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.
1:35: To Summer of 69, we finish our coverage. Check back over the next few days for further coverage and comments.
1:30: SU President candidate Nadz Kunwar tells The Yorker: "I've had so much fun campaigning, it's a shame to lose."
1:20: The Yorker secured the first quote from our new SU President, when we asked how he felt. He replied: "I'm about to pass out."
01:18: Joe Clarke said: "At this time, it seems like a mockery." However, Tom Scott said: "People keep asking me, am I going to take the job and the answer is Yes. I be doing the best damn job I can."
01:14: And now for the big one... 2984 people voted for this postion. AMC described having to announce this fact as her proudest moment as president. The winner is Mad Captain Tom Scott. Some members of the audience are singing "We want our vote back". Theresa Dolan said: "This uni is a sham!"
Candidates:
The winner is Mad Captain Tom
01:03: Matt Burton becomes the first officer to serve two years running. He said: "I'd like to thank all my campaigners. I really think I can do it. Thank you very much to my Sabbs, everyone has been really really supportive, even the people at the front. Thanks, enjoy the night." A song specially requested by Matt Burton is played. No one at The Yorker has a clue what it might be. Joe Clarke said: "A landslide victory for the deserving candidate."
Candidates:
The winner is Burton
12:54: Current AU President Jo Carter has explained the situation. A drunk member of the audience pressed a button on the slide. They went through normally as they were unsure how many members of the audience had seen the slide. Carter has been round and apologised personally to all candidates. Doorsafe are now guarding the computer to avoid the event happening again.
12:51: AMC was just spotted falling into the recycling bins. We're currently trying to get hold of her for a reply.
12:47: Sam McCormmick said: "It's a disgrace that they didn't offer an apology, they should have rushed through the results rather than brush them under the carpet. They're messing with people's lives there."
12:42: We're almost there folks, only two more results to announce. However, we're thirsty, will someone buy us a pint?
12:37: AMC told the audience ex-Academic and Welfare officer Grace Fletcher-Hackwood texted in and said: "This is the best job in the Union." AMC added: "I agree with her, it is the best job, and the most important." The post got a large number of votes with 2373 votes cast.
Candidates:
The winner is Leyland
12:34: Mad Captain Tom said: "Someone just described me as a walking spoilt ballot paper."
12:33: The results have now been announced officially. After first round Collinson 535, Lacy 642, Coney 545. After second round Collinson 593, Lacy 662, Coney 563. Third round Collinson 658, Lacy 723, Coney 606. Last round is Collinson 790, Lacy 856. Lacy wins an extremely close contest.
12:29: Another unfortunate mistake... Result went up before any annoucements were made. Alex Lacy is new AU president
Candidates:
The winner is Alex Lacy
12:25: New Ents Officer Naomi says she feels "OK", then "Good" and finally settles for "Excited about the year to come". Baywatch themes comes on. It's like Toffs on a Tuesday night, except I'm using my laptop and nowhere near as drunk...
12:09: Shanks, who won with yet another convincing result, told the audience: "Thank you very much. I'd like to thank all those who have voted for me and have helped me along the way. I'd like to thank my house, my OTC attachment, the campaigns we all ran were great, which is great for communications."
Candidates:
The winner is Shanks with 923 votes, above the threshold of 871 and half.
12:06: With a massive threshold of 927, Jamie Tyler won SDC with a landslide 937 votes, without the need for a second round of voting. The Derwent crowd chants "Tyler, Tyler, Tyler". Tyler said: "You guys are all amazing, I love you all." Witts won James College, the only one Tyler failed to win.
Candidates:
The winner is Jamie Tyler
11:55: Rich Croker, ex-YUSU President tells us: “I don’t think students are voting for the pirate, they’re voting for RON. The pirate is the new RON. Students aren’t voting for him as a candidate, more someone who isn’t the typical SU.”
Prior to the Presidential Battle of Croker’s era, the exit poll had never been wrong. After a change from a three-day analysis of 300 votes, to a one day, 100-sample exit poll, the result was wrong in its first year (the election of 2006/7). Although Croker said: “A win of a maximum of 10% on the exit poll gives you your winner.”
11:43: Langrish told the audience: "I don't think the result actually reflects the level of effort put into the election." Meanwhile the pirate and his crew are tearing the dancefloor to pieces with their probably illegal moves.
11:40: The results coming thick and fast. Langrish and Batula miss first round of voting by 1.5 votes despite winning in every college except James College, but end up winning in the second round by a landslide.
Candidates:
The winners are Langrish and Batula with 963 votes after the second round of voting. The next best got 379.
11:36: AMC has a slip-up and effectively announces the results for Racial Equality before giving the college break down.
Candidates:
The winners are Nicholls and Twaites.
Candidates:
The winners are Aziz and Apea by 289 votes.
11:30: Adam Wiles, new Student Action Chair tells us: "I want to follow on from our fantastic previous Chair."
11:26: Crowd favourite Umbrella comes on. We love it.
11:23: The SDC exit Poll suggests Jamie Tyler to win with 51% of the votes, followed by Sarah Witts with 22% and Fran Olley with 21%. Tyler isn't taking anything for granted.
11:12: Helen Adams, the new RAG President, who dyed her hair blonde as part of her campaign announces: "RAG is going to be amazing this year!" Meanwhile the crowd (and The Yorker team) bop along to a bit of Avril Lavigne.
11:07: RAG Pres is a close one. New Student Action Chair Adam Wiles said: "Thank you very much everyone, I'd like to give a big thank you to the voters, and especially my campaign team."
Candidates:
The winner is Adams with 1162 against 873 for Fink
Candidates:
The winner is Adam Wiles with 1221 out of 1439 votes.
10:59 Member of the audience Nick Connell said: "Why do we have to wait until 1am to find out who gets president?"
10:46: Rhianna Kinchin is feeling fantastic after beating RON.
10:44: Some more results for you. Ben Humpries said: "In your face RON."
Candidates:
The winner is Dods and Durkin with 1470 out of 1752 votes.
Candidates:
The winner is Sarah Fennel and Ben Humphrys with 1278 out of 1509 votes.
10:33: Rory Shanks is "Loving Nadz"
10:21: Nadz Kunwar just told us: "Matt Burton looks amazing. Not."
10:29: It's all kicking off now!
Candidates:
"The winners are Harrison and McIntosh.
Candidates:
The winners are Kinchin and Kerrigan with 1230 votes.
Candidates:
The winners are Laura Payne, Matt Burton, Tom Langrish, Matthew Pallas, David Levene, Andy Dixon and Michael Wood.
10:11: Charlie Leyland has told us she got 62% in her exit poll, but isn't counting her chickens for Academic and Welfare. She says: "I just want to know". Meanwhile Aimee Gamble, surprise entrant in the race for the AU told us that her nomination was all down to Matthew Pallas. She gave her blank nomination form to Pallas who signed her up - she says her aim for the night is to simply beat RON (as she isn't actually a member of the AU).
10:09: The announcer has requested "everyone to report to the dancefloor". Currently no one has responded, in fact Joey Ellis and Matt Burton have just departed.
10:05: Mitch: Yes I do. Anon: Official times are 12.15am for AU and 1am for SU President. As the event is running over half an hour late, I couldn't possibly say.
10:00: Alex Lacey is feeling "slightly perturbed".
9:58: The Yorker are in situ, Sarah Witts, running for SDC says she feels "calm" whilst Nick Bradley, Services and Finance Candidate, is feeling the nerves.
9:50: Here we are, finally in. The event is running late, so you'll find out about results as soon as they come in. Feel free to post comments below as we go along!
You may want to check in the constitution whether or not you can no-confidence an officer before they take up their post.
Also, the majority of students voted for the Pirate over Laura and Nadz. Getting rid of him may not be so popular.
Let's see what he does. My bet is the pirate act will last till summer, tops - it must be exhausting to keep up. Hopefully with or without the act he'll prove himself to be as capable as anyone. Everyone clamoring for his resignation should realise there's a reason he won, and by a margin of significantly more than 8 votes...what happened to "the students have spoken," eh?
I can't wait. I really can't.
I think it was all just a very clever marketing ploy by Tom. I think we should give him a chance and see how he does. I just hope that he does actually want the job and isn't mocking the system.
Right, I'l make this brief because it's not worth my time to do otherwise, and also because I don't want to detract from the actual issues being discussed here.
I seriously don't know how to reply to your post Dan, because once again it's just contradictory and hypocritical. Firstly I don't claim to represent the whole society, it's simply that the only yorker account I have is in the society's name. Which begs the question though, how can you say I have "a personal crusade" against you if you don't know who I am? I'll give a hint, I'm Chris Swann - I've been informed you apparently facebook stalk me, so that should help you put a face to this post.
As for crusades, no, I don't have one, I just can't stand to see self-serving inconsistent opportunism pass itself off as genuine concern for students/issues. You moan about some imagined personal crusade yet somehow expect everyone to forget that the whole Grace affair was exactly that. I don't want to get dragged into a debate about that so I'll leave it at that, but when someone accepts an apology, only to later go all-out against someone they hate when they hear about the no-confidence procedure, is a personal crusade. Talking of which, why would anyone propose a motion against the pirate? Well the fact you seem to have, and here's the kicker, "no-confidence" in his competence to be President - that's what the motion's for, it's not just about punches.
Finally you know full well that whenever we've 'debated' that I do engage constructively in debates, as opposed to merely reacting with vitriol in order to stir controversy. After all, how arrogant and closed-minded do you have to be to claim that views that don't agree with yours aren't "real"? It hardly seems to be a constructive approach to claim that the millions of 'left-wing' people in the world should be ignored just because they don't agree with you, and to try to justify this by somehow making your opinion the basis of "reality"! If my views aren't real, what are they then? Fake? Figments of your imagination? I couldn't say, but I do know they're more "real" than those of a man who's consistently contradicted himself in order to stir controversy - a man with seemingly few actual opinions at all, just a desire to stir.
Seriously, your own blatant hypocrisy means that nobody takes you seriously anymore. I'm tired of you, and so is the rest of campus. You've actually become a running gag on Have I Got News For York which gets the whole room laughing, regardless of political views etc. Like I said, I don't want to drag this discussion thread off-topic so I'm done with you. But I don't know why you're so opposed to the Cap'n because he's comical. The only real joke on campus is you; the tragedy is you just don't get it.
People didn't just vote for him because they thought it would be funny. There were plenty of people who voted for him because he is the most competant of the three candidates by far.
He has the support of all those who were annoyed that he didn't get into Socs and Comms two years ago (particularly after the mess Colin Hinson made over budgets and communicating to societies about minimum membership increases).
He has the support of societies he's run or been actively involved in who know he's capable of organising a lot of people.
He has the support of those people who watched the PEP debate and saw someone down-to-earth who would look at the issues that concerned students and tackle them at the time, instead of making rash promises now that he might not be able to keep. Yes, his policies are a joke, but he's got about the same chance of keeping them as other candidates. If you look at Payne's policies, the bridges are being sorted out by university admin now and the buses have a cheap trial on tickets next term, before the Presidential vote comes into affect. If you look at Nadz policies, half of them are to do with Ac and Welfare, not Presidency and he is promising to split that role before listening to what an expert (hired and payed a lot of money to look at things like thist) has to say on the matter.
I was told (I haven't seen actual figures so I don't know if it's true) that records for the number of people voting for certain positions were broken on the first day voting opened. I think that's his first success. We have a university where student apathy wins out every time. People walk past the campaign posters without given them a glance. This year, people noticed the pirate, saw something was going on and went and read the manifestoes. Even if they didn't vote for Tom, I think he can still claim their votes as part of his victory simply because so many more people were interested this year.
So many years, the Presidential candidates have promised to break up the YUSU clique and get more students aware of what the union does. Tom is outside the clique and he's already raised awareness.
I think he's well on his way to being the best President York's had in a very long time.
@ #64: so much for making it brief 
Chris Swann: I can't even access your profile on facebook so to suggest I 'stalk' you are downright lies. Being accused of stalking another male on facebook is one of the biggest insults I have had! Wow, and I'm the egotostical one eh?
Yes, does anyone see the irony in #64's 'brief' post? He suffers from verbal green-house gass emission as much as the rest of us.
How much did the pirate win by? What was the break-down of votes?
Anyone else beginning to get fed up with Dan's ego? It seems that whenever something doesn't go his way we just get a massive hissy fit in response...
From what I heard Dan dropped out of campaigning for a sab position because he was too busy to run a campaign...hang on, mere minutes after the election results are out and Dan starts the campaign to force Tom to resign.
The students have spoken Dan, we have a Pirate as President, and just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that he should be removed ASAP. Its not a Dan Taylor dictatorship in York, or maybe you would want it to be?
"Dan Taylor's results for What dictator are you?
Adolf Hitler"
Says it all really.
And Dan didn't you decide to run for Sevices and Finance just because you didn't think Matt Burton should get another year? I think that campaign would have been more of a joke than Mad Cap'n Tom Scott.
@ #66 - Yeah, that did go on a bit longer than I planned! :-p
This is most fantastic thing I have heard all year.
All those people who would not normally have voted have come out and bitten YUSU in the ass. Brilliant brilliant brilliant!
Well that says it all right there doesnt it, people have gone out of there way to bite yusu in the ass. The people who have voted in the joke candidate do not have the best intentions of the union of the students when they voted, i personally think this shows how apathetic York is and shows how much it doesnt care about its union.
I am not against Tom (excuse me that i dont use captain) and he could surprise everyone including myself. I dont think he should be forced to resign but we should wait and see what he can do first.
The thing that has annoyed me most of all is that Laura and Nadz wanted to be president and Tom didnt. Laura and Nadz had real policies, Tom had a set of joke policies and now we have no idea what kind of president he will be and what he will fight for within the union.
I would like to see a statement from Tom to go over what how he feels about being president elect and what he will do when he becomes president. I want to know what student rights he will fight for and how the union can be made better with him in as president. As I said, im not writing him off but I do think he needs to be Tom Scott and not the captain and now take his role seriously as university officials will not take a guy speaking and dressed as a pirate seriously.
This is an absolute travesty.
As a third year I'm not going to get too annoyed with the joke of having a pirate as president although I would like to offer my deepest sympathies to all students who will be here next year. After the novelty of walk the plank and cheap rum has worn off, do you really think that the University staff that are already difficult to convince about anything are going to take a pirate seriously? I predict no bridge repairs, fewer porters and students being royally screwed over in the Hes East plans. News spreads fast aswell... heard from a mate in Durham who says that everyone there thinks it's hilarious. York has officially become a laughing stock but I suppose I shouldn't be bothered as now the bed has been made it's the first and second years that must lie in it.
Why do we automatically assume he's going to be incompetent? I know it's tempting what with all the pirate stuff, but maybe give the guy a chance at least? Immediate condemnation and "the end is nigh" is a knee-jerk reaction in the extreme.
It was as much Kunwar and Payne's to lose as Scott's to win; theoretically, it should have been easy for them to capitalise. Somehow it's all backfired spectacularly.
@74 - this isn't a victory for apathy, this is more like a victory for normal students who are tired of the usual annoying officers filled with an inflated sense of self importance.
voting for the pirate is the equivalent of spoiling the ballot for many people.
I agree with #65. And by invoking Godwin's law on #70, i declare this conversation to be over. #70 - you lose. 
Anon #78...
voting for the pirate is the equivalent of spoiling the ballot for many people.
And this makes it OK? I wouldn't call it a victory for anyone except the 'pirate' himself. People should vote RON if they do not like the candidates presented to them.
Like Tom said, we are now the laughing stock of a lot of other institutions. Whether he has serious policies or not, it will be difficult for him to be taken seriously in a well-established university such as the one we study in. Whilst I agree that he should be given a chance (there's no choice now), even if his policies have substance it will possibly be harder and slower to implement them.
Congratulations if he manages it but it'll be a hard, perhaps impossible, task.
I guess we shall soon see...
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