“I would make Union democracy more face-to-face, personal and more interactive.”
At the end of a busy week campaigning, Charlotte Rose spared a few moments to talk to the shefbase to explain why you should pick her as the next Union President.
SB: Thank you for taking time to speak to the shefbase. What inspired you to run for president?
CR: OK well over the past three years I have had what I would consider to be the number 1 experience at Sheffield University and I want all students to be able to have that experience. I believe Sheffield is the best Union in the country and I want it to continue to be the best and be the best for all students, not just the majority. I think it can be that and I have the credentials and experience to push the Union in the right direction.
SB: One of your main policies is to make the Union more accessible to all, how do you plan to do that?
I have four main strategies for this but a way to cover them all would be to say that I would make Union democracy more face-to-face, personal and more interactive. For a start I’d like to introduce Officer Question Time on Sure Radio, so during an hour slot each week we put all the officer team into the studio, which will be fun because it’s a squeeze, and publicise it well so people can phone up and present their problem. A lot of things happen behind closed doors in the Union and I want students to be able to say ‘I know what’s going on in my Union’ because they can speak to their officers.
Another way to make this more face-to-face is to have MP-style surgery hours so that each officer has an hour, just like your personal tutors, set aside a week to sit and talk to students because I feel it is so important that officers are approachable and don’t just sit up in an ivory tower. Another way is to introduce an e-petitioning system where students register by using their U-card and once a petition reaches 1,000 signatures the relevant officer will have to address that issue because it clearly is something enough students feel strongly about.
SB: Another of your policies is to get high-profile speakers to speak in the Union. How feasible is this and how will you ensure problems, such as those seen in Oxford this year, are avoided?
For a start I think it is important to take into consideration that this is a University campus and safety of students has to be paramount. Whilst I would advocate freedom of speech on most matters, I would put the safety of students before inviting really controversial speakers. As for financing it, I think that it is incredibly financially viable; if you have a high profile speaker that people will be interested in listening to, you can charge a small amount for tickets, say £2-2.50 a ticket, and if held in the Union auditorium with a capacity of 500, you’ll easily cover the cost.
SB: Casting your mind back to the union council elections, were you surprised at the low voter turnout?
To be honest, I wasn’t hugely surprised because although Sheffield has one of the highest voter turnouts of any university in the country, the electorate is about four thousand, which out of a university of around 25,000 undergraduates and at least 2,000 postgraduates is fairly poor. Obviously we need to implement a strategy which doesn’t turn people off Union Politics, but gets them interested and engaged. I think the wording and the whole idea of the Union Council makes it sound dull and like something many people would necessarily want to get involved in, so that’s one problem.
The second aspect is promotion. I saw a lot of emails and a lot of publicity that went around, yet a lot of people still didn’t seem to know that the election was taking place. We need to make sure that we reach the students by the medium that suits them, whether that’s through the Steel-base, sorry [corrects herself], through the Steel Press, the Shefbase, Sure Radio or podcasts from the union website.
SB: With the election being split into two parts, do you think it will have a negative impact on the turnout for the second part?
Yes, because obviously people will have gone through the whole process once and people do get fed up with it because it can be quite trying when you have candidates coming to speak to you in your lectures for three weeks. Whether the referendum goes through or not, I hope it doesn’t have a negative impact on the campaigns of the remaining five officer posts.
SB: How do you think your campaign is going?
I think it’s going really well despite the fact that I have contracted a rather nasty throat infection! Both sets of hustings went really well and I was lucky to have an incredible amount of support, I cannot thank those who have helped and supported me enough.
SB: So why should students vote for you?
I know that over the past three years I have given a great amount of energy, enthusiasm and dedication to the Union and the societies and sports clubs I have been involved in. I have been involved on a variety of levels in the Union and therefore feel that I am ideally placed to see how the Union works, to see what’s going wrong and how to improve it. I think I’m the only candidate with enough experience to make my policies a reality.
SB: Describe yourself in three words:
Oh tricky, I would have to say approachable, enthusiastic and dedicated.
Charlotte Rose was speaking to Andrew Burgess
