Did you know that voting for First Year Entertainments Committee Members opened last week? Nope, me neither – until it was pointed out to me. In fact, for that matter, I never knew that you could stand for it! Imperial’s Union is a very democratic affair, and this is a good thing (though it is possible to have too much democracy, I may return to this in the future); it allows us, the students, to decide how our Union is run. Which is important, considering we are the ones who will use the services that the Union provides, and therefore it is in their interest to tailor it to our interests so that we actually give them money. The thing is, if this election (which is an excellent idea, in my opinion) is to be of any worth, you actually need to promote the damn thing.

Let’s take a look at the Union’s website. There is no mention of the election. Doing a search for the ‘ents committee’ does bring up some articles, but they only say that elections for the first year will only occur in the autumn. There is also the Union’s elections page, which hasn’t been updated since the year rep and council elections earlier this year. It will be a miracle if people actually knew that voting was open. Maybe I am being too harsh. Taking a quick look at my emails does show an email from the President dated November 23, which does say when nominations and voting can be performed, but this isn’t really good enough. Many people probably do not read these emails (I certainly glanced over this one, though that was because my inbox was a mess at the time), therefore leaving them completely ignorant and locked out of the democratic process.

The thing is, if this election… is to be of any worth, you actually need to promote the damn thing.

Now, let’s say you did know about the election, and you logged on to vote. You may not have seen any campaigning (I gather this is because the candidates were not told when they were allowed to), so you have to turn to the manifestos (something that you really should be doing anyway). If you did, you would’ve seen a complete lack of photos and manifestos. I’m not entirely sure whether this is the candidate’s or the Union’s fault, but either way, it is not helpful – and does not allow me to make an informed choice.

Luckily I spoke to a few of the candidates, and actually found one who had good plans for entertainment at ICU; therefore, I was able to cast my vote. However, not everyone would have had this opportunity, leading to people making either uninformed decisions, or just choosing not to vote (or voting RON) because they were not provided with the right information. All this does is ruins the democratic process that usually serves the Union so well.

You may argue that this is just the Entertainments Committee, and therefore it doesn’t matter. To a certain degree, you may be right. As a person who really doesn’t like clubbing (or alcohol), the work of this committee is going to make very little difference to my life here at Imperial. However, I remain a principled man, and I refuse to believe that this disaster doesn’t have any chance of being replicated in a more important election in the future, such as for faculty union representatives – or God forbid, future sabbaticals. ICU, please sort it out.

On a related note, if any of the people standing had planned to campaign against entry charges for the Union on Fridays, they would have instantly got my vote. As you may or may not know, it’s Felix Drinks on a Friday evening, and if I am running late I don’t really want to pay for the privilege of getting into the place where I can have a drink with my fellow Felixians. One of the section editors also mentioned that he had to pay to get in to the office on Wednesday to put together his pages, which is an even more serious problem than my inability to get a drink.

It is a ridiculous charge. I can understand charging for entry into Metric, since you’re under no obligation to buy anything when you go clubbing, but if you are going to FiveSixEight, you are pretty much guaranteed to buy some food or drink!

Please get rid of it, and both Common Sense and I will be pleased.