After four days of seemingly non-stop campaigning, and all our candidate profiles now on Label Online, it’s time to reflect on the goings on our candidate select during their first few days of campaigning for their place on the Union Executive. Label, LCR and LSUTV have been out and about snapping and recording clips from our candidates, so don’t forget to check out the gallery below, as well as our links within this very article.
The candidate reveal, covered live by Label Online and LCR, was the perfect ice-breaker for the coming week, with tension built-up to bursting point until our 2013 candidates eventually made their way onto the Piazza stairway. But at the drop of the gate, the poster dash began and madness ensued in the Union! Twitter was flooded with #ExecElections tweets and individual candidate profiles, as campaign teams ran riot across campus to give their candidate the best possible start in the 2013 Exec Elections.
Day one saw the key by-product to Ali Cole’s rules changes for this year: Free campaigning. Lecture shout-outs, door knocking, public demonstrations and simply engaging with students in busy areas of campus became target number one of the day. The effects of the ‘poster dash’ were there for all to see across campus, blacking out windows in halls across Loughborough University, with praise from all from our candidates after their teams' hard work! LS Media volunteers were glued to Twitter attempting to track down our candidates in halls, lecture halls or even taking a break for lunch! Day one even saw the first of the much-anticipated ‘Harlem Shake’ videos from VP Welfare and Diversity candidate, Izzy ‘Rascal’ Ford!
The evening saw the first of two instalments of The Bubble Debate, with the VP and Presidential candidates causing a stir, with highlights coming from Welfare candidate Dave ‘Pringle’ Tingle’s outburst, to the bizarre, with VP Finance candidate Chris 'Beefcake' McKenna’s lucky tin of carrots. Questions still surrounded his reasons for running, as the Firing Squad went in all guns blazing… Including stating that the two candidates for VP Democracy and Communications were the 'weakest candidates across the board'.
Day two started with Label finding many candidates on campus: Zak ‘Sparrow’ Evans, running for VP Finance, was extremely keen on his use of social media before public demonstrations could begin, and Presidential candidate Josh ' Josh Do It' Hurrell’s instant praise for his campaign team, and was extremely glad that The Bubble Debate had been and gone, but not for the section heads! 'Hands On' Helen Crossley along with a few other candidates became the first to upload campaign videos onto social media, starting with her hand painting video to kick off her virtual campaign, before heading off to Fusion for round two of The Bubble Debate…
The second instalment of the live LSUTV feed, featuring Rag, Action, Media, SocFed and AU, was slightly tamer in nature, with the exception of Rag: After a spirited debate between Paul ‘Ragnam’ Nanson and Mike ‘Linebacker’ Lyness, the Firing Squad’s focus somewhat switched onto Lyness’ potential switch to run for President, which led onto Lyness stating that current Rag Chair Max Turner does not have the ‘people skills’ comparable to those of Chairs in the past.
Later in the week, LCR’s David Edwards caught up with the pair of Rag Chair candidates, alongside Becky ‘Bunny’ Lauder-Fletcher, and you can here what they had to say right here.
Wednesday gave the candidates far more freedom in terms of public demonstrations, and they began to pop up all over campus! Sarah ‘Heart’ Haar, running for Action Chair against Michael 'Action Air' Jordan, recorded the first flash mob featuring the Rawkus Street Dance Society in James France, eventually involving more than ten of the other candidates! Paul Nanson then followed with a demonstration of his own in the quad at Bill Mo Hall later on day three. Zac 'Sparrow' Evans even took to the roads with cars following his campaign parade around campus.
Many candidates had seemed to become extremely successful opportunists, with the likes of Paul Nanson, Tim ‘Ginger Jenks’ Jenkins and Jennie ‘Call On Cooper’ Cooper jumping on Loughborough Invades buses going to Nottingham and those heading to BUCS matches. Other candidates Maz ‘SuperMaz’ Haidar, Hannah ‘Power 2 U’ Chrisp and David ‘Blaine’ Haines focussed more on door knocking and lecture shout outs, with still very little sign of Chris McKenna…
However, the first two sanctions of the campaign period dominated proceedings on day three: Firstly, Welfare and Diversity candidate Isobel Ford received a one hour ban for violating section 4.25 of the Candidates Pack rules – Use of an unapproved campaign material. A huge 24-hour band soon followed for Chris McKenna, after violating section 4.13 regarding pre-campaigning.
Day four kicked off in style with Michael ‘Action Air’ Jordan’s basketball demonstration on Ball Park, and the first appearance of sweets being given out since early on day one, as well as the return of the voting promotion cards. Georgia ‘Ginger Spice’ Cheyne joined the list of candidates aiming to explore the huge voting potential that is Loughborough College.
Not a good day for VP Welfare and Diversity candidate Izzy ‘Rascal’ Ford, who received her second ban in the space of 24 hours. This time receiving a two hour ban after a member of her campaign team took part in Union activities whilst sporting a piece of campaign attire, breaking the rule under section 4.12 of the Candidates Pack. Could this have allowed ‘SuperMaz’ and ‘Pringle’ Tingle to develop an advantage?
Hannah Chrisp, running to be your next VP Democracy and Communications, seemed keen to be interactive with the available media after starting a small debate with LCR volunteers! Chrisp later talked to Label: “The LCR debate this morning was really good! It gave me chance to talk to my opponent about his manifesto points and further get my own points across.”
Georgia Cheyne and both VP Democracy and Communications candidates, Hannah Chrisp and David Haines, were later interviewed by LCR. Listen to what they had to say by clicking right here.
It was also a busy day for Sarah 'Heart' Haar who, after impressing with a translation of her manifesto into Mandarin so that a lecture of around 200 Chinese students could fully grasp her manifesto's concepts, was the subject of complaints handed into the Elections Committee. After developing a raffle-style giveaway and issues with heart t-shirts being worn by her team in the Union without her name or campaign title, complaints were submitted but thrown out on the same day, escaping any potential sanctions. Thus ended a busy first few days of campaining for our select group of seventeen candidates!
Stay tuned to Label Online for the latest news from the Executive Elections 2013, and for our second ‘progress report’, covering the weekend’s action, to be released on Monday; the first day of voting. Check out the rest of our Elections content right here on Label Online.
