Quoting niall from 18:37, 15th Mar 2006
so what you're saying is, "vote for me then i'll tell you waht i want to do"
I'm assuming you're asking me what my manifesto says.
Here you go:
PRESTON BYRNE
For
ASSOCIATION
PRESIDENT
Campaign manifesto.
Who I am,
What I want to do,
Why I want to do it,
And how I can get it done!
Contents:
Who I am. 3
What I want to do. 4
Why I want to do it. 5
And how I will do it. 6
Year-long STAR-FM. 7
Alumni(ae) Magazine/ Student Project Fund. 7
SRC Representation Strategy. 8
Increasing and diversifying advertising space. 9
Review and conclusion. 10
Who I am.
Basics: I’m a fourth-year student of International Relations. I have floppy hair. I play cello and bass guitar (not very well) with some friends at home in a garage band called “Purple Panda Celebration.” My favourite band is PHISH. I don’t have a car—I drive a 13-year-old motorcycle named Tina instead. She’s not great in the snow but then again, I’m here during the winter so that isn’t really a problem.
The family business these days is Lawyers Without Borders, a not-for-profit NGO based in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. It’s probably due to this that much of my work in the Association has been related to my interest in human rights, as seen by my focus on International Students, Ethnic Minorities and, as 2005 Ambassadors’ Ball Convenor, my efforts to fund tsunami relief.
But what about the post of Association President? For my entire St Andrews career, I’ve been involved in a broad range of representational and charitable work and, through my university experience, have learned much about the problems all students face. Over the course of my four years I've been a volunteer elected officer on the SRC and SSC, and I've been an active member of the Overseas Society Committee. In that time, I’ve helped to put on two Ambassadors’ Balls, I’ve represented the students well, I’ve voted in favour of the arts and in favour of STAR-FM, and I’m a founding member of the first Men’s Lacrosse team our University has ever had… you know, the full-contact version, with helmets and stuff.
I’ll be the first guy to admit that my Union experience has had its ups and downs. However, in spite of the low points, I go into this election with the confidence of the students, and I go into this election with the confidence of those who will be my co-workers.
This fall, the SRC elected me as a member of the Association’s Board of Trustees, and my proposals for Representational reform have been key elements of the Representational Strategy Working Group. I am the most experienced candidate for this job. I’ve earned the trust of the people I will work with, and I’ve got a plan to make the Union work for us!
…In a nutshell:
2005-06: Association Board of Trustees (S.A.B.), SRC Nominee
2006: Association Representational Strategy Working Group
2006: Equal Opportunities & Welfare Sub-Committee
2005: Elected SRC Member for Ethnic Minorities
2004: Elected Association Chair
2004: Elected President, the Overseas Society
2003: Elected SRC Member for International Students
2003: Appointed Marketing Officer, the Overseas Society
Sport & Extra-curricular:
The Boat Club
Lacrosse Club (Men's First, ILF Rules)
Union Debating Society
The Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence
What I want to do.
1) Responsible Representation.
We have all experienced the effects of poorly-functioning representation. High accommodation fees and the fact that top-up fees are even being brought into consideration should be enough to let us know that we’re not expressing ourselves strongly enough to the University and the Scottish Executive. But President alone can’t promise a cure-all, though it is down to the President and the Director of Representation to lead the way.
Any candidate for this post will oppose overpriced accommodation and the introduction of top-up fees that would restrict access to our University to a privileged elite. Any candidate will support Fair-Trade products and Ethical Investment. These are Association policies and no candidate is in a position to disagree with them. There isn’t any question about the importance of keystone issues, or what those issues are. My campaign is different. I have a plan to make the Association more effective at addressing these concerns in the future. If the Representation Strategy that I proposed in December of 2005 is implemented, the Association—from the President, to elected officers, to each and every member—will become more effective at representing the student body. We will be stronger. I’ve started it up, and I hope to finish the job.
Increased contact between the Student Representation Council (SRC) and the students is a must. I will make it happen. The University will not listen to the SRC if they know that the student body does not support it unequivocally, and the SRC will not be doing its job correctly if it isn’t talking to you. I will make sure that the SRC knows what you care about, and will let you know what progress it is making, and will give you the opportunity to speak up.
Accountable and Accessible Representation is important, too. I support:
-Mandatory random drug testing for sabbatical officers, to show that we’re not messing around with your time and money.
-Set morning office hoursfor the Association President, so students can find me if they have a problem. Hopefully the next DoR-elect will join me in this endeavour.
-Providing a public face and ‘doing our part’: Sabbaticals working behind the bar of the Union once a week so that they are more approachable.
2) Pushing for more interaction between the Athletic Union and the Students’ Association, particularly with regard to advertising home matches, getting more students to get out and see our teams beat the daylights out of other Universities. Athletics are an important part of a University experience and while the Athletic Union does what it can to support our teams, considerable costs are borne by members of the various AU Clubs for transportation, league membership, or club dues. While the AU is chiefly responsible for athletics at the University, the Association can—and should—commit itself to assisting our sports teams.
3) Increased financial support for Societies, Theatre, and Athletics.
Our artists, activists and athletes are chronically under-funded. I have a plan—a simple plan that could become a reality within a year—to begin alleviating that problem by working with the University and the AU.
Why I want to do it.
I enjoy the work, and I’ve been doing it for a long time. Now that I’m older and wiser than in my younger days, I’ve gotten some very good work done this year--- including the recent work on a workable Annual Representation Strategy, which I proposed, that will help the Association to represent students better and build a broad student consensus that we can use to encourage fiscal responsibility by the University, and to lobby against increased accommodation fees.
I know how the Association operates—and where it falls down. Don’t get me wrong here: there are parts of the Association that work very well. The Charities Campaign Rag Week, Freshers’ Week and many other events prove consistently that the Union, our officers, and our volunteers are capable of doing incredible things. We have to enable our students to do more--- why not an Athletics Campaign? Arts Campaign? Societies’ Campaign? It can get done. We need to give our students the communication and advertising tools to get events like this done.
I know which issues affect all students. The library and printing capacity at this University is sorely lacking. The books we need are thin on the ground: often there being only a few copies for hundreds of students. Short loan is too short. The printers I need malfunction on a regular basis. I know what’s going on at this University and I want to enable the Association to do something about it.
I play sports. Accordingly, I want to get the Athletic Union to work closer with the rest of the student body, with the Association leading the way. I have experienced first-hand the lack of support some sports have from the student body as a whole. We don’t get enough spectators for the University to justify funding the AU more. I propose to work closely with the Athletic Union in order that we can generate an increasing level of support for our sports clubs. I’ve also experienced how under-funded Athletic programs can hit the student right in the wallet… transportation and training costs can make participation in sports prohibitively expensive for some.
More on this later.
I have been, and remain, actively involved in the Societies sector. As President of the Overseas Society I have experienced how the reality of having to fund all events yourself can curtail many plans. I want to work with the Students’ Association to help increase funding to all societies, and enhance the student experience at the University of St Andrews.
HOW I can get it done.
Ah, the big tamale. I’ve proposed a lot in this manifesto. I’ve shown that I’m motivated and, above all, experienced. But can I put my money where my mouth is? In my time in the Association, I’ve seen several projects proposed that are close to completion, but need a little extra push to become fully effective. I am the best candidate to finish these projects, which will help us to acquire the tools to make the Union work better: acquiring funding, publicising student activities, and developing a better dialogue between the members of the Student Representative Council and the students we represent. Here’s the plan:
-Year-long STAR-FM.
- Alumni(ae) Magazine/ Student Project Fund.
- SRC Representation Strategy.
-Increasing and diversifying advertising and funding for Socs, Sports, and Theatre.
I believe the Association ‘works hard,’ but it doesn’t ‘work smart.’ We’ve generally got the right idea. Our policies on Accommodation, Equal Opportinuties, and Environment & Ethics are sound. However, our communication resources are stretched too thin, so more often than not, maximum effort is expended with few results. My solution is to develop or create key assets- such as advertising space, the Radio, and publications- to help us complete our mission.
The way things work now, it’s hard for us to communicate our message. The SRC formulates policy, but the University ignores it. We try to run welfare campaigns, but other projects—advertising the bop or Rag Week (both essential) are prioritized above our own. At the present time, many parts of the Association don’t have all the available tools to maximise the impact of our efforts. However, if we work in the right direction, we will have the ability to do all of these things--- and greater communication between the Association and other bodies will help make the student body stronger. My goal is to make the will of the students a much more significant force at the University and to make it more likely that we will be able to influence decisions both within the University and beyond. I’ll give the Association the tools to carry out our strategic plan.
The greatest gift we can give to students of the present and future is to constantly expand our ability to do our jobs: building our capacity to be better representatives and better service providers, every day, all the time. In order for the Association to effectively prevent the possibility of top-up fees from becoming a reality, we need to initiate dialogue with fellow students and derive support from them. In my term I would use my job to complete as-of-yet-unfinished projects that will help us work in a way truly representative of your needs, in a way that gives us longer-term abilities to sustain student life at an acceptable standard.
1) Year-long STAR-FM.
STAR-FM Radio is one of the greatest assets the Association has—when it’s broadcasting, its website receives nearly 2,000 separate hits per day. I’ve supported STAR-FM—as a member of the Student Association Board I have voted to continue funding for this year and I want to take it further.
It’s time to take the next step: STAR-FM should on the air all year, and I will work to see it happen. As President, I will work for the Director of Events and Services and the members of the SSC to get Radio the funding it needs to become a permanent fixture of student life.
This is important because our design team is overworked—they produce high-quality work but do not have the resources or manpower to produce all the publicity we need. This year alone, the Equal Opportunities & Welfare Sub-Committee (EOW) has submitted three requests for publicity that have not been fulfilled. The problem is not the lack of trying—the Association’s design staff is excellent. However, there is simply too much to do.
STAR-FM should rightly remain an independent radio station. However, as a year-round station it could help the Association initiate a valuable and necessary dialogue with the student body regarding representational issues and campaigns supporting our artists, athletes, activists. It can provide much-needed publicity for SRC welfare campaigns. It can serve as a mouthpiece for Association officials to rally support for the inevitable problems of further accommodation price hikes and top-up fee implementation. Most importantly, it will provide a forum for students to communicate with each other about what they think the Association should do and how we should act. If the members of the station think we’re doing a bad job, they should criticise the President and other officers so constructive change can take place. Any way we look at it, a year-round radio station will be an asset to the Association, and I will work extremely hard, in consultation with the STAR-FM team, Sabbs, and students to get this one job done by the end of my term of office in summer of 2007.
2) Alumni(ae) Magazine and Student Project Fund.
If elected, work will begin immediately (March 2006) on the creation of an Association quarterly magazine to be sent to students, Alumni/ae, University staff, and prominent figures in the town and around Scotland. Talks have already begun with a group of students who are planning a new magazine for the town and, if elected, I will work with them to make sure that this new magazine
The Association’s contributions to the magazine will showcase our student body, whose talents are considerable- our skilled athletes, our artists (actors, singers, filmmakers) are talented and professional, and our volunteers are dedicated and effective. They deserve more support and I will get it to them.
But informing people of our students’ talent is just one small part of a greater objective: gaining funding. Each edition of this newsmagazine will have a section devoted to funding one student project. Students undertaking worthwhile causes—whether funding a team trip to other countries, funding a play or theatre festival, or a new video camera for one of our several student film production societies—will be able to come to the Association and apply for the space. General contributions will be welcomed as well. The account will be separate from the Union’s general accounts so all monies raised will go directly to the students, and its management will be entirely transparent. Any meetings regarding the awarding of funds from the account will be entirely public and each edition of the proposed magazine will show exactly where our funding has gone.
Remember, all alumni/ae are not only former students, but they are also former members of the Students’ Association. The University has thus fair failed to support student projects to a satisfactory extent through alumni contact. That is no reason that we shouldn’t give it a try—and if we do it, we can ensure that funds raised go straight to worthy student projects, instead of the creation of unaffordable luxury accommodation outside of town or staff salaries.
In short, we can be a direct link for alumni/ae to support the students, and for this reason we will succeed where the University has not.
The technical aspects of this sort of project are large in scope—a sabbatical officer could easily spend half if not all of his or her time working on such a magazine.
However, there is an abundance of budding journalists in St Andrews. One possibility--- emphasis on “possibility”--- for this idea’s rapid implementation would be to ask the Saint to assist us with publication, giving them all due credit, with the express understanding that the magazine is intended to be solely a student project devoted to promoting and funding student life at St Andrews. The editors and staff of the Saint will have a thing or two to say about this proposal—probably something along the lines of “we weren’t consulted about this!” This is true—they weren’t. However, this isn’t entirely my fault: election rules prohibited me from having that conversation until now.
The editor of a student magazine that will be publishing its inaugural issue later this spring, where the Union would buy a section of the magazine to help fund its publication, has presented still another possibility.
The development office is looking for a project like this. I want to see it done. If elected, I will begin right away to work out the technical aspects of this project with the University and student journalists. Naturally, we’d have to make a compromise with our partners—with requisite increases in office space and computing power from our end—to help us with our mission of supporting students, helping us move the Association forward!
3) SRC Representational Strategy.
As the SRC Member for Ethnic Minorities, I saw my position placed on the Equal Opportunities and Welfare sub-committee, but I worked to make the SRC more coherent. My proposal for an Annual Representation Strategy would make sure that the students would know what our plans were, that the University would know what our plans were, and make sure the SRC of each year could provide guidance to incoming SRCs the following year that would provide a clear path of progress to take, allowing them to take each long-term issue and trace their progress as well as allowing the students to know what we’re up to.
My concept of an “annual representational strategy” triggered the creation of the Representational Strategy Working Group, which has thus far failed to produce a strategy. If elected, I will myself write the strategy in consultation with members of the SRC and will make sure that a document is completed by the end of May, for
distribution in September 2006.
4). Increasing and diversifying advertising space.
The Association has ample advertising space inside and outside of the building. I will ask the Board to allocate funding for more billboard space and will then ask the A.U., the Mermaids, MusFund, and student societies to let us know what they’re doing, and when.
The billboard space outside the Association is central: I want that billboard, a three-piece thing, to become an information centre where we would list events in the arts, athletics, and societies sectors. Furthermore, I want more advertising space on the wall facing the street by the Fife Council recycling depot.
This is part of the DOsDA’s remit, technically, and I don’t want to step on the toes of any of the DOsDA candidates. However, having discussed my plans with candidates for DOSDA and DoES, if elected I feel confident that we’ll be able to work together to get this done. As the President is chiefly the “spokesperson and communication guy” for the Association, it would be down to the President to speak to the AU and Socs to make sure that they were willing or able to get us the information we’d need.
Expanded ad space in central areas will go a long way to helping our student activities thrive. Alumni funding will help us, too. Furthermore, the Union has a little bit of money in the bank that we shouldn’t be afraid to tap to get these projects off the ground. In the end, we should aim to increase our advertising and publicity mechanisms while finding ways to do it sustainably. I can do it.
5) Hold on, you haven’t included anything about those of us who have different issues. So what about me?
As President Preston, it is part of my plan to hold regular office hours when both my associate sabbatical officers and I are available to any member of the student body. These hours, ideally, would be from 9-12 in the morning, every morning. You’d have to roll out of bed a bit early, but that’s a small price to pay to get your issue on the agenda.
Remember, you are my priority. During these hours, I promise that I, and hopefully the other sabbaticals, will be available for your exclusive attention. And that’s a promise I will keep.
A review and conclusion.
In all, the Association needs to do two things before any real change can occur: firstly, it needs to make sure its message is in tune with student opinion, and secondly, it needs to make sure that it can communicate its message effectively. As the President’s role is to be the official spokesperson of the Association, I will work to communicate with the student body as much as possible. I will lobby for projects you support. I will work to get spectators at sport matches, so we have a better negotiating position when we ask for further sports funding. I will lobby very hard to make the University provide affordable accommodation- so Fife Park and Albany Park aren’t made to subsidise the rest of the University accommodation. I will work with the Uni to make sure that the proposed new(er) hall of residence is affordable and helps to alleviate pressure on the private housing market in St Andrews.
What the Association does is good. Our goals and mission are sound, though they are not communicated clearly. But I want to make it better. My good working relationship with incumbent sabbatical officers will allow me to make a good deal of progress on my plans even before I take office; my very good working relationship with many of the other candidates will make sure that whoever is elected, progress will continue throughout the coming year.
In all, I see the role of the President as one that does not involve formulating policy. Policy should be formulated by the SRC and SSC, with extensive consultation with the student body. My job is to make sure that the policies the SRC pursues are truly in touch with student opinion, and to make sure that the Association is capable to deal with threats to student welfare quickly and effectively.
My plans are all about creating new things to help us achieve the goals we’re already working on: adding to the media through which we already communicate and making sure that the Association proceeds with its mission effectively, confidently, and with your support.
And that’s that.
Sincerely,
Preston J. Byrne,
Candidate for Association President
