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!

Wow, it seems to have been a while since I have posted here… mainly because I haven’t had much to talk about..

Anyhow, it’s been an interesting couple of months. If any of you follow my software activities, you will have noticed that iDeskbook, my Windows client for Facebook, has gotten a face lift in the upcoming version 1.5, with alpha 2 currently out. I’ve got more to do, but I am chipping away, making it a more useful product. I’m also trying to get Mac/Linux versions out through the use of Mono, but it just doesn’t look like it is going to happen at the moment. *sigh*, well, I reckon iDeskbook 2 is going to be a complete re-write anyway…

On that front, Arcanos, my issue tracking system, has been retired – it was causing me a headache to maintain it, with so little gain, it wasn’t worth keeping it. If you need to provide a bug report, contact me at http://drnaylor.co.uk/contact.

Right, so that’s the website and boring stuff out of the way, time for the more interesting stuff. Since I graduated with a 2:1 at Uni with a B.Sc. Physics with Lasers and Photonics Degree, I have been offered a PhD placement which is due to start at the end of this month. Essentially, I will be doing a theoretical research degree in Solid State Physics – and I can’t wait for it! Of course, the waiting for it is killing me… I just want it to hurry up and arrive!

Other than that, the month of July was quite a boring one – moving out of my student house and going back to my parents (I’m insured to drive a car now!) was probably the most exciting thing that happened… and when exciting, I don’t mean a good thing – I would have liked to have stayed with Abi, Karl, Ben and Rob for another year, they were, on the whole, fantastic housemates – sure we had our niggles, but hey, that’s what kept the house alive…

August has been more interesting – but it has kind of left my head in a whirl. Meeting new people, (well,  a new person), strengthening friendships with some of those I already knew (so I’d like to think, they probably want to kill me actually – or just make fun of me as they always do), it’s been good.

Of course, every silver lining comes with a cloud – but it is probably just an over-active imagination. Some of the things that have been said to me in passing lately, most of them not even negative or derogatory, perhaps following on from a joke or something, makes me wonder. A lot. All I can say is though, what ever happens, happens ;P.

I do wonder though… what if?

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.

I am quite aware that I haven’t posted in a while, partially because Uni has started up again, and I have been so busy with that, but also due to other commitments. I can’t talk about them here, but I can link you to http://hullstudent.com/news/index.php?page=article&news_id=8111 and you’ll find out a bit more.

I probably won’t be blogging much for the rest of this month – then it shall all resume… possibly!

NOTE: These are my own personal views, and are in no way related to the views of Hull University Union or those of other councillors, staff, or students. So when you read them, remember, I write them as my own, and not anyone else’s! Nor do I claim in this post that I run HUU, I am only a Union Councillor.

These are also only suggestions, and should be taken as such. They may not be viable, or may already in place or in the pipeline. Don’t come having a go at me for suggestions. They are not mandatory!

If there are any inaccuracies in the post, please e-mail me or comment. I will rectify any problems with the facts ASAP.

Union Council and the New Charities Act

Since the 1st August 2007, HUU has been following a revised constitution in order to bring it in line with the new Charities Act – which states that charities can no longer have an ultimate governing body over and above the Board of Trustees. Last year, Union Council, which comprises of 32 councillors (16 elected cross-campus, 16 representing different areas of the Union, for example, Academics or Finance, etc.) was the ultimate governing body, able to bring motions and such to be debated, but this year, it’s power has been greatly diminished, and a new democratic structure has been brought in.

Union Council’s function now is to be the scrutinising body of the Union. It still consists of 32 elected councillors i.e. voting members (anyone can observe and still have their say at Council), but now, we have not got the ability to bring motions, only the UEC (Union Executive Committee) can do that. Our role is to scrutinise the decisions of the UEC, and any changes to the standing orders, constitution and bye-laws of the Union that are brought, while we can suggest changes to them, we cannot block them. We cannot overturn any decisions made by the UEC. The only thing we can do is move to a vote of no-confidence in a sabbatical officer. We are a bit like the house of Lords like that, we can resist a change to a standing order, but it’ll eventually get though anyway.

Interestingly, I seem to recall that there will be a motion brought up to do with Council towards the end of the academic year – and while it could be proposed that Council will be eradicated – it is unclear what it will be. I could be wrong, of course, but I seem to remember that being said at the beginning of the first council meeting…

Personally, I think some power should be restored to Council, as the body below the Trustees but on a par with, if not slightly below, the Open Forums, Referenda and the AGM – of which all three can overrule the decision of Council. When we have a higher democratic turnout, then the powers of Council can and should be diminished. It’s hard to make the “power” comparison though, as all the different groups do different things at the moment. But that is my personal opinion.

Open Forums

Brought in in order to fill the void of democracy in the Union is the good ol’ Open Policy Forums. The idea of these is that any member of the student body can go to these and suggest “policy for referenda”, i.e. to suggest policies that HUU should adopt, for example, a recent one is to “Abolish the HUU Men’s Officer”, and then, in a referendum that all students can vote in, the policy is either adopted, or rejected, dependant on the outcome of the referendum.

Unfortunately, the system doesn’t work, at least at the moment.

One problem is that it isn’t clear to many what type of questions should be asked at Open Forum, many ask questions that really aren’t possible policies. For example, the question “Is the Union marketing the Open Forums correctly?” is a good question, but one that scrutinises the Union Officers rather than being a policy, so belongs in Council – perhaps another sign of student apathy in HUU. The students need to be educated as to what the good questions for each body are.

Another problem is that it is really just a glorified Council at the moment, with a few extras. When Council was the ultimate body of the Union, the minority, the “union hacks” (and I’ll admit, I am one of them), all get their way, sometimes perhaps against what the student body may have wanted. Of course, this provides a brilliant reason for the removal of power from Council, and bringing in the Open Forum – a good idea. But, students just don’t come to these forums. Do they not know they are on? Do they even care? Again, Councillors get their own way, what we want – which might not be what the whole student body wants.

Of course, suggesting the referenda is half the story. Things would be OK if the whole student body voted. But, 150 students voting in a referendum that can be voted in from their own home via the miracle of e-voting over a span of four days? That’s not exactly many of the 18000 FTE (Full-Time Equivalent students) at the Union – hardly representative. Something isn’t quite right.

So, what could HUU do to increase turnout to the Open Forum?

In the short term, lobbying the students to come, flyers and campaigning in the reception area, lecture shouts, etc. etc. Is it on at the right time? Will more students come at another time? It’s hard to gauge, I know, but would students rather get ready to go out to Sugar Mill on a Monday, or go to a Open Forum Meeting? Would more students be interested in going on a Tuesday instead? I don’t think there is anything on apart from the quiz, and that is on Union grounds anyway! Perhaps there needs to be an incentive as well, but as to what that could be, I have no idea.

Also, why not dedicate an e-mail newsletter to the Open Forum each time it’s on? I say dedicate, I mean dedicate, no other content! And make it grammatically correct, spell checked, in a more formal tone, without flashing, moving pictures to distract the user. Ok… so I’ll leave the hullstudent.com rant for another day…

Then, there is the old “tell the Societies, AU Teams”, and so on and so forth – something that is in place for next semester. Basically, this is the use of the flow of information from the Chair of Campaigns, Iain Keers, though the Campaigns Committee, down to the AU exec, Societies Exec, Senate Reps in Academic Representation, etc., to get the message about the importance of the Open Forums out – something that will hopefully work.

In the long term though, a lot of the problem may be that new students are not introduced to the democratic structure early enough. During the welcome talk, it might be an idea to spend a lot of time on how students can shape the Union – and get them interested before other students say otherwise. What do other Unions do? How do they get their students more involved? SU AGM’s and democratic policy meetings across the country are full, why not ours?

What should HUU do to increase voting turnout for the Referendum?

For a start, not have to travel though 5 pages to get to the voting pages – as I did for the first set of referenda. That’s a big enough put off. Again, flashing images on the site put people off. Why not just have the information there? A serious page, a serious outlook. People who see animated images where they are not needed completely dismiss the page as a joke, it doesn’t look professional. Again, spelling, grammar.

Again, lobbying the students to vote, flyers and campaigning in the reception area, lecture shouts, etc. etc. may also help. BUT, if enough students go to the Open Forum, then enough will vote. The two are inherently tied.

Democracy: What is HUU doing wrong? What should HUU be doing?

So, how should HUU increase democratic participation in the first place?

Iain Keers and Jay Webster, two of HUU’s sabbaticals for this year, went down to Essex University not so long ago to find out how they do things down there with regards to voting and the like. I have a copy of the report somewhere, and it is an interesting read, to say the least – a lot of useful information was in there. However – something that may not have been looked at (I can’t remember), was how students were introduced to the democratic scene in the first place.

When students start at University, they are all about the same, they don’t really have much of a clue about Union politics, and how it is run. The key could be, how, and how quickly, students are introduced to the democracy of the Union. I didn’t know anything about the structures of the Union until the beginning of my second year, and many of my course mates don’t know now, or if they do, they only know through me, and are not interested as they have seen the Union as a bar for way too long.

So, how can HUU “market” democracy to the first years quickly? As mentioned earlier, the welcome week talks? A bigger chunk of the handbook sent to students?

I’ll be honest, I’m put off a lot of HUU’s documents thanks to really bad spelling and grammar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the same for many people. Again, take a look at http://hullstudent.com – but again, that is a rant for another day. Another thing that has been mentioned to me is the bad organisation of the SU site – which, to be honest, it is – finding things can be a chore.

I can’t really say much more on this, it requires a lot of active research, and HUU is doing a lot of it at the moment. However, I am confident that this year’s UEC are on track with it all – they are a fantastic set of officers and are doing the best they can for the Union, and I’m sure they will get the results they want by the end of their terms.

So, please show them that HUU can be better. HUU is not just about the food, the shop and the bars, the open forums are there for you, use them!

This is a long overdue post…

Last Tuesday was the NUS Extraordinary Conference in Leicester, which was something I was really looking forward to. This conference was called in order to debate and pass a motion that effectively changed the NUS Constitution as part of the NUS White Paper, the Governance Review. Basically, the NUS is being run ineffectively and (in my opinion anyway), if it continued, there would be no NUS within a couple of years, and the review sought to rectify these problems. I’m not going to go though the ins and outs of it here, but if you would like to read about it, you can do so at http://www.officeronline.co.uk/library/governance/274840.aspx.

Basically, I was in favour of these changes, as I didn’t want to see the NUS disappear. So, as mentioned previously, I put myself up for election. It turned out that I was the only independent candidate to run from Hull (two from Scarborough ran), and came second in the election. Overall, the elected cohort (as 9 were elected), was 2 Scarborough students, 6 Labour students from Hull, and me. However, for the most part, (i.e. for travelling’s sake), I was with the Hull lot… and things were interesting. Not bad, mind you, but interesting.

So, the day started at 5:30am, in order to get a taxi to the station with them, for the train to Doncaster at  6:40, and from Doncaster, at about 8am, to Leicester. The train journey was good, a lot of politics was flying about, (I came to learn that Labour has a broad spectrum of politicians within it, from hard left to centrist-ish). Of course, it wasn’t only politics flying about, we somehow managed to get onto the topic of Valentine’s day at one point!

We got into Leicester, met up with our Union President and the Scarborough Delegates, to get into a taxi to go to the Athena Conference Centre… which turned out to be about a 5 minute walk from the station… However, as we took the taxi, there was a nasty head to head crash, and blocked up the road we tried to go down. As we turned left the area again, someone that got out of their car to attempt to assist, but a large car that had just turned around in the road decided to try to run him over! It wasn’t the best way to welcome us to Leicester.

So, 5 minutes, and £5 later, Athena Conference Centre. All the NUS delegates were outside, queuing to get in, and I saw a lot of familiar faces from the “Train the Trainer” course I took back in August. I didn’t speak to any of them, mind you (though I wish I had), though I did acknowledge one or two. We also got many leaflets pushed onto us, perhaps the most interesting was the “Bullsh*t Bingo” – during conference, if a phrase was said that was on the paper, then you struck it off, if all were said, the first person to shout “Bingo” won something – way to make light of a serious matter!

Starting an hour late… NUS Conference begins! Starting with Gemma Tumelty, the NUS President, and her Opening Speech and moving onto ratifications, things start on a solid ground.

Then, the aptly named “Final Motion”, the Constitution Changes, starts to be discussed – with 16 proposed amendments – so Steering Committee had a job on telling us about the way they work and how they are related. Then… amendment 1.

“Save NUS Democracy.”
Effect – deletes the main motion and all other amendments.

Great… first things first, lets see if we can delete everything, and then just go home. Clever, if enough people voted in favour, then we would have nothing else to discuss – and therefore conference would have been a complete waste of time.

As you may have guessed, it didn’t go through.It was, however, amusing to note, that for the speech for this amendment, the designated speaker went up and said “Waive to Rob Owen, NEC” – at which point, a cheer was heard and rustling of paper could be heard… Bingo had just begun!

A few times throughout the conference, annoyingly, a count was taken. After the predictable “Lock the doors”, we had to hold up our hands in the air for ridiculous amounts of time just waiting for the count to be taken, often it was just pointless anyway, but some people just didn’t want to be defeated on certain points. If only they just accepted the results! ;D

After going through many an amendment, with many a procedural motion, two breaks, and lunch – finally, someone proposes that we just ignore the rest of the amendments, and just vote on the final question – which also resulted in a count, which needed a 2/3rds majority to go through. Funnily enough, it went though by 10 votes (I abstained, I knew what was coming!), so the count wasn’t so ridiculous in this case.

And the final motion, the review itself. Well, just listen to Wes Streeting with the summation speech to listen to the final result.

If you don’t want to listen to it… suffice to say, it passed. Unlike Bingo, which wasn’t won by anybody!

So, after Conference, we went to a pub next to the station, before getting on the train back to Hull, where more hilarity ensued – including the ongoing theme from those against the review going on about it – which was amusing. More politics obviously cropped up, and there was discussion about turning the Union into a “lads’ union” in Sheffield Station (where we had to wait for 1 1/4 hours)… joy of joys. We eventually got back into Hull about 11, home at about 11:30, there ending the trip.

It certainly was an interesting trip, and I fully enjoyed it! To those that voted for me, thanks, I’m glad I got to go!

I hope those that were there enjoyed it as much as I did!

After about 5 months, iDeskbook 1.0 is due to land at 8pm GMT tonight! The build is in final testing stages, and, if all goes well, iDeskbook will be finally out of beta, and work on iDeskbook 1.5 can start!

Just over 18 hours left. Not long now!

I would just like to take this chance to thank everyone who has supported me in this project, it has been great working on it and hearing the feedback.

Thanks, first and foremost, goes to Ben Dawson, who did a lot of the UI for me, and helped hugely in the design of the project.

I would also like to thank Rob Parker and Dave Morris, for the feedback that I have had from them at various stages in the project (whether though Arcanos or otherwise!)

I would like to thank Oli Morris, Nick Laver, and Laura Padget, for their support, and allowing me to use their surnames as the various codenames for the various milestones (Morris for Alpha 4, Dawson, Laver and Parker for the Betas, and finally Padget for the 1.0 release later today)

Of course, I would also like to thank my sister Natasha, Charlotte Burkitt and Ben Best for their help in my final web site design, which again, will be revealed later today.

Also, thanks to Richard Whitehead, Danny Calegero and Steve Gate, who all have used the program at some point, I hope you liked it back when you did try it, as it is much better and more stable now!

Finally, thanks to everyone else who have supported this effort, including the rest of my family, my housemates, coursemates and friends who have had to listen to me going on about it and/or have genuinely shown an interest, including Carl Horsefield, Amy Brown, Rob Gray, Tom Digby, Sean Tayler, Karl Reed and Abi Marchant, I couldn’t have done you guys! If I’ve missed you off, sorry, I’ll add you if you e-mail me!

Thanks a million guys, you made this all worthwhile!

I would just like to thank everybody that voted in the NUS Delegate Elections at HUU this week, and I would like to thank all those that voted for me, as I was elected as a delegate to the NUS conference. I would also like to congratulate all the others that got elected for this, I’m sure Tuesday is going to be a good day! If only we didn’t have to get up at 6 in the morning…

To Leicester! Again!

[Note: This entry is only likely to be of interest to those that are on Union Council or otherwise have some interest in student politics, or politics in general for that matter. Therefore, if you don't have an interest in it, don't bother reading.]

On Monday, we had Union Council in Scarborough, and it was quite a… well… irritating night. It felt like it was a full on political war at times, especially during the reports and questioning of sabbaticals. However, something that was more important to me was the questioning I got about my political stance. And, it was quite intense, though I welcomed it. I dodged the questions then, as I didn’t know what to think. Now I do, so all will be explained here.

So, first things first, yes, I was talking to a lot of the Labour Students members that morning, primarily because I knew one of them well, seen as he had been on a course with me in the first year. And yes, I did ask the question, “why should I join Labour Students?” – and yes, I did think about joining them. I also finally dispelled the myth that I was in Conservative Future, something I have never been in, though I closely aligned myself to the Conservative Party.

However, that has changed in the past year, and my political stance has moved considerably “left”, i.e. more liberal, in particular in an economic sense, though I have become more socially libertarian in the past year as well. I have become more and more disheartened by the Conservative Party though some of the more right-wing views of the Conservatives, some views that disgusted me. That’s not to say I completely disagree and reject any Conservative ideas. On the contrary, I agree with a lot of them, but some of them are a bit extreme in my opinion.

As mentioned, I have been drifting towards Labour, but at the same time, I am wary. Labour suffer from the same problems that the Conservatives do, just at the other end of the political scale. Again, I agree with a lot of their more centrist views, but towards the edge of the spectrum, again, I disagree.

Now, if I had to join a party now, this instant, it’d probably be Labour. BUT, I will not be joining a party. My political views don’t really fit in with a party fully, and I have been disheartened by both parties, Labour and Conservative. I respect everyone’s opinions, and I hope they respect mine. I get really annoyed with people that don’t. It’s the same with my religious views, I have them, I don’t impose them.

And, on a slightly different rant, they should also respect each others’ opinions. There is nothing wrong with a healthy debate, but to get upset over a difference of opinion, as I have seen happen, to stoop down to childish taunting and idiotic shouting, in what is meant to be a civilised debate.

I think that every councilor on Union Council is a decent person, and I have enjoyed talking to all those that I have spoken to, Conservative, Labour, Independent or otherwise. All I can say is, please please PLEASE don’t let your political ideologies and views break the bridges that have otherwise been, or could be, built.

There. There is my viewpoint. No more political games, no more hidden secrets for fear of rejection. That is me. Like it or lump it. But, at the end of the day, if you judge by political ideals, and ideals alone… you have got it totally wrong.

Yesterday was quite a hectic day for me, after only a 9:15 lecture and a couple of hours mooching about the university for no real good reason, I went back to my parents for a little bit. The idea was to do work, but my House M.D. Season Two DVD’s arrived, so my time was spent watching that with my two year old sister instead.

Anyhow, after that was a Fair Trade event by the Co-Op and Fairtrade Society and at HUU. Quite an eye opener really, and enjoyable, the chocolate was good to say the least! I’m glad I went, as I managed to fix a problem with the projector that had occurred, (restarting the computer always helps!!) which allowed the night to continue as planned. Of course, being my ever so helpful self, I helped clear up after, followed by a couple of drinks in Sanc – which is always good!

The reason I tell you about this is that I wanted to point something out, and not my helpfulness, I just did it because I wanted to. This morning, out of the blue, I got a message on Facebook from the Chair of the society thanking me again for my help, something I don’t ever expect. I guess, there are people that are very appreciative of what you do… and I appreciate that a lot. I do it because I can make a small difference – to be thanked for it makes it all the better.

"With Decency Comes Honour"… and decency starts with the simple things! And to those that are decent, they become the one that deserve the most…