Something I’ve done very little of lately is blogging on my site. Good reason really, I’ve been really busy with my PhD. Just over eight months ago, I started my PhD in Solid State Physics, particularly looking at the properties of Gallium Nitride devices. Now I’ve made some time to blog – I’m not sure I’ve got much to talk about… so I’ll just ramble on for a bit about stuff you probably don’t care about.

Where to start?

First, if you were a follower of this blog purely for the Union Politics posts, or at least partly, then you may be disappointed, as I have left the world of Union politics completely. I won’t be writing about the elections that I mentioned in an earlier post – partially because I can’t bothered to do so, mainly because I stopped caring. My main focus has been my PhD, and as such, my life has slowly been crumbling away to make way for it.

For example, I was playing an online game called Travian. I was leading an alliance alongside two others, and I was enjoying it. However, I had less and less time for it, and to try and fit in my Travian commitments as well as all my other commitments was causing my health to degrade. It was a shame really, but it just went to show how demanding my PhD really is. While I miss the communications between the various players on Travian, especially with one of the leaders, I know it was the best move for me. On the flip side though, I can still get in contact with some of the members, so I haven’t lost that aspect of the game, which was the best thing about the game really. (Side note, I just lost the game…)

Moving on, it’s been quite difficult to keep up with real life activities too. I only managed to go karting for the first time this week, for the first time this year, simply because I’ve had no time, and it was good to finally meet a lot of the karters that I’ve seen sign up on the forum. It’s a shame I’ve not managed to race before this year, but hey, my PhD comes first. For similar reasons, I have also halted all work on my Facebook client, iDeskbook – mainly ’cause I have no time and the Facebook platform changes so quickly so often I generally don’t have time to fix compatibility issues with it, which is a shame, as I enjoyed building the program.

Now, it might look like I’m complaining about my PhD, but I’m not – I wouldn’t trade it for the world, my office mates are great (well, most of the time, there are times where they annoy me, and I bet vice-versa!), the department is awesome, and my PhD, while difficult, is really enjoyable. I just wish I had more hours in the day. I guess a point here really for anyone wanting to do a PhD is to make sure they are willing to put the effort in, and to be prepared to sacrifice a lot for it.

Well, I really don’t have much more to say at the moment. I feel like having a massive rant again about some people who, in my eyes, “just don’t get it” at the moment, from the small things, like the little jokes about me that go too far, to the bigger things, like being appreciated for actually doing something and spending money on things to make things easier for others, exploiting that great weakness that I seem to have – wanting others to be happy more than wanting myself to be happy. That said, I hope that I’m wrong, I hope that I’m reading too much into this. However, I won’t delve any deeper, and though my pessimistic attitude seems to be getting the better of me at the moment, I continue to hope for that which I believe will never happen, and I know I must buckle down and get on with what I can achieve, where I know can make a difference, be that via my PhD, or supporting those where I can – I might rant about it, but at the end of the day, I can’t go on without ensuring the happiness of others.

Anyhow, knowing the way things are going at the moment, I probably won’t get a chance to blog again for a while. However, going back to the PhD theme for a final point, I know I said about it being hard work, and PhDs are, but if you are offered one, then seriously consider it. The hard work pays dividends, and I wouldn’t trade this chance for the world – it has been an amazing year so far!

So, now some of the dust has settled, I want to quickly sum up my thoughts about the election this year.

For the most part, these elections seemed to be a lot quieter than last year – I often could get into the Union without being harassed by members of the Campaign teams floating about, though it did seem as if most of them knew me anyway, so didn’t bother wasting my time when they knew I had voted. Poster presence was less so then last year, but then again, with less candidates, that was expected. I’m not really gonna go any more into the actual polling days itself, my fellow blogger David Morris has a good account of the elections this year, you can find them here (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

I wanted to really just mention my thoughts on the candidates that got elected – I think some interesting people got elected. Note that the Presidential results have not been announced yet due to controversy, as I mentioned in my last post. So, without further ado, here we go:

VP Community
Ben Wilcox

Ben was always a popular character, and had a lot of experience in the role of community, as he demonstrated at Hustings. He had some pretty solid ideas for what he wanted to do with Societies and HUSSO/SCA. He is also a level-headed bloke and fairly open minded when it comes to politics (or that’s the impression I get anyway)

VP Welfare
Alice Marshall

While Alice was the only candidate for the job – knowing Alice fairly well, I knew she would be good at the job, as a member of the exec of the Drama soc, and a keen interest in the running of the Union. It was a shame that this election wasn’t contested, but then again, I can’t really think of a better candidate.

VP Sport
James “Wayne” Kerr

I don’t know much about James, but he did well, considering he won by 9 votes in the end. Only time will tell what will happen here.

VP Education
Chris Marks

So, as a position I essentially ran for last year, I was interested to see what would happen here. As you can see, Chris Marks won – an Education Not For Sale activist. I don’t agree with most of his views, especially for the fact he wants to use VP Ed as a campaigning role, which is fine, but try to decrease the number of committees? While I agree with the sentiment, I believe that removing representatives from committees will only harm relations with the University and will lose vital student input.

However, I applaud Chris’ solid viewpoints, most candidates have policies that are fairly vague, yet I know Chris will do what he said he wants to do – he doesn’t lie. At the same time, I do like the guy, I get on with him quite well, and I respect his views, and  I believe he respects mine. Good luck to him, I look forward to seeing the 24 hour library campaign really start picking up now!

President
???

So, who will the final Sabb be? I’m gonna hold my tongue about this ‘till we know what happened, but I’ll be back with views on the president and what I think of the team as a whole after the election appeals committee meets and decides the fate of the candidates!

So, it’s thst time again. This time last year, I was waiting for the results of the election that I was taking part in, which I came in second in the Vice President (Academic Representation) election. This year, I’m sat here, sipping my Guinness, with my laptop, ready to blog about developments…

And what a development that has occurred!

The Presidential campaign, which I thought had been relatively clean, has been overshadowed by controversy, apparently, one of the candidates have been disqualified, pending appeal. As such, the winner of the Presidential election won’t be announced tonight.

I plan on blogging about the whole election period as it happens/over the next day or two, but for now, I wanted to mention this…

Interesting…

This may come as a shock to you all, however, I have taken the decision to resign from Union Council and Postgraduate Committee Chair. I have included most of my resignation e-mail below. All the remains for me to say is “So long, and thanks for all the… memories??”

Lately, I have been suffering from high levels of stress due to my workload increasing and I have been advised that my general heath will degrade if I push myself any further. Therefore, after a lot of consideration, I have come to the decision to resign from my positions in the Union, including Council and Postgraduate Committee Chair, with immediate effect. I shall remain on the University’s VLE steering group committee as it is only once every two months or so, until the end of the year, I will talk to Richard about that separately.

To clarify, there is no other reason for my resignation other than stress and health issues, and my PhD is more important to me than Union politics, as much as I have enjoyed it, now is the time for me to move on. Please do not ask me to reverse my decision. If a reason is asked for by anyone else, it is due to medical reasons.

I wish you all the best for the rest of the year. Sorry I’ve had to leave now.

Dan

Thanks to you all who have made it what it is. See you all around.

If you have been following goings on in Hull University Union – or if you have just been about campus – then you will have noticed the SOS:U – Save Our Students’ Union banners everywhere, with various people telling you to vote “YES”. Now, I have purposely kept out of the arguments – as the current chair of Council, I don’t wish to be biased, and, besides, I have had too much going on with my PhD. Now the vote is over, and the results… well, are yet to be announced…

The vote needs a 2/3rds majority YES vote to pass – and 10% FTE of the student membership, roughly 1700 students, to vote. Unfortunately, in a vote at HUU, the best turnout has been 1500 students, and that is for the UEC elections… until now!

While we do not know the result yet, we do know that 1762 students voted, the 10% that the union needed – so the result of the vote, due on Monday at 10am, is a binding result and must be followed through.

So, to end this short post, I offer my congratulations to Helen Gibson and her UEC and Union staff, and all the volunteers that helped to get the 10% they needed to vote – they have achieved more than previous UEC’s with respect to voter turnout.

Of course… there is the little matter of the results – Monday will be a very telling day…

At 12 o’clock tomorrow, the new UEC of Hull University Union officially take office, marking the end of an… er… eventful year for the UEC of 2007/08. With an updated constitution coming into force, many tricks and turns have awaited the UEC this year, and some may think that it is a wonder that they managed to come through it in one piece!!!

But they did. After the teething problems of the Open Forums, the attempted removal of a UEC member (twice), contriversial plans for Union entertainment, a disputed election, and heated debate over a proposal for a new constitution of HUU, resulting in a few members of the Union being… er… dissatisfied, many people fail to recoginise the UEC’s achivements. The “Reclaim the Night” protests, extended Library hours, higher turnout in elections, increased awareness in the Union politics and democratic structures, to name but a few.

As I look on to next year, I hope that, through the highs and the lows, the UEC of 2008/09 will be just as strong, and will deliever results, as the UEC of 2007/08 did.

All that remains for me to say is, Ed Marsh, Jay Webster, Daniel Harrison, Warwick Norris, Charli Hill, Hannah Shooman, Tom Metcalfe, Iain Keers, Craig Phillips and Heiko Loeffler, thank you for leading HUU this year, and good luck with your future endeavours

Something I have been thinking about today (again) is Student Politics. I’m no stranger to it, I am heavily involved in it. However, with the NUS Conference and elections looming, and having just been through elections myself in our own Union, I just wanted to express some thoughts.

During our Election Hustings (when we had them in Scarborough), the Presidential Candidates were asked a question "If you have a political affiliation, then would you put the best interests of the students first, or the intentions of your party?"

One of the candidates (who is a member of Labour Students and an active supporter of the Labour Party – and the question was directed at this candidate) had a clever answer,

"Some might argue that putting your faction’s intentions first would be what you would think would be the best for the students."¹

While this got quite a negative reaction – I in fact think that it is a very good answer. You vote for this candidate, this is what you get – you know how this candidate will vote. So while people might not like that – (I don’t agree with Labour for the most part) – at least you know what you are getting. Quite an honest answer. Yes, you serve the students, but this candidate’s view was that the best way to serve the students was by following her own views.

Wait, isn’t that what everyone does in a position of power? (expecting a backlash from that statement) Represent through their own views??? Sure, they might listen to others, they might be given a problem, but different people will use their own judgement to solve it. So this answer, while people didn’t like it, was a honest one.

I suppose that is why we have Union Council, for example – to scrutinise the doings of the Union Executive Committee (UEC) – to make sure that Students are represented by the UEC properly. We’ve certainly been doing that this year.

There is one thing that is evident from this year on Union Council at HUU though, at least for me, that the UEC are always going to use their judgement, their politics, when they are faced with a problem to solve. Union Council only can complain about actions after they have happened – and give the slap on the wrist to tell them not to do it again!

The thing people have to realise is that, whoever you vote in in an election (any election), they will represent they way they think is best. I would have done if I had been elected. Sure, I would have had student input, but at the end of the day, there are issues that arise that need an immediate resolution, and it is these issues that separate the different officers.

I guess people need to keep that in mind… and not complain if they didn’t vote!

Please note that this is a personal opinion, and that this is no way endorsed by, representative of, or even vaguely linked to Hull University Union, it’s members, staff, the candidates, complainant, defendant, or anyone else.

I have been remaining quiet about the Hull University Elections after  the results (in case you didn’t know, I lost by 117 votes to Richard Jackson, again, congratulations to him!) due to the fact the Presidential election had not been signed off “pending complaint” – something signed off at 14:55 yesterday. Now everything is done and dusted, as I sit down here, close to the official notice boards, outside the JAM Radio studio listening to the top quality broadcasting (http://www.ilovejamradio.co.uk) – I thought that I would spend some time on my own giving my opinion on the events in the past week concerning the elections.

Now, I do not wish to go into the reason why the Presidential election wasn’t signed off ’till today, if you are interested, the best place to look is on the HUU website – http://hullstudent.com/news/index.php?page=article&news_id=8744.

It seems to me that while the complaints were valid – which is a fair thing to state – it is obvious that political differences seem to get the better of people. I think that some of this is very petty indeed, unfortunately, things got out of hand.

Personally, I wanted this to fall. I might not agree with Helen Gibson’s (the President-elect) views on everything (probably on most things, she’ll probably tell you that!), but from the sheer pettiness – if people had followed the complaint in a normal way without making a big fuss, I might have been more indifferent. It appears to me that the main drive of those against is the political beliefs of Helen. As I said, I might not agree with her on a lot of issues, but you don’t see me trying to undermine her. In fact, you are more likely to see me congratulating her – because she did win.

Next year’s UEC should be interesting. It could be one the strongest yet, as long as in-fighting doesn’t take place – as could happen.

So, we now have next year’s UEC. Congratulations to Helen, Alex, Rich, Coralie, Wayne, Benno, Mark, Barry, Abby and Jan, and good luck next year. I’m sure you will be awesome!

Fingers crossed, I’ll still be around to haunt you all – PhD, here I come (I hope!)

On Monday 3rd March – 17:30, an Open Policy forum will be taking place, I think in the Wheatsheaf – not sure. Anyway, can everyone who is a student at HUU please come along. The reason for this is because the students of the Physics Department should be putting forward a policy to suggest the Union campaigns against the Physics funding cuts, like in other University Unions.

See the Science and Technology Funding Council plan for more – http://www.stfc.ac.uk/About/Strat/Council/STFC_DelPLan.aspx

Please come. We need this to get through. We need to join the nationwide campaign to get our funding back!

edit: Time has changed – it is now at 17:30.

They are over. I came second in my election, with about 280 votes – about 100 behind Richard Jackson – congratulations to him! I wasn’t expecting to win – but I was expecting to be last! Still, my reputation seems to precede me…

Congratulations to all the candidates, win or lose. I’m glad I have met you all! You haven’t seen the last of me!