Electioneering

So every position's being contested, in the quest for Arc Board. The nominations were re-called for Cofa director, and two people applied.

James Fehon and Xavier Atkinson are both Fine Art/Arts students, one nearly finished, the other in second year. I know both of them, and really wouldn't mind which ended up as Board Director.

It's an online election, so all Arc members should receive an email-link early next week. Anyone around either campus can vote in person, either at the Library Lawn or D Block. There's some strict limits being put on campaigning - no direct campaigning on the Library Walk is the major change between this and other UNSW elections I've been involved with. So there's not going to be anything of the 'walk the person right up to the booth' business. As such, I really don't think how-to-vote cards will be of any use or value.

Meanwhile: On Arc Board, there's some campaigning going on as well. The Chair of Arc is elected by the Board, and must be a Student Director. It would be highly unlikely for a newbie Director to have the experience necessary to act as Chair, so it'll almost definitely go to one of the ongoing ones.

The three continuing Directors are Simon Bruck, Matt Ward and Jess Mobbs. Simon has apparently been telling people he isn't going for Chair, as he's nearly finished his degree. So that leaves Matt and Jess. They're both doing their best to shore up numbers from the non-student directors, but a lot will depend on exactly which new people come in.

For me, I have to say I would find it a tough choice. I admire both, and am good friends with both. It would most likely involve talking to others on Board to see where they stand on the matter.

MEANWHILE
Sydney Uni's also having its Union Board elections. I haven't been over there to check it out, but from what I've heard it's much more happening than ours. Lots of people going around in t-shirts, handing out how-to-votes, factional power-plays and all the rest.
I'm rather glad our board elections aren't anywhere near as intense.

7 into 2

The following is based on candidate statements and known relevent positions, both of candidates themselves and their nominees (and also a wee bit of facebook stalking. Come on, it's not like I'm the only one to ever do that). I imagine the candidate statements will be put onto the Arc website in the next few days, plus they'll appear in Blitz for the next fortnight.
I'll put in a link here to that list once it's online.

7 candidates for 2 positions. Or to be more precise: 2 candidates for one position, then 6 candidates for a second position.

There are two candidates for the Post-Grad Director position. I don't personally know either of them. Of them, the best placed will become a Board Director. The runner-up then goes into the draw for Ordinary Director.

• Jonathan The's statement reads very bureaucratic. Very focused on ticking all the boxes. Bear in mind, this is based purely on what's been written, I've never met him. I don't recognise the names of either of his nominees.
  

• Luke Parkitny I also haven't met. Based purely on what he wrote (which is, after all, all most voters will have), he sounds much more like a human. His nominees include one of the SRC Post-Grad Councillors, Pip Hunter, whom I admire. There's also the current Welfare Officer and the outgoing Yellow Shirt Coordinator.

For Ordinary Director: As said above, the second-placed PG candidate goes into this ballot. It's possible (though unlikely given the numbers) that both PG candidates will become Board Directors.

• David Godwin. I recognise the photo, though not the name. I think he's involved with CircuSoc. He seems quite friendly.
• David Lim. His candidate statement reads as a big reach-out to Sport and Recreation. That's where he's based, he wants Arc to move in that direction (I think). A little birdie told me that he's being backed by Unity. I've yet to find out anything for myself about that, so I wouldn't take it as gospel.
• Natalie Karam. She's the current LawSoc President, and the only female candidate. I've known her for a few years. While she used to be a member of the Liberals, she's walked away from all that and is running independent. I have to say, as a budding grammarian, I really didn't like her candidate statement. Full of bureaucratise, lots of 'weeping willow' structures, and very convoluted sentences. Mind you, from my time as Tharunka editor, many if not most law students will write that way given half a chance.
• Ross Willing. He's running as a representative of the Colleges; from my quick StalkBooking, I think he's from New College. I don't know a lot about him, will talk to a few others from there to see what I can find out. But from his candidate statement, he seems quite level-headed.
• Then there's me. I'm running from a background in student politics, from the SRC in particular.

So: Circusoc, Sport&Rec, LawSoc, Colleges and the SRC. Six clear bases of support. It'll be interesting to see who's still standing once the dust settles. But hopefully, much like last year, it'll be a friendly campaign; there's no need for spite or anger in this sort of thing.

Confirmation email for Arc Board

Dear Rory

Thank you for submitting your nomination form for the 2010 Arc Board Elections. Your nomination has been accepted.

We have more nominees then positions available for the Ordinary Director position, therefore an election will proceed and online voting will commence in Week 11:

Online Voting:

Online voting will be held during Week 11. Voting will open on Tuesday 18^th May and close at 4.00pm on Thursday 20^th May 2010.

An emailing containing the voting link will be sent to all Ordinary Members of Arc.

Polling Stations:

The schedule for the polling station is as follows:

Tuesday 18^th May to Thursday 20^th May 2010

Kensington – Library Lawn:

10.30am to 4.00pm

Candidate information will be in Blitz W9 and on the Arc Website.

The CoFA Director position has been re-opened. If you know anyone at CoFA, who is currently a student and Arc Member, please encourage them to nominate.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Regards

Nitasha

~~~

Here we go! And Cofa still needs someone to nominate.

O-Week Roundup

So O-week has been and gone. A huge lot of impressionable first years. The best chance all year to build up an e-list, a club, a collective.

For the most part, I think the SRC did well. Being next to the Arc Membership tent was helpful in channeling students towards the SRC (especially given the quite astounding rate of membership this year). Probably would have been better if the SRC stalls hadn't been so far back from the main walkway, but you can't have everything.

A few things stood out.

Thanks to the Indigenous Officers, I discovered the incredible tastiness of emu and crocodile.
Wheelchair basketball is incredibly fun.
The Ethno-cultural and International Students departments look to have made an excellent start on rebuilding their collectives - there were lots of people going up to them throughout the week, signing petitions and having fun. It may well happen that Ashraf Alfian Alias, currently an Undergrad Councillor (A), will become co-International Students Officer.
Queer made a great start to the year, which then culminated in the splendour that is Mardi Gras.

A few other things, on a less positive note.

The Education Officer, Helen Samardzic, seemed to have only been around for part of the day on Monday. Not much for the rest of the week. Later on, several undergrad councillors were trying to collect names for the Education e-list for her. But while all the other collectives got lots of sign-ups and enquiries, there simply wasn't anything from the Education Department.

The Cofa Representative, Beck Hynek, was on Kensington campus all day on Tuesday. This might not seem like a bad thing. She was meeting students. But... Tuesday was the COFA O-Day. From the looks of it (and from hearing from a few COFA SRCers), she seems to have no interest in the campus she represents, and no interest in working with the SRC she chairs.

Not happy Jan.

~~~
On a completely other note, classes have started up again at UNSW. Plus I'm four weeks into my Tafe course. So I won't be posting here all that often, usually with either general info stuff (the 7 or 8 topics I raised a few weeks back) or with breaking news. But stay tuned nevertheless, since there still will be occassional posts here.

SRC Structure

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of it all (ie, the 7 or so topics I put up last week), I realised it might be useful to explain a bit about the way the SRC itself is structured. Not many people are familiar with the system used, or why some people have votes and some don't, and the whole mess.

Broadly speaking, there are three groups of people who sit on the UNSW SRC. There are the 'Office Bearers' (OBs), who work in particular areas. The second group is the 'Councillors', who theoretically represent the broad student body. The third group are the 'ex officio' positions, those who sit on the SRC as a result of holding a position in another body.

OBs: There's quite a few. My earlier post went into detail about my views of the people holding those positions. Each Officer position gets one vote on the SRC. So when a position is shared (as it is this year with Enviro, Indigenous and Ethno-Cultural), only one of the co-officers gets to vote. This is usually worked out when they nominate for election, based off who is more likely to be able to get to meetings.
A (sometimes seen as loopholey) exception is Queer. Because the Queer Department is the only one to have specified as having two Officers (female-identifying and non-female identifying), the Queer Department gets 2 votes on SRC.
Including President, there are 13 votes held by OBs

Councillors: (I'll likely write further about this section later on)
On the full SRC, there are up to 14 'councillors'. These are divided between Undergrad and Postgrad, between Kensington and COFA, and (at Kenso) between the two university 'electorates'. The University electorates are Electorate A (Arts, Law and Commerce) and Electorate B (Science, Engineering, Medicine and Built Environment).

12 Councillors represent Kensington. 3 are 'Undergrad A' councillors (ie undergrads from electorate A), 3 'Undergrad B', 3 Postgrad A and 3 Postgrad B.

2 Councillors represent COFA - one undergrad, one Postgrad. I don't believe the COFA councillor positions have ever been filled, since to get that position you first need to be elected to the COFA SRC then get their endorsement to also sit on the full SRC, then get the full SRCs permission to sit there, then get Arc Board's agreement too. An incredibly overblown bureaucratic process, which the COFA SRC so far has shown little patience for (and really, can you blame them?).

Each Councillor receives one vote. For a running tally, there are 27 votes so far accounted for.

Ex-Officio: These people already sit on another committee/board/council/body, and as a result of that position get to also sit on the SRC. Not many ex-officio positions get voting rights - usually the person is there to find out what's going on in SRC world, to offer advice, and (potentially) to take SRC ideas back to their own groups.

The Chair of the Arc Board sits on SRC, with full voting rights. The Chair is elected by the Arc Board, and must be a student representative.
The Convenor of the Student Development Committee (SDC) sits on SRC with full voting rights. The SDC oversee Arc's Volunteer Programs and Club Affiliations.
(The SRC President and Arc Chair also sit on SDC as voters, and the SRC President and SDC Convenor are ex officio voting members of the Arc Board)

29 votes for full Council.

The ARC CEO also holds an ex officio position on SRC, but does not vote.
The Student Representatives on UNSW's University Council (one undergrad, one postgrad) sit on SRC, but do not vote.
The Student Representatives on UNSW Academic Board (four in total, two undergrad, two postgrad) sit in SRC, but do not vote.

The Tharunka Editors are kinda left alone. There's a bit of debate going on as to whether they hold ex officio status on SRC (non-voting) or whether they don't. Legally, they currently do not have automatic entry to SRC meetings. I strongly suspect this is just a case of no-one getting around to putting them back into the Regulations after the merger of the Guild into Arc. The Tharunka editors are invited to submit reports to COuncil, so it seems odd they may not have speaking rights. Also, SRC is the body responsible for maintaining the Tharunka Charter.

So there's (theoretically) 29 voting members of the SRC. For a meeting to take place, at least half of the voting members need to be present - that's of the current voting members, so if a position is vacant then quorum may well be lower.

It is possible to give someone a proxy vote - but that person already needs to have the automatic right to attend meetings. So proxies can only be held by non-voting co-Officers, University Councillors, Academic Board reps or (maybe) Tharunka Editors. Also, crucially, proxies do not count towards quorum.

If anyone's got any questions, feel free to ask. I may well have bungled an explanation, or need to make things more clear.