were being dumped into peoples bags and only used again to dispose of unwanted chewing gum etc. the idea is if they only start with a big splurg around wed thurs people wont get as bored as quickly and stay interested.


quite a few had started their lecture addressing today, neasa and ed to name but 2. i heard of others but i cant remmebr by name who these were.

oh and ed for ents!

Crash

Heheh, my gigantic bebo face page took so long getting the domain sorted (damn you netfirms and your ****ty dns propogation!) that the website will have to wait a day or two

xebec

Quite a few are waiting for manifestoes to be printed, it's nothing to do with waiting till later in the week, they just won't be ready on time...

crash, does that mean you will have a full website?

shay_562

Anyone been lecture-addressed by a candidate yet?

Una Faulkner was at some SF politics thing today (don't do the course myself, just know a few people in it, so I don't know how she was) but aside from that I haven't seen any addresses.

I've now seen mainfestos from Neil (good, but I'm not sure how much it'll appeal to people who don't know their clustering from their modularisation, which was about 98% of college last time I checked), John Tracey (riddled with typos and unachievable promises, including several things that seemed far more Dep Pres/Education-y) and Barry Keane (who has some good ideas, but also typos, which irritate the living bejesus out of me). I really want to see some manifestos for Ed and Claire, as well as anything from anyone for Welfare. Is there any particular reason there isn't a designated dump spot for manifestos (the distribution stands for Miscellany/Piranha seem to be empty right now) for the hacky among us who really want to read up on the candidates, rather than having to find a campaign team member with some flyers on them?

Incidentally, is it just me or is it a depressing state of affairs when key promises on a Dep Pres flyer include "editorial meetings" and "recruiting writers"? When the quality of the job being done is so low that all you have to do is promise the stuff that's in your brief anyway and look like a more competent candidate than the incumbent, it makes you worry.

shay_562

shay_562 wrote:

John Tracey (riddled with typos and unachievable promises, including several things that seemed far more Dep Pres/Education-y)

Two ways to look at this:

1. People think the president is the person who 'gets things done'.
2. No-one really knows what the president actually does.

xebec

Myth wrote:

Two ways to look at this:

1. People think the president is the person who 'gets things done'.
2. No-one really knows what the president actually does.

Puts everything into perspective

On another note, there are now pictures on http://clairetighe.googlepages.com for anyone who is wondering what Claire looks like...

E-gad, get some picture frames in there man!

xebec

No.

TN is up, with the election special contained within: http://www.trinitynews.ie/section.php?issue=6&section=News

shay_562

As is the Record, which is (shockingly) of considerably lower quality. Daire McNab, a joke candidate, gets an entire page to himself - must be fun to work at the Record. And I'm collecting opinions to prove someone wrong - is Bartley more hard done by since his column is 1/4 the size of Neil's, or is Neil worse off since the first half of his piece is poorly super-imposed over a photo of him, rendering his name, half his policies and his face virtually illegible/invisible? I'm once again pleasantly surprised by TN though - a very nice (if slightly bitchy) piece on which campaign promises from last year have been fulfilled and which have been left hanging.

Two ways to look at this:

1. People think the president is the person who 'gets things done'.
2. No-one really knows what the president actually does.

Two intriguing hypotheses. I'm going to go with option "2", but it's a close-run thing.

Awayindahils

shay_562 wrote:

Two intriguing hypotheses. I'm going to go with option "2", but it's a close-run thing.

That's only because you secretly harbor ambitions.

shay_562

Of course I do. Hackery? Check. Actually giving half a **** about this place? Check. Boundless narcissism and arrogance? Check and double check. Hell, I think I'm an ideal candidate.

On that note, Donal, as someone who knows, what exactly is the President's official job? For the last two years, it seems like general overseer/figurehead, with a little bit of PR and management mixed in.

Crash

shay_562 wrote:

is Bartley more hard done by since his column is 1/4 the size of Neil's, or is Neil worse off since the first half of his piece is poorly super-imposed over a photo of him, rendering his name, half his policies and his face virtually illegible/invisible?

what with the interviews being submitted by email, I don't think you can ever say a candidate is hard done by due to the amount of text that they, themselves, submitted. I can't quite see where that comment would come from Niall at all, or the basis for it. as for the second point, I am slightly annoyed about it, but I'm happy enough with the content, even if only half of it is readable.

On that note, Donal, as someone who knows, what exactly is the President's official job? For the last two years, it seems like general overseer/figurehead, with a little bit of PR and management mixed in.

The following is how its defined within the constitution of the Students Union

the SU consitution wrote:

(f) President
The duties of the President shall be:
(i) To coordinate Union work on a day-to-day basis and
to coordinate Union campaigns.
(ii) To act as the first spokesperson of the Union.
(iii) To represent students on College Board, and other
College committees as deemed appropriate by
Council.
(iv) To be one of the co-Treasurers of the Union.
(v) To deal with staffing and administrative matters.
(vi) To act as liaison between the Union and the Students’
Unions of the affiliated colleges, and co-ordinate the
work of the Union in this regard.
(vii) To ensure that minutes of Union meetings and
relevant documentation are filed in the Union's
records.
(viii) To seek to maintain and improve Union services, and,
in pursuance of this, to liase with Union subsidiaries
as defined in Schedule 5.

schedule 5 refers to a finance document, of which, on the SU website, I can find no information on. The role itself, as dictated by the constitution, would seem to be one of spokesperson/manager - or thats my reading of it. anyone anything different?

shay_562

crash_000 wrote:

I can't quite see where that comment would come from Niall at all, or the basis for it.

It came from being surprised at the disparity between the lengths of the two pieces, following on from a comment about the unusually large allocation of space to Daire by comparison to the other three Welfare candidates. It seemed like poor form on the Record's part to give a large area to one candidate over another; in light of the fact that the surveys were e-mailed, I can see why it might have happened in the case of Education (if not in the case of Daire, where it's mostly a giant photo of him), and yet, I'm curious as to what extent pieces were edited and whether guidelines were given as the the required length of answers (something I would have assumed was a basic necessity in order to ensure that candidates didn't write 5000 words dissertations on their policies and plans). I'm not suggesting you snuck into the Record offices and changed the layout (presumably while twirling your handlebar mustache and cackling) as a campaign strategy - I'm simply saying that the Record should be more careful about giving equal space to every candidate (again, not just in Education but also in Welfare). I'm just as annoyed on your behalf (even if you're not particularly) at the fact that they essentially blotted out half your interview - generally, it was a poor show all round.

Edit: Cheers for the info on President btw.

Neil McGough

Neil McGough wrote:

The role itself, as dictated by the constitution, would seem to be one of spokesperson/manager - or thats my reading of it. anyone anything different?

I'd highlight the 'campaigns' part of what is written, as it is often overlooked. My view of a president is a being who helps the other sabbatical officers with their workload, while acknowledging the work they do and not 'robbing responsibility' for a good thing. This being should run campaigns by hightlighting problems that are wrong, but not focussing solely on one issue. Disability is one which springs to mind which is often overlooked by the 'campaigns officer' (but which other sabbats work on). And not just awareness, trying to actually change things, and again not just for publicity/ego but so that it can actually have an impact on students!

I know a few people who will call me idealistic for stating this, and you know who you are

On a different note, I found two new campaign websites... well, there's nothing there, but they're on the manifestoes at any rate!

http://www.votebyrne.com/ - Andy Byrne, running for President
http://www.unaforwelfare.com/ - Úna Faulkner, running for Welfare Officer

Crash

shay_562 wrote:

...I'm curious as to what extent pieces were edited and whether guidelines were given as the the required length of answers (something I would have assumed was a basic necessity in order to ensure that candidates didn't write 5000 words dissertations on their policies and plans).

sorry if that came off slightly aggressive, was knackered at the time of posting :P

there were no guidelines given on the length of the piece at all. I was actually worried about my piece being way too long, (my ideas part is four paragraphs for example) and I asked could someone get back to me if it was when I emailed in the piece, but never got a reply.

as for to what extent pieces were edited, as far as I can remember mine wasn't edited at all. in fact, I think I accidently included a typo in there somewhere.

I'm not suggesting you snuck into the Record offices and changed the layout (presumably while twirling your handlebar mustache and cackling) as a campaign strategy - I'm simply saying that the Record should be more careful about giving equal space to every candidate (again, not just in Education but also in Welfare). I'm just as annoyed on your behalf (even if you're not particularly) at the fact that they essentially blotted out half your interview - generally, it was a poor show all round.

This may be me being biased, but I do think the education and welfare pieces were like that for two different reasons. for instance, the welfare one had such a large piece on dara simply because certain people involved in the record could - no other reason.


Oh, and I only cackle at something evil, malevolent and hysterically funny. while tampering WOULD be funny, it simply wouldn't be quite funny enough to make me cackle, unfortunately.


Also, I look sexy in my TN article

SOL

But most importantly let us not forget it is the Record we are talking about, the fact there were words on paper was doing well, I thought. :P Also could someone post a link to it?

Record isn't online. Only the second issue was placed online.

Agent Smith

Name Last modified Size Description

[DIR] Parent Directory 14-Feb-2007 05:54 -
[DIR] _private/ 24-Jan-2007 01:52 -
[DIR] cgi-bin/ 24-Jan-2007 01:52 -
[DIR] images/ 24-Jan-2007 01:52 -
[TXT] postinfo.html 24-Jan-2007 01:52 2k

Apache/1.3.37 Server at www.unaforwelfare.com Port 80


ahoh!