More of that anon. It's erection time! For some. For the rest of us, it's election time!
Presidential wannabes:
The worst kept secret for the past twelve months is that Paddy Rockett was planning on running for president. He announced before anyone else. Several times. At parties after a few beers or twelve, in the Stables after a few beers or twelve, on the Internet probably after a few drinkies for all we know. In any case, he was running for president. With very important things to say. And with particular criticism of the SU and how it engaged with the community. Despite his past role as Community Relations Officer, a job we'll hear more about later. Paddy likes cute bunnies and is studying science education. We made the first thing up.
Ruan Dillon McLoughlin's also going for another outing. It's been a quiet year for the SU, not much going on, very business-like and lots of co-operation between the university and the Student Union. What about we're not sure. But the SU did say supportive things about the building of Don Barry's 3 million euro house. We hope there was a kickback to the SU of some sort for that. Other events for the SU this year have mostly included... nothing. Lots of co-operation in a business-like environment though. Ruan is your current president.
Louise Clohessy. She's apparently a law student. That's all we know. She's blonde we think. That's not relevant but we don't even know her shoe size. She's probably going to highlight the "outsider breaking the clique" thing. Because that's a new tactic. As we said, Louise is a law student.
The snowboarder, Nick Ryan. The most affable bloke in the universe. Possibly more affable than Ruan. We're not sure who's more happy friendly smiley but a fight to the death should decide. With swizzle sticks. Nick studies business. And snow.
The last entrant into the presidential race was Sharon Brosnan who apparently decided late after her squeeze put out some feelers to people and got some positive responses. She likes to jump out of planes for fun. Sharon studies digital media. And gravity.
Welfare wannabes:
Welfare (aka condom person) comes with a free promotion to Deputy President. Everyone else is also a Vice-President. Except for the President, who is President President. The SU is set up for an organisation with thousands of staff. Except it has about six.
Your welfare offerings this year are both Fianna Failers. That may be good or bad depending on who you vote for but it is what it is.
Derek Daly is the outgoing Welfare officer and has decided he wants to give away condoms to people who don't know which way is up for yet another year. He's regarded as extremely competent, if a little uninspiring. Then again, it's Welfare. Not really a job for lining up all your successes and declaring how you helped them. People might not like that. He's definitely been approachable. And efficient.
Daniel Reid was community relations officer for a while last term. Deemed resigned for missing two exec meetings in a row without giving notice. Of course, given that he was only CRO for two exec meetings and missed both, that'd be all of the exec meetings missed without notice. We wonder if he'll put it down as experience on his CV. Reid argued about it with the SU, saying he didn't know about the meetings or something. We're wondering if he knew what the job was about at all, given that his election posters had him standing in front of an African hut. We fear there may be more of that.
Education wannabes:
Aoife Finnerty got nominated. No-one else did. Election over.
Campaigns & Services wannabes:
Campaigns and Services is the most useless job in the history of Student Unions ever, anywhere, bar none. For as long as we can remember, the campaigns and services officers have forgotten to run any campaigns. The current officer, Fergal Dempsey, has supposedly been too busy with the services to run any. The previous officer, Damian Cahill, had a bit of a protest or two about fees and forgot to run anything else after Christmas. Previous to that we had Paddy McHugh, who said at the start of the year that the services run themselves and then forgot to run any campaigns at all. Too busy "strategising". Before that we don't know. It's an annual twenty thousand euro sinkhole that the Student Union could plug up by just abolishing the job. Everyone's been simply useless. They might not have bothered. We'd have an interest in the performance of this job but everyone's been so bad in the past that we'd fall asleep.
Vivion Grisewood is involved with the UL rugby team. Not the UL Bohemians, the student team. He's also the current Community Relations Officer, elected unopposed after Daniel Reid got kicked. That's eh about it.
Lorcan O'Neill is the current Faculties Officer. Not that we're sure what that is really but we're willing to bet that he goes to a lot of faculty meetings.
Communications wannabes:
We've been quite interested in elections for this position for the past few years as the communications officer is responsible for An Focal and the website as well as every other aspect of Union propaganda. And the most recent two officers (Aoife Breen and Aoife Ni Raghallaigh) have very much toed the SU line, not allowing much or any criticism to make it into the Union paper. Last year, Aoife Ni Raghallaigh even stood up at hustings and announced that she wouldn't allow criticism of the SU to be printed, which cemented the reputation of the paper as little more than a propaganda exercise and a poor one at that.
Finn McDuffie is the current An Focal features editor. He's probably right behind Nick Ryan in the niceness stakes. All fluffy and happy. We reckon he doesn't have the hard nature that being a good newspaper editor requires. Of course, An Focal isn't a good newspaper, especially lately, so maybe that's not so important. Though we'd like it to be a good newspaper again as it's been semi-muck for a year and a half so maybe it is important. He will tell you how much he's written for the paper and probably base his entire campaign around it. We got that from the last two Aoife editors and look how well that worked out. Yes, we're being sarcastic. It's the Internet so we can.
Second up for Communications is Eoghan O'Brien, with a background in radio. UL doesn't have a radio station. But he's less fluffy than Finn so that's a plus. He might actually be able to tell people to go screw themselves. We're not too sure if he's ever written for the paper. He ran Rag Radio two years ago when the Student Union tried out something new for a change. But we're not sure if he's ever written for the paper. Yes, we said it twice. It's the Internet so we can.
The final list is:
President
- Sharon Brosnan
- Louise Clohessy
- Ruán Dillon McLoughlin
- Paddy Rockett
- Nick Ryan
DP/Welfare
- Derek Daly
- Daniel Reid
Education
- Aoife Finnerty (only nomination, deemed elected)
Campaigns & Services
- Vivion Grisewood
- Lorcan O'Neill
Communications
- Finn McDuffie
- Eoghan O'Brien
We've never heard of some of these people. OK, we've never heard of Louise Clohessy. We're pretty sure she has though so that's alright.
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