A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
At 1.14am on Saturday morning Mad Cap'n Tom was voted YUSU President. Current YUSU President Anne-Marie Canning said was her "proudest" moment; 2,894 students voted, a number she told the audience was bigger than the turnout at Leeds University, which has a population of 30,000.
The result brought with it a mixed reaction. Whilst Tom's supporters cheered the house down, others were visibly shocked, and Tom had to make his victory speeches to boos and chants being made by sections of the audience. Some of his newly-elected officers voiced shock and concern over the appointment, and the image to be reflected onto York students.
One student, Dominique Cutts, said: "That just sums up student voting: they voted a pirate." Newly-elected officers questioned when they would be issued with cutlasses.
Within minutes of the result being announced opposing Facebook groups had been set up. "Please help us Remove Mad Cap'n Tom Scott as President as YUSU" stands at 90 members, while the petition asking for Mad Cap'n Tom Scott to resign has 133 members at the time of publication. The contrasting "Support of Mad Cap'n Tom Scott" has already found 435 members, including current and YUSU-elect Officers and Anne-Marie Canning.
Election night rarely passes without controversy and this year it was the premature revealing of the results of the AU race. As the candidates and their friends gathered in front of the screen, a drunken reveller used the computer to skip through the slides to reveal that Alex Lacy was the new AU President.
The Returning Officers took the decision to continue with the announcement process as only a minority of the audience had acknowledged the results.
Jo Carter, AU President, took the time to apologise to each candidate after the event and she said she didn't want their experience to be ruined by "the actions of one silly drunken girl".
The voting for AU President went to four rounds of voting, something Carter said was "one of the closest".
Once the total number of votes are cast, a threshold amount is announced; if no candidate meets this amount in the first round, the second-choices of voters are taken into account. The candidate with the lowest amount will then be eliminated.
In the AU Race, surprise entrant Aimee Gamble and the everpresent RON were first to be eliminated. Jack Kennedy was third to be removed, leaving it a three-horse race between Max Coney, Chris Collinson and Alex Lacy. Coney was then eliminated, and in a close race, Collinson finished in second place with 790 votes making Lacy the winner with 856 votes.
Matt Burton, who ran mainly on a policy to aim to bring a SU Bar to campus, was elected into an unprecendented second term as Services and Finances Officer.
Charlie Leyland beat three other candidates to become the only female on the Sabbatical team, as Academic and Welfare Officer.
Rory Shanks was announced as Societies and Communications Officer just after midnight. He took the opportunity to thank "all those who have voted for me and have helped me along the way".
Jamie Tyler took a convincing win against Sarah Witts and Fran Olley to become Student Development and Charity Officer. The threshold amount was 927, and thanks to a huge turnout in his Derwent College, Tyler won outright with 937 votes.
Tom Langrish and Michael Batula were one of four pairs running for Policy and Campaigns Officers. They missed out on a first-round victory by a tiny 1.5 votes. As they went to the second-choice allocations, they eventually came out top and won with 963 votes.
In the first year of cross-campus voting for Student Action Chair and RAG President, Adam Wiles and Helen Adams were named respective winners. Whilst Wiles was uncontested, Adams beat her competitor Alex Fink by 1162 votes to 873.
Joe Thwaites and John Nicholls were successful in their quest to become the new Environment and Ethics Officers, beating Lena Jeha and Tom Barnes & Ed Morrison.
Naomi Dodds and Ed Durkin were the third duo of the evening to beat RON to become Ents Officers. Earlier positions of LGBT, Women's, and Training were won by Sarah Fennell & Ben Humphrys, Sophie Harrison & Eilidh McIntosh and Rhianna Kinchin & Collette Kerrigan respectively.
The Yorker will be publishing interviews with Mad Cap'n Tom and blogs by a variety of students over the upcoming days.
I have a cunning plan to stop silly student voting in future!
Why don't we only let people vote if one of there mates is already in YUSU? Eh? Will stop these non-serious candiates winning.
To conclude: LONG LIVE CAPTAIN TOM
Yes yes, my only problem is how do I take a man who dresses and acts like a pirate serious???
Maybe it is judging a book by its cover, but more often than not it turns out to be right.
As Captain Tom himself has said in a recent Facebook note: 'Please remember that this is, in the end, just student politics. It's not important, despite what you can start believing if you stay near it too long. Step away from the computer. Go outside. There's a whole world out there that doesn't care about any of us, and it's fantastic.'
Great, I'll take great comfort from the fact our YUSU president doesn't think it matters! I read that note, the fact he doesn't think what he's doing matters does nothing to increase my confidence in his abilities, in fact it has the opposite effect.
If he doesn't think he matters why is he doing it at all? He should just walk away and go explore that great big world he talks about and let someone else who actualy does believe in it give it a try.
Sorry, meant 'if he doesn't think IT matters', obviously...
As I've said on the other article. The assertion that when I've been sitting in UGMs and Committee meetings discussing and voting on things which do matter to many students I was wasting my time on something that doesn't matter and I should have been outside is something which I find quite offensive, and I'm sure others who have given up their time for YUSU in the past do as well.
Exactly.
""The assertion that when I've been sitting in UGMs and Committee meetings discussing and voting on things which do matter to many students... I find quite offensive""
I find this whole debate quite entertaining! First off YUSU is a bureaucracy in that it manages things - albeit important things - welfare, socities, some academic support... etc. In terms of "politics" what does it do!
I find it infurating that YUSU isn't political. That they argue in "UGMs and Committee" over protocol and existing position with only ocasional reference to the outside world with motions that dont actually do anything. Prehaps students would be more interested and not voice there disinterest in this way if YUSU was more political rather than just managing in the typical post-political manner
@8
Well yes, but aren't you talking about 'politics' as opposed to 'student politics' a semantic distinction perhaps, but the latter seems to imply a necessary focus on, if not limitation to, dealing with internal issues.
YUSU is limited to doing things that affect/benefit its own members by the Education and Charities Acts.
If you don't think motions are political enough, propose some that are!
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report