On 24rd February 2015, Room One heated up as the second of the Exec Election Bubble Debates took place. The evening was once again hosted by Nina Blissett on stage and Dave Thompson in the crowd, talking to the panel and sharing social media interactions. Nina brought us an introduction to the evening, saying that “we want candidates to clash” and that this would be the “hardest job interview of their lives”. We were also introduced to the panel; Sarah Haar- Ex- VP Action, Axelle Savary- Butler Court Hall Chair, George Hones- former Rigg Rut Hall Chair and Hamza Modi- involved in Action,Welfare and chair of Bakewell Hall. For anyone who was there, I’m sure you’ll agree that the evening was a lot more intense than the first debate as the panel asked intrusive questions alongside audience and social media participation.
Max Crawford was the first candidate of the evening, running for VP Union Affairs, our current VP Union Affairs, Liam Peoples was brought on stage to ask Max questions.
In Max’s 30 second speech showed that the role is something he’d love to do. He believe that “experience will make me perfect candidate for the role and this provides a good way to help others to also share that experience” in Loughborough.
Liam: How would you plan to entice the less engaged demographic- such as Post- Grad and International Students?
Max: Finding out what the students want is important in reaching out. Holding focus groups and questionnaires to find out what they’d like and using that data will help cater for these people.
George Hones: In your manifesto you talk about extending campaigns into town- what are your specific schemes to extend Union campaigns off campus?
Max: I want to expand on that tonight- to engage town students we could have a Facebook ‘Town page’ so that they feel they’re being accounted for. We could look to put together a type of town committee working with the warden and Development Officer to maybe allocate exec for town areas. These people could then relate and talk to people on a personal level.
Axelle: What would you do different for Exec Elections next year?
Max: I think they’re run very well but I do think we need more clarity on budgeting. This is something that stems back further than the elections process. We do need to make sure that the students (first years) know what they’re voting for and that roles can be understood by everybody.
Twitter question: How do you plan on using data from students?
Max: We can work out what types of students get involved and therefore find out what’s missing- it’s an ongoing process.
Twitter: You talk about reaching out to many aspects of the University- can you give some examples?
Max: The Exec need to be approachable to everyone. We can improve this by attending societies events and AU club events- so that it’s not just the particular section representative from Exec. In halls we can make sure halls buddies are attending hall events.
Liam: Where do you see the unions communication strategy moving in the future?
Max: I think this year there have been a lot more videos which is good but if we could channel all students to the uni website, this would make things easy to identify without just using Facebook.
Max is a smart candidate with a strong amount of audience support. He answered all questions efficiently and with confidence.
