Where I've been for the past 2 weeks:

Promoting this around campus, voting started today:
Union Council (on which I am disabled students councillor) propose OPTION 1- A president, education officer and international officer (getting elected at the moment), plus the following:

-An Equality Officer: When we did the consultation (which was emailed out to all students), they consistently (both men and women) put equality above 'womens issues'. Women currently are one of 4 representative groups in the union, yet the only one with dedicated officer support. LGBT, Black Students and Disabled Students (the committee which I am chair of) get moved around different officers every year depending on who 'fancies' looking after them- a totally unacceptable situation in my eyes. Therefore we propose an officer for all 4 groups, who would be held accountable by all 4 committees, therefore preventing 'favouritism'. I also DO NOT believe that removing the women's officer means we can't guarantee a women sabbatical officer- Reading Uni have just elected an all female sabb team despite having no women's officer. Lastly, just because we have had one for however long does not mean we can continue to discriminate against other groups!

-A Community Officer: As you've probably seen over the past year, there have been huge issues relating to hall food problems. Were you also aware that there has been a 200% rise in burglaries recently in Crookes? The women's safety bus would also be covered by this officer role, as we believe safety is not just a women's issue. Also, a weird anomaly of our consitution means that the President is the public face of the Union but the Welfare Officer deals currently with housing issues. So which one talks to the police, sits on the council and deals with community forums? In our proposal- the community officer would. They could also run more campaigns relating to keeping yourself and your belongings and house safe along the lines of Shhh and Love Where You Live.

-A Welfare Officer: Currently, the Welfare officer is responsible for: disabled, lgbt, part time, local and mature students, student parents, all the community issues highlighted above, mental health and sexual health and financial hardship. Under our proposals, due to the creation of the equality and community officers, this would be reduced to: part time, local and mature students, student parents, mental and sexual health (INCLUDING eating disorders, bizarrely currently under the women's officer, despite affecting men too) and financial hardship. Clearly all 3 officers will have more time for their respective groups than currently.

-A Finance and Services Officer: Has explicit responsibility for environmental issues. The environment is a big deal- so vote for a proposal which couples environmental responisibility with real change.

-A Sports and Activities Officer- pooling 2 jobs, but with 2 guaranteed admin assistants therefore a net increase in staff for both clubs and societies, plus guarunteed funding in a year in which the Union is facing huge budget cuts. Option 1 is the only option to guaruntee this funding.

The campaigning has got incredibly petty and personal, some of my friends have been taking some real abuse just because they are the Sabbs, so are easy targets for groups like socialist students, who seem militant in defending their right to speech, whilst constantly challenging that of the Sabbatical officers. Its all still a bit too fresh to talk about now, I'll let you know more after I know how it's gone- I'm knackered from all the campaigning!

Sarah x x