ULSU Elections 2012 (Voting Thursday March 22)

Adam_M

SarahBeep! wrote: »

I just want to make one last comment on elections 2012.

I'm ecstatic for those who were elected into office today but a pretty large part of my is so disappointed I didn't get the chance to campaign for the one and only Jason Kennedy this year. He's an amazing guy and I think ULSU is losing one of it's best people come May.

As I said on Facebook, Jason is destined for big things. The Union should be honoured to be associated with such a unique, courageous and talented individual. No doubt we'll be seeing plenty of him next year, he cant stay away from the place!

Jester252

The Monday off should have allowed the campaigns to hit the ground running and have the bird in the air by 12 on Tuesday. The campaigns just seemed lazy to me this year

Ginge Young

Congratulations to all those elected. I'll be interested to see how next year goes ahead. But I believe everyone elected is capable, I just want to see if they really are up to the challenge. Adam still serious about those asking you those questions

Jester252

joey12 wrote: »

great to see a result, delighted for paddy!

interesting to see how things will play next year, it clear the ul students dont give two hoots about the union....and can ya blame them.

Very disappointed to see an officers say "The average student has no idea whats best for them tbh!"

sad times

lkionm

Jester252 wrote: »

The Monday off should have allowed the campaigns to hit the ground running and have the bird in the air by 12 on Tuesday. The campaigns just seemed lazy to me this year

<snip>

cjthecrow

Ginge Young wrote: »

Congratulations to all those elected. I'll be interested to see how next year goes ahead. But I believe everyone elected is capable, I just want to see if they really are up to the challenge. Adam still serious about those asking you those questions

Hey Ginge,

Never got a chance to talk to you today! I won't be there tomorrow for the sole reason of sleep, but pm me your number, would be happy to have a chat.

Cathal.

spurious

lkionm - another post like that and you will be banned.

No need for insults folks, unless of course you don't actually have a counter-argument to put to someone.

RDJMPC

Fishooks12 wrote: »

Sabbats this year have a big mess to clean up after this year.

Getting the SU reconnected with the entire student body should be top of the agenda

a 20% turn-out for an online poll is nothing short of embarrassing and a clear indication that the majority of the student body are disconnected from the SU

Where's Pa O'Brien??

Teslacuted

Some basic graphs of the vote breakdown

mooonpie

Congrats to Adam, Paddy and Cathal. Commiserations to the rest of the candidates, especially Kelly ... 5 votes must be up there for the closest result in SU history.

Just wondering, how did they announce the results this year?

While waiting in the SU reception for Baz to get the result last year, I made a comment/suggestion in passing that was shot down at the time.

Why not keep a record of the time and candidate for each vote, then show a timelapse counter/graph of the day's voting over the course of 5-10 minutes in the stables. Effectively it's an automated count and it'd be a nice middle ground between letting the candidates know in advance (not sure if that happened this year again) and going from having no idea to the result.

When I suggested it, I was met with a comment along the lines of "Oh yeah and while we're at it, why not check who cast the vote too ... it's supposed to be anonymous".

Quite simply - anonymity can be assured by only keeping a record of time and candidate for each vote ... and there's no way to connect that info to a voter unless records of time and voter are already being kept.

Just a thought!

Cadroc

Same happened this year as last year I'd say.

All called into the General Managers office, asked if they want to find out the results. If they said no, like Paddy and Cathal, they left and went to the Stables. If they said yes, they stayed and were told.

I like your idea though, but I'm not sure how feasible it would be! If it could be implemented for next year it would be great to try out though!

wnolan1992

moonpie9588 wrote: »

Congrats to Adam, Paddy and Cathal. Commiserations to the rest of the candidates, especially Kelly ... 5 votes must be up there for the closest result in SU history.

Just wondering, how did they announce the results this year?

While waiting in the SU reception for Baz to get the result last year, I made a comment/suggestion in passing that was shot down at the time.

Why not keep a record of the time and candidate for each vote, then show a timelapse counter/graph of the day's voting over the course of 5-10 minutes in the stables. Effectively it's an automated count and it'd be a nice middle ground between letting the candidates know in advance (not sure if that happened this year again) and going from having no idea to the result.

When I suggested it, I was met with a comment along the lines of "Oh yeah and while we're at it, why not check who cast the vote too ... it's supposed to be anonymous".

Quite simply - anonymity can be assured by only keeping a record of time and candidate for each vote ... and there's no way to connect that info to a voter unless records of time and voter are already being kept.

Just a thought!

I don't think it should be implemented like this to be honest. The suspense before the results and elation that was evident among the candidates friends was brilliant las night. Would be a shame to miss out on that.

mooonpie

wnolan1992 wrote: »

I don't think it should be implemented like this to be honest. The suspense before the results and elation that was evident among the candidates friends was brilliant las night. Would be a shame to miss out on that.

Did you attend any of the counts before last year or have you seen footage of a count for any paper ballot election? Can you honestly say there is no suspense and/or elation at these events?

The only reason I can see for the candidates to be offered the result before it is announced is to lessen the sudden impact on the losing candidate. I doubt any winning candidate, looking back with hindsight, would chose to know the result in advance. Not being able to share that initial buzz with their team and having to keep quiet until the result is finally announced must be difficult.

There's still suspense between close of polls and the announcements as the campaign teams clear up the campus, and surely there's even more suspense if the candidates don't know either.

There would still be elation and celebrations for the winners, but it softens the blow for the losers. They can see early on whether they're likely to be in the running. They can deal with the result among their friends and campaign teams as they find out together.

The advantage of it being a time-lapse is you can see if candidates get a sudden boost in votes. Maybe they spoke in a 2.00 lecture and suddenly at 2.50 their votes jumped. You can see spike in votes from that one last push before the polls closed.

I don't see how it would take anything away from the current situation

djnr8

wnolan1992 wrote: »

I don't think it should be implemented like this to be honest. The suspense before the results and elation that was evident among the candidates friends was brilliant las night. Would be a shame to miss out on that.

Being somebody involved in a campaign this year and last, finding out beforehand last year was nowhere near as exciting as the wait we had this year. I sure it would be different from the losing side, but that's just my experience.

Some of us were terrified, but as I said to the rest of the team "I just have a good feeling about this". I wasn't wrong, the 3 I voted for won and I couldn't have been happier.

It was a good clean campaign and I finally got to speak to some other campaign team people last night. Made loads of new friends as usual during campaign week and I juist hope we can get the interest back into the union and get the turnout back up and the atmosphere back into campaign week.

It was really enjoyable and the craic that was had in the courtyard with a load of us dancing in sync was a excellent reminder of why it is so great to be in college

Gael23

Kelly O Brien actually got the most 1st preference votes then lost out on transfers

reunion

djnr8 wrote: »

It was really enjoyable and the craic that was had in the courtyard with a load of us dancing in sync was a excellent reminder of why it is so great to be in college

It was a great reminder of the broken glass and anti-social behaviour that comes with students.

roro1neil0

ryanf1 wrote: »

Kelly O Brien actually got the most 1st preference votes then lost out on transfers

if it wasn't for proportional representation and transfers mary robinson would never have been president.

Jason Kennedy's midas touch seemed to run out this year unfortunately for kelly o'brien. Keith young again endowed his curse on Adam Hartery while Deirdre Wilson against all the odds laid another golden egg.

roro1neil0

with neither JK or DW around next year i've no idea who i'll get to run my campaign.

I guess the era of repair has begun. The new team will have to have a plan to repair the financial ruin the previous 5/6 generations of officers created, bridge the gap between SU and student population and the culture of distrust and mutual loathing between CnS and SU. At least we don't have to worry about rockett and kelly coming to blows, about DD doing a bertie ahern on accounts and going to ground for rag week, or tara feeney essentially not doing any campaigns.

proof will be in the pudding i suppose and i will be looming in the background waiting for any of the 2 new and 1 newish sabbat to slip up.

Fishooks12

reunion wrote: »

It was a great reminder of the broken glass and anti-social behaviour that comes with students.

Or just harmless fun in the student union courtyard........

Pickle Wickle

reunion wrote: »

It was a great reminder of the broken glass and anti-social behaviour that comes with students.

Glass broken which was cleaned up straight away by Tom Feehan you absolute dry ****e. It was not anti-social behaviour either, it was very sociable and good spirited.

Jester252

When did breaking glass become sociable?

johnny-fatality

This is an absolute and utter non issue - I walked past the lads in courtyard, it was a nice buzz and everyone was enjoying themselves (without sheep, uprooting trees etc etc) someone knocked a glass or two, let's not get over analytical.

CiaranMT

Jester252 wrote: »

When did breaking glass become sociable?

Never dropped a glass of water at home?

Jester252

CiaranMT wrote: »

Never dropped a glass of water at home?

Nope and I sure it was "water" in the glasses

CiaranMT

Jester252 wrote: »

Nope and I sure it was "water" in the glasses

Lighten up.

Anti-social behaviour is what happens outside my door in College Court with people smashing bottles while heading to house parties and leaving it there for car-owners to crunch over.

Knocking a glass at a bar isn't.

CiaranMT

From TST:

Stephen Byrne wrote:

Moursy, Rockett and Ronan victors in ULSU elections

UNIVERSITY of Limerick Student’s Union elections have concluded with Adam Moursy, a third year Law Plus student emerging victorious as the new president.

Joining Mr Moursy will be former Campaigns officer Paddy Rockett in the Academic role and 4th Year B.A Joint Honours student Cathal Ronan as Welfare officer.

“I just can’t believe it” Mr Moursy said at the announcement, “I’m looking forward to showing UL Student’s just what I can do”. The presidency was won with 1,332 votes on the second round. Runner up David Hartery said that he was “well and truly beaten and that [Adam] deserved it”.

New Welfare Officer Cathal Ronan won in the second round by a miniscule 1090 votes to 1085 over Kelly O Brien, currently serving as Communications officer. Mr Ronan said he was “just delighted” and was looking forward to implementing his policies. He stated, “I just know Paddy, Adam and I will work really well together”. Runner up Kelly O Brien wished the elected officers well on her facebook page, admitting that she did not mind that she had lost by such a small margin, “To be honest, it was me and dave or nothing, so the 5 votes thing didn’t really matter to me”.

Education officer elect Paddy Rockett said that it was “a personal privilege to work in the Students Union for our students for another year”. He defeated his single opponent Jackie Woods in a 1173 to 960 victory.

It’s clear that the elected representatives have a serious job ahead of them. With Union finances in dire straits and numerous campus as well as national issues surely coming to the fore in the coming 12 months, such as University Fee’s, the scaling back of grants etc.

Voter turnout was described by Democracy Development officer, Roisin Monaghan, as “pretty poor” with only 2,355 votes cast. A substantial reduction from last years 3,865 votes cast. Some individuals have blamed the rather low key nature of this weeks event for the drop.

The officers elect will take up their positions in June.

freyners

people drop glass in bar - > accident

students drop glass in bar -> anti social behaviour

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

bambismom

Four years, four campaigns and four wins. Without a doubt I can say that this year was definitely the toughest yet. Last week when Cathal approached me I was impressed by his ideas/manifesto but honestly thought that Kelly would walk it. I knew she had a huge following and lets face it, Jason Kennedy is a giant when it comes to campaigning.

I've never ran a campaign on such a tight budget, I don't think we even broke the 200 euro mark. It just goes to show that it is not just about who gives out the most/best sweets!!

With regard to the suspense in the Stables, anybody that saw me before the results were announced will verify how tense the atmosphere was. I was nothing short of a nervous wreck. There were bets on whether Cathal or I would be the first to cry. I can see the pros and cons of finding out before hand. Personally I don't think I would have had the strength to wait a moment longer but that said, I admire Cathal for wanting to find out with the rest of the campaign team.

Commiserations to Kelly and William, you were both fantastic and I can honestly say that this week was the friendliest campaign week I've seen in a while.

Now to return to the neglected FYP, seven days and counting. :eek:

roro1neil0 wrote: »

with neither JK or DW around next year i've no idea who i'll get to run my campaign.

Two last things:
1. A campaign manager does not need to be a UL student.
2. Who says I won't be here next year.

CiaranMT

Well done Deirdre, pleasure working with you.

leaoj

Congrats Deirdre and Cathal, well deserved both of you.
Absolutely amazing victory for you both.

Couldn't believe it to be honest, but you really ran a great campaign and I thought Cathal genuinely was the best candidate. I felt sorry for Kelly losing by such a tight margin, but in the aftermath it seems like she wasn't too pushed anyway, and almost insinuated on facebook that she would have quit anyway had she won and hartery didn't.
I felt sorry for william who I spoke to and he really was a nice genuine guy, probably just didn't realise how cut throat these SU elections are but I think he would have done a great job had he won. Every single vote counts and Cathal went knocking on doors from 6 - 8pm yesterday (don't know if kelly did) and those votes may very well have been the difference. Very few candidates displayed the passion he did, don't think he or his team believed they could win on Tuesday but on Thursday he really seemed like a guy who wanted to win and believed/realised he was the best candidate regardless of the fact that he was facing a strong incumbent.

I thought Adam, Cathal and Paddy were the best candidates and are well equipped to deal with the task of getting the union back in touch with an electorate who quite clearly don't give a fuck. Well deserved victories for all the lads, I have every faith they will each do a fantastic job.

Very sorry that Jason and Deirdre won't ever grace the sabbatical offices, two very capable people who would have been great officers.

Also special regards to the great white hope John Cambridge; he livened up these forums the past few weeks and I thoroughly enjoyed his posts.