Elections, Elections and a General Election

Posted by Ricky

Firstly please accept my apologies for not blogging sooner, things have been as hectic as ever but that is not an excuse.
The second is that back in December I posted about Does the Students’ Union really represent you?, and promised to do I follow up post, this will happen however I am just waiting for some of the election data.

Student Union Elections



Left to right: Tom Doyle, Student Trustee Elect; Jim Dale, Vice President Elect; Christabel Brown, Vice President Elect; Ricky Chotai, President Elect; Caroline Dangerfield, Vice President Elect; Maros Kravec, Vice President Elect; Sophie Atkinson, Student Trustee Elect; James Walsh, Student Trustee Elect on the night of the win.

As you are aware in February and March the Students’ Union hold elections for next years trustee board and who is to go to NUS conference.

The Results were as follows;
President – Ricky Chotai
Vice Presidents – Christabel Brown, Jim Dale, Caroline Dangerfield and Maros Kravec
Student Trustees – Sophie Atkinson, Tom Doyle, Sylvia Joseph and James Walsh
NUS Delegates – Alan Bailey, Jim Dale and Joe Kirwin

The new sabbatical team is fantastic and I look forward to the all the challenges ahead and working on delivering our individual manifestos from the 1st of July. The team is a real mixed bunch of people some of whom I already know such as Jim who is one of the current Vice Presidents, and Caroline who I knew as the then Head of News at Shock Radio 3 years ago and is the current President of the Rowing Club. Others who I know less well, however I am sure this will change over the year, Christabel who is the current chair of Almost Famous and Maros Kravec who is Vice President of the Law Society.

NUS Services Election

After the Students’ Union Election I vowed to myself, no more elections however as president elect last week I attended NUS Services Convention. NUS Services is owned by Students’ Unions and the National Union of Students. Their mission statement is to; ‘Create, develop and sustain competitive advantages for member Students’ Unions – reducing costs and maximising commercial revenues’
To this end they provide three core services:
• Purchasing
• Commercial Development
• Marketing Services

The board is made of student officers and staff members from various Students’ Unions across they country and I decided to run for the position of Non-executive Student Directors.
The question I am sure you are wondering is why? During my time at University I did not study Politics etc, I studied Business and I have a real passion for it.
Yes I am one of those sad acts, that gets excited when such shows as Dragons Den and The Apprentice is on.






I was successful at the election for non executive student director, and therefore start my time on the board on the 1st July 2010.

General Election

For those of you may have been asleep over the last 24 hours, the date of the General Election has now been called for the 6th of May.
Check out all the details on our website www.salfordstudents.com/vote

We are supporting the NUS ‘Vote For Students’ campaign. Join us and pledge your support to vote for a candidate supportive of a fairer fees and funding system for UK Universities at the next General Election.
If the 7 million students in this country stand together in this campaign and pledge their support to protect our future, MPs and parliamentary candidates will have no option but to vote with us or pay the price at the ballot box.
Sign up at: www.voteforstudents.co.uk A minute or two of your time could help make a huge difference.

As well as encouraging Salford students to sign up, USSU and other unions across the UK are lobbying MPs to support the following pledge:

“I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative”

Find out more about the Vote For Students campaign here.

Make sure you check out the Facebook Group here.

On that I think that well and truly covers the topic of elections.

I will promise I will blog more regularly and maybe kick the others to maybe blog more often! :)