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.
Papadofragakis issued the following statement: "I am not withdrawing my nomination nor am I even considering to, but I am afraid that I do not have enough time to campaign.
"I am doing a bachelor of engineering degree, I am on a 60 credit term, my 15,000 word dissertation is due next Tuesday, its presentation is on next Friday and in the meantime I have a 1,500 word procedural essay to write and classes to attend.
"Over the last week, I simply did not have the time to campaign nearly as much as any of the other candidates. I have pretty much stopped campaigning since last Friday and I'm now just making it official. I am the only candidate for a sabbatical position who is doing a BEng degree, which I think is quite revealing in itself.
"Nevertheless, I know that many people have already expressed support for my policies and many have already voted for me, so I would like to stress that I am not pulling out under any circumstance.
"I will just strongly encourage all of you to take the time and read all the candidates' policies before you make your choice. Student politics should not be reduced to the level of a publicity contest - student politics should be a clash of ideas. It is up to the students themselves to ensure that by reading everyone's proposals and by choosing the best candidate, not just the one who has the most free time available to spend on campus."
The Yorker contacted Papadofragakis' opponents for comments, but at press time only Lewis Bretts had responded. Bretts said: "I'm really sorry to see that George has had to do this: I've been really pleased to see him running a 'democracy' based campaign. I feel like we've got similar ideas about how YUSU needs to change, and it'll be a shame if those issues drop from the agenda."
Just to clarify, the statement was issued on Tuesday.
Exactly. The Yorker's coverage of these elections have been extremely poor.
In fairness, at least the Yorker has not described me as postgrad from Wentworth.
Exactly. The Yorker's coverage of these elections have been extremely poor.
15,000 words? Sorry to break it to you George but the word limit is 35,000 
#4 must be a Nouse bot..
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comment deleted by the author "I've been really pleased to see him running a 'democracy' based campaign."
this is just saying that his policies are unbalanced, which is not really fair.. judging on facebook groups he seems to be the only candidate with something serious to say about democracy and is not just all about services, which is presumably the combination that this position requires..
though to be fair bretts has also said that he would keep his manifesto available online and make videos of UGMs available online.. but overall I think the democracy aspect has been ignored or underplayed by most candidates.. some are running for services and finacne instead
that's so unfair for bsc, beng and many postgraduate students. no wonder why only BA students are running!
Hey, some of us are doing MPhys degrees
But yes, every single person running for a Sabbatical is a 3rd year or is re-running (excluding Grant Bradley). And of these, I believe that George doing Engineering and Leyland (who studied Psychology, I think?!) are the only non-BA students. I could well be wrong because I'm basing my facts on the same information that says 'postgrad' etc
charlie has graduated jason..
George figured that the easiest way to get publicity for his campaign was to send an email to The Yorker.
It's hardly news that running for a sabbatical position might impact negatively on your degree. It's the old 'Sabb with a 2:2 vs. jobless with a 2:1' dichotomy, and whether it's fair that those with a science degree find it more difficult or not, it is a reality.
I know Charlie and Rory have graduated but I mean in terms of what courses they *did* study.
Hence saying "who studied"
And it's true, Erik, but if you had a dissertation due in around the time you were supposed to be campaigning, I suspect you'd want to dedicate a lot of time towards getting a good degree? Regardless of which course - I'd rather study Physics and have no exams than study history and have a four-day exam during campaign week, for instance!
If I had lots of work on in Week 8 and 9 of Spring Term, I wouldn't run for a sabbatical position. But some do, and suffer as a consequence.
Erik, I assure you that this was not the rationale behind this message. Getting publicity for my campaign by stopping it is hardly that effective if you ask me.
I am only explaining the reason why I have not been more visible, which is an 'accusation' I've heard countless times over the last week.
The issue I am raising here is, I believe, quite important. In their current form, YUSU elections have become the exclusive province of BA students - have a look at the ratio and you will understand what I mean. For a BEng student it is simply impossible to spend nearly as much time campaigning.
For us, this is not an issue of having a 'negative impact on our degree', it is an issue of whether we want a degree or not.
If you think that the resultant gross misrepresentation is not something we should be concerned about, then do ignore all this. But otherwise, I think this must be seen as something to act upon in the future.
And still. The reason that people go for positions in YUSU (I hope) is because they want to help the university and its students. It shouldn't be a matter of "I have a lot of work in weeks 8 and 9, I shouldn't run" but it blatantly already is.
Of all those running, only a couple aren't BA students. That shows how much non-BA students are put-off by the workload! That some of us still want to go for the position, still go and talk to students and still do all the postering ourselves shows that we care, in my opinion.
Ok, so some of us will suffer... but it shouldn't be a default "I'm going to beat you because you do science and I don't" election campaign. That's, frankly, ridiculous and completely unfair!
Surely that's precisley the problem that Jason is trying to point out, Erik: the way that YUSU organises its elections is fundamentally unfair, since it means that only certain students can REALLY run.
Indeed, someone conscientious enough to have a leading, paid job within YUSU is presumably someone who wouldnt sacrifice their degree on teh off-chance they might win.
Perhaps we shouldn't rehash the same complaints re: cliques, but ask whether an election system in which a whole categories of students are discouraged to run is at the heart of the problem?
From the perspective of someone doing a BA, I wouldn't have had nearly enough time to campaign if I didn't have so few contact hours a week or if my final essays weren't due until after Easter. At the same time though, I would hardly have had a campaign at all if I hadn't had a very dedicated campaign team. Campaigners can go some way towards redressing the balance between those with loads of time and those with little.
Indeed the system does seem to favour those who have exams / dissertations / projects due in the summer term.
A choice between revising for a monday week 10 exam or campaigning to be an officer should be a no brainer, but it really does limit who can run.
Of course it'd be the same trouble if elections were next term as well. Perhaps week 5 or 6 this term would have been a decent compromise, nothing much due in except procedural work for most subjects.
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