Brad McIlwraith for Director of Student Development and Activities

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Here is a copy of my speech which I said at the hecklings- it covers all my main policies.

Hello there everybody, my name is Brad McIlwraith and I am running for the position of Director of Student Development and Activities. Before I go into the nitty gritty I’ll just quickly tell you about myself. I’m in my 5th year here in St Andrews studying psychology and I’ve spent 4 years working here in the union in the bar downstairs having seen many sabbaticals come and go and used the time to get to know a lot of the permanent staff here in the building that I would be working with if eventually elected.

I am also President of a large society known to many as “The Pool Society”- I am very proud of the fact that this year we have had our largest ever membership and our most successful year sending 18 people to BUSA competitions and raising over £60 for charity. The experience of managing such a successful society has taught me many lessons about how a society should be run and the role of DOSDA and the SSC when it comes to societies. It has also made me aware of issues that I intend to address:

Using the example of PoolSoc (because it’s what I know obviously, but there are more examples). There are currently ‘sports clubs’ that have a legitimate claim to be affiliated by the AU but they refuse affiliate ANY new clubs on the grounds that it does not align with their strategic plan. I think this is absolutely absurd! Not only are the AU given a specific grant for sending teams to BUSA events, but can you imagine the uproar if Jenny McKay this year had refused to affiliate any new societies to the students association because “we just want to work on improving the societies we already have”. This situation needs improving. This ultimately leads to a decline in funds for all other societies. I intend to go about improving this situation by raising awareness of the issue and to also pressure the AU into giving a little leeway. I’m sure some sort of compromise can be reached.

On the subject of money and societies- Another thing I would intend to do is follow up on the way societies spend their money. I’m well aware that many societies inflate their budget proposals as large as possible to obtain the largest possible grant. I don’t see any particular problem with this as long as the money is spent in the way that they originally said they would. But what I don’t agree with is the way certain societies DON’T spend their budget money on equipment and events that were planned, but will spend their money wastefully at the end of the semester whereas this money could have been spent more productively on other societies. I intend to make it clear to societies that I will be looking for a very good reason if they havn’t been able to spend their money productively.

On Top of dealing with these two issues, I pledge here and now (and I’m sure all other potential candidates would do exactly the same) that I will do my utmost to increase the societies budget even further from the already impressive £55,000 we received over the previous year. I also intend to have improved training for societies at the start of the year. I felt the training offered this year was very much from a Health and Safety and ‘cover our backs’ approach. Whilst it is essential that societies know what they can and cannot do in terms of Health and Safety and also important that treasurers are accountable for their societies. I feel as if there wasn’t enough time spent on the proper way to actually run a society. In particular I feel as if the training offered to treasurers was woefully inadequate, I feel it important to provide very basic training to all incoming societies as it is possible that incoming committees may be fully comprised of members that have never done any committee work before! To remedy this I intend to have a handbook published for all societies explaining in clear terms Health and Safety and also basic information as to how to run a society. But at the end of the day it will not be my job to run each individual society- I will not pretend to maintain that I know how to run each individual society better than their own respective committees. It will be my role to support these societies, represent these societies, and make sure these societies have the proper training and infrastructure to make next year the most successful year we’ve ever had!

To finish, I would like to say that I’m a down to earth guy, who can listen to advice and criticism and learn form it. I have shown in the past that I can make decisions that I don’t agree with on a personal level, and that I can offer objective decisions that can benefit the greater good. I will listen to my Societies committee, I will listen to the committees of societies, but lastly I will listen to YOU! I will make sure your demands are heard and something done about them.
Thank you. Vote for me and there will be “A fairer deal for ALL societies.”




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