Candidate 1
One of the most fundamental reasons for running is my love for Action, the volunteers and the organisations we work with. If elected I will work hard to ensure the best reputation and the values of the section are being sustained, and our students are guaranteed the best student experience whilst at Loughborough!
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Non-term volunteering opportunities:
- Optimise out of term period to provide volunteering opportunities for Postgraduates, International, London and College students and introduce them to the section earlier.
- Provide training opportunities for our London Reps to help them settle into new roles.
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Understanding data and our students:
- Improve the understanding of our section and our volunteers by operating MSL to its full capability.
- By understanding the demographic of our students I will be able to target specific projects to a specific type of students, in order to help them with employability and personal development.
- Use data to engage more students based on similar demographics and their paths of engagement in Action.
- Reduction of admin responsibilities achieved by the development of a new platform that will translate information such as volunteered hours directly to students, in the similar way they can view their loyalty points or their record of skills gained.
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Ensuring ongoing success:
- Improve the way information is being passed over year after year. Create a more comprehensive handover process.
- Implement more senior roles in our projects, to provide consistency and progression.
- Provide even more exciting volunteering projects for our students, ones that are not only extra-curricular but co-curricular.
Candidate 2
- Tailoring Specific Action projects to individuals
- WHAT? Specifically choosing projects to benefit individuals.
- HOW? Bringing Action to you, the students, e.g. Sports coaching for AU clubs, ‘Culture in the community’ for international students etc.
- WHY? Increasing awareness of what Action can provide
- Increase postgraduate involvement
- WHAT? Around 4500 postgrads are here during summer whilst the union is effectively shut to them
- HOW? Reward postgrads volunteering over the summer.
- WHY? Make postgrads feel more included than ever before. The introduction of the new EO position and new JP committee has been effective, with involvement ever increasing.
- Work with Rag EO to improve fundraising
- WHAT? Budget cuts are an issue for Action
- HOW? Organise fundraising training for hall reps and project leaders for the first time. I have already had positive feedback from committee members and Rag EO about this idea.
- WHY? Maximise opportunities for the section from those running it. Providing the students with extra opportunities for involvement in Action
- Increasing Action/Hall Committee communication/involvement
- WHAT? Poor handover periods and hall committee involvement decreasing over the last few years
- HOW? Committee should meet before the new academic year rather than in September. Work with hall chairs to have termly committee action projects.
- WHY? Improving the section from the top of action all the way to the volunteers, to be in the best position at the starting line of Freshers.
R.O.N.
Hi, I’m R.O.N and I stand for Re-open nominations. It’s my job to make sure you’re aware of candidate shortcomings. If you don’t feel that the candidates are applicable to the role, have a read of MY manifesto, and vote R.O.N.
Candidate 1 seems to show a clearer understanding of the systems LSU has in place to track student engagement and targeting students. The mention of being able to view student volunteering hours like we view loyalty points is an interesting one, but how would it be implemented? Candidate 2 doesn’t go into much details regarding how they are going to target students, short of making some links between coaching for AU and cultural projects for international students. As far as I’m aware, those projects are already advertised to certain demographics – how would this candidate implement something that makes a tangible difference?
Both talk about the groups of people LSU has not catered for in the past, which is good. LSU has been making strides in engaging the disengaged this year. The focus on Postgraduates is welcome (though it is worth noting that Candidate 2 incorrectly says 4500 remain over summer – we have around 4500 total but not all of those will stay over summer). Out of term-time opportunities tie into the previous manifesto of the PG Executive Officer – but neither candidate says how they are going to implement changes. Let’s hope details can be expanded on during campaigning. Candidate 2 at least mentions some form of reward system for summer involvement – Candidate 1 doesn’t mention anything in that regard. How would either incentivise summer involvement? Candidate 1 also mentions other underrepresented student demographics – and is the only candidate to discuss Loughborough London. What would Candidate 2 do to incorporate these students in Action?
Candidate 2 discusses the financial restrictions are under place as the section continues to expand – and a fundraising initiative within Action is a welcome one, that will certainly help (especially with overseas volunteers.) Whoever wins, this would be a welcome addition to the section. Their point about Hall Committee projects seems a bit pointless however – lots of hall committees do this at the start of the year. The final point seems muddled – and the reasoning overly simple and vague.
