The nominations for the University of Lincoln’s Students’ Union have officially opened on February 24th and will remain open for a further two weeks until 10am on March 10th.
The paid positions available are president, vice-president academic affairs, vice-president activities, vice-president welfare and diversity.
There are also a number of unpaid part-time officer roles, which include societies officer, sports officer, liberation officer and the newly created roles of non-portfolio officer. These positions were made at the All Students Meeting in November 2010 and have no specific role meaning more freedom in their work.
Although the nomination period has only just begun some people have already announced their intention to run in the elections.
The students already putting themselves forward for president are Dan Derricott, the current vice-president for academic affairs, Ary Sharif, a photographer for some of Lincoln’s clubs, and JP Thackeray, who currently works for the SU.
John Conway is running for the role of activities* and he is currently the treasurer of the Japanese Anime society.
Hoping to be re-elected are Andreas Zacharia and Kayleigh Taylor who are the vice-president for activities and vice-president for welfare and diversity respectively.
Jonathan Holmes, liberation officer, is not running again instead choosing to focus on the final year of his degree and after two years as SU president Chris Charnley is unable to run again due to limits on the maximum time you can be in office.
Election packs with information for potential candidates will be available online and in hard copy from the SOAP office and around the Brayford Pool campus.
The full list of candidates will be released on March 10th and the results of this year’s election will be announced on March 21st at the Tower Bar.
*Correction – it was stated earlier that John Conway is running for academic affairs.
Dan Derricott needs to go back to his studies, he’s already taken one year out and now decides he can go galavanting around to taking another year out, it’s totally unacceptable, rules go out the window for this boy. He’s done nothing but waste union resources to put on coaches that are hardly used, a recent example the ‘Save our EMA’ protest in Manchester. Shameful. Concentrate on HE not FE boy.
I completely disagree with the above comment, for several reasons.
1. Dan should (and clearly does) feel free to do what he likes with his education, as you or I should. You have no right to tell someone what that should or should not do with their life.
2. Which “rules” have “gone out the window” for him exactly? As far as I can see, it’s perfectly within the rules of the university and the Students’ Union for him to defer his degree course to partake in the SU. In fact it’s acceptable for anyone to defer their course. It’s not anyone’s business who does what with their education.
3. The particular use of SU resources that you highlight were in place for students that had requested them. How is it a waste to use resources on students? Yes, it’s a shame that more people didn’t use the transport that was made available, but what can you expect Derricott to do about it? You can take a horse to water (or bring the water to the horse in this case), but you can’t make it drink.
4. Concentrate on HE, not FE? You understand that the university offers both HE and FE courses. To neglect FE would be to neglect students who have as much right to be represented and heard as we HE students. I’m not sure how you find fighting for all students “shameful”, but whatever the cause, I recommend you stand for president with your views and see how well you do.