Election 2015: A Voter’s Guide

Jo Bowman

Running unopposed (but living in constant fear of the infamous RON), Jo Bowman is campaigning to be your next SSC Performing Arts Officer. She joined me today to discuss policies, campaign tactics, and exactly why her logo is maroon when her favourite colour is actually purple (apparently it’s because she owns more maroon clothing- how cost effective).

More seriously, Jo was sincere in telling me exactly why she wants to be the next President of Mermaids- “Primarily because I love theatre, I love St Andrews and I love theatre in St Andrews.”

Jo sees the next step for the society as building relationships with other student theatre groups: “I want to start making connections to collaborate with other universities. 2016 marks 400 years since Shakespeare’s death, and it seems like the perfect opportunity to get everybody together to do something to honour drama.”

.”I also want to create a shadowing scheme for new directors, producers, playwrights, stage managers etc so that you’re not thrown in at the deep end on your first play. I’ll also continue the workshop scheme, but with emphasis on student writing.”

I felt it was appropriate to find out what Jo thought of her competitors: “RON seems to stand for a lot – our relationship is mainly romantic.” Whether this is morally right during campaign week remains to be seen, but Jo seems confident in her campaign. She would like to encourage all of her potential supporters to “Live the Dream and vote for Jo Bowman.”

 

Annabel Romanos

Annabel Romanos is a second year Social Anthropology student from Los Angeles (although strangely prefers the weather in Scotland) who is running for SSC Member Without Portfolio.

I asked Annabel what this role involves: “It involves helping the officers and conveyors with their roles, live tweeting through meetings and throwing socials and team building activities for SSC members.” Living in DRA, Annabel now works as the deputy senior student for the largest hall in St Andrews, which is quite an impressive amount of people to consider and care for.  I asked her what her favourite thing she’s done on DRA committee and she said “The events! Freshers week and clan warfare and more recently the DRA Ball.” Whilst admitting it was stressful, she reflects upon how rewarding it was when she was at the ball and saw the payoff.

As well as being on DRA committee, Annabel is a Hall Sport intern and organises a different inter hall sports tournament twice a week. On Saturdays at 10am (pretty early after a night at the union) Annabel does a show on STAR Radio, entitled ‘You Know. Stuff’. She also has a bi-monthly column for us here at the Stand.

Annabel feels that she knows how the place St Andrews and can therefore have a firmer grasp on this role. She describes herself as ‘thoughtful, empathetic and focused’. Her ideal night out would be at the union, where she often goes to support her friend’s karaoke society. Her favourite colour is maroon.

 

Amelia Hunter

Amelia Hunter is a third year cell biologist who is running for Biology School President. “What do class presidents even do?” I ignorantly asked. Well, as Amelia explained, they chair the student staff consultative committee meetings, attend and chair director of teaching and class rep meetings, and are a representative of their subject in the union’s educational and teaching committee meetings.

“As an honours student you definitely learn how to balance your time” –  any St Andrews student identifies with the pain of balancing your work/social life/extra curricular activities. Amelia has been a class rep, so she knows and understands the role and feels she has something new to bring to it. She is undoubtedly very passionate about the school of biology, and she really cares about the student voice.

As to her policies, she advocates for an open line of communication between students and staff.  As well as this, “More careers advice for scientists!” is a must. Amelia believes a lot of careers talks are geared towards arts students, and scientists are presented with two options: medicine or research. She wants science students to know there’s a lot more out there for them than these two narrow routes.

Amelia describes herself as ‘passionate and surprising’ and absolutely loves the new union redevelopment. “My ideal Friday night would be in the Beacon Bar” and she recommends I try all the cocktails immediately. I’ll definitely take Amelia’s advice!

 

Holly Johnston

A first year who has recently started to get involved with the Union through the Rector’s Committee, Holly is keen to become the Member for First Years.

“I would want to replicate the support system I had coming here, but also improve it.” Holly aims to do this by focusing on Awareness, Opportunity and Accessibility. “I want to increase the profile of the SRC and SSC with first years, so that everyone knows who does what. There are also so many things you can do in St Andrews, and I don’t think first years know enough about some things”

She feels that her own experiences of first year will help her to relate to incoming first years in 2015. “Although a found first semester tough, first year has been amazing. I think this has mainly been due to becoming more involved with societies and the union.”

After discussing her campaign, I discovered that it almost made use of Holly’s favourite animal – goats. “They are just amazing- after the Taylor Swift video, I almost made them part of my campaign.”

If anything, one thing you can say about Holly is that she is committed- “My favourite colour is purple, it has been since I was 5.”

 

Jonny McNaul

I met with Jonny McNaul, a 3rd year student from Northern Ireland who is running for English School President.

Jonny is incredibly passionate about English and the School of English, and that really came across when I was chatting to him. He has some great ideas on how to improve the life of the school, which he explained to me in his 5 main policies.

Jonny has seen things which he thinks are achievable goals he can change in the English department and has based his policies in those. These include uploading reading lists well in advance of term, possibly in summer so those who are keen to get on top of things can make a start on the books early.

Other policies for keen students include making essay questions available at the start of term before they start reading, so students can think about these questions whilst doing their reading, and also uploading the reading material to Moodle. He plans to socially link the School of English, by arranging collective evenings like wine and cheese nights so the usually dispersed english students and scholars can make connections. He plans to increase careers talks given by the School of English as well as creating an honours english Facebook page.

To be a school president, you need a great deal of organisational prowess, which Jonny feels he has. As musical director for the St Andrew’s Madigral Group, he has to be very organised. A man of music, he sings with the chapel choir as well as playing the violin and being in operas, he feels he is good at time management as “these things are a huge commitment!”

Jonny feels he is the man for the job because he is a committed person and he wants the job done right. He is determined to put the effort in and to Jonny this is more than just a C.V boost, it’s a way to give back to the English department which have been so good to him during his time at St Andrews.

Jonny’s ideal night out would be a pub crawl in St Andrews, which would definitely involve the St Andrews Brewing Company  and copious quantities of Thistly Cross Cider. The night would end in Empire (something he often looks forward to more than the night out itself). Jonny was worried about his choice of three words to describe himself with – but in the end chose “committed, passionate, and nerdy.”

 

Eilidh Tyler- Reid

In the comfort of The St Andrews Brewing Company, I met with Eilidh Tyler-Reid, a third year English student running for English School President.

Eilidh really wants to support the community of the English school and make the department more accessible for a wide range of students. At the moment she feels it’s too academic, and she wants to make space for people who might have been intimidated by that side of the English school, which she admits she was a bit like that too to start with. She feels the tutorial groups at the moment are the only way which unite students within the department, and that’s not a particularly fun setting for everyone. She wants students to socialise with other year groups, but understands this is hard without a proper English society (there’s only the Literary Society currently) and no ball. Whilst she understands a ball might be a little unattainable, there’s no reason not to try and have more student mixers to bring the department together. What’s fun about these is that she wants them to be ‘literary themed’, as a passion for the subject is what brought people here in the first place!

Another one of her policies is to organise tutorials for people to ask tutors questions about how they want essays to be written and what they want from student work, so students can maximise their skills. She wants to organise a departmental book sale at the start and end of each year so students can save money buying their books for the coming semester and make room for other ones! The community of the subject is important to her, and she wants to have events during the day and the night so there’s a little something for everyone.

Eilidh loves publicity and marketing, and has been involved in doing that in many societies in St Andrews. She’s currently publicity officer on Lifespring committee, a creative worship society. She was on the p&m team for The Vagina Monologues, as well as for many other plays in St Andrews. She loved being part of The Vagina Monolgues as it was a strong community of people with the same interests and passions, and she wants that vibe for the English department.  As well as all this, she does event photography and is a sub editor for art and design at The Saint.

Eilidh describes herself as ‘fiesty, organised and spirited’. She’s a sucker for a good pub, her favourite being The Central (where she has her own spot) and on a night out she’d probably start there and then head to the Vic for some beats. And she’d definitely be in Hufflepuff if she got a sorting hat on her head.

 

Miriam Chappell

Miriam Chappell sat herself down to have a chat about running for Wellbeing Officer. She’s a third year Classical Studies and Latin student, and has just come back from a semester in Melbourne, with an unfortunate change in weather.

Unsure about what the Wellbeing Officer does, Miriam kindly explained the role to me. The Wellbeing Officer is in charge of mental and sexual health awareness among students. They are there to be in charge of student safety at big events like Raisin and May Dip, and they are also there to try and manage students who have major academic stress. It’s a fairly new role, with her current (potential) predecessor being the only other person to ever occupy the role. The Wellbeing Officer is involved in lobbying for counselling and other services that would be of use to struggling students.

Miriam wants to do the role because she has experience in publicity and therefore feels she can work hard to publicise these important issues and raise awareness in St Andrews. Whilst both mental and sexual health are very different things, they have the fact that their both quite taboo subjects in common. She has publicised for Student Minds and The Vagina Monologues, meaning she has no qualms overcoming that taboo and trying to help others do the same. Her personal experience and with friends set her apart and help her better understand the issues imposed onto the Wellbeing Officer, and has made her really care about mental and sexual health and be passionate for good education.

Her policies include focusing on publicising the facilities currently possessed by St Andrews, and creating new ones. For example, St Andrews has a mental health society support group for locals, but not one specifically for students. This is something Miriam aims to create. She wants teachers and advisors to have training on how to deal with students with mental health issues so they are better prepared to help them. She wants to enlarge SHAG week, and create events and talks which educate the student community on sexual health issues. As well as this, she wants to make Nightline Awareness Week a big deal, with more students recognising this fantastic organisation. She wants more facilities for students to deal with stress, and keep May Dip and Raisin safe with stalls, for example for water or blankets. She wants to hold wellbeing events which are not alcohol related in order to widen accessibility for everyone. These events would be held at evenings and day times, and there would be something going on for awareness weekly.

She feels she is well prepared for the role due to her involvement with two new current writing projects – Labels Body Positive Magazine and the Mental Health Monologues. She’s taken a sign language course which widens her knowledge of the deaf community. She’s heavily involved in many aspects of St Andrean life, including the Christian Union, Femsoc, Lifespring Creative Worship, German Society, and has even written for The Saint.

Miriam describes herself as “enthusiastic, friendly and colourful” and her favourite place is definitely Aikmans because “cake!”. She really loved going to the bop back in the good days. If she ever came into contact with the sorting hat? “I’d be in hufflepuff”.