Tuesday, March 4, 2008

By-election campaign: Debates! We need help!

Are you tired of these SFUO elections? Where is the Elections website? What is the SFUO doing to promote its own elections? Is the University of Ottawa partnering up with the SFUO to promote these by-elections?

Here is my radical idea.

Ask the University, politely, to post the debate information on its main website. (OMG.)

Email every single Federated body and ask them to promote the debate. (Revolutionary idea)

Email every single student through the SFUO list-serv to promote the debate. (Radical idea)
UPDATE, 23h40: Pam Hrick is open to the idea of sending it through the list-serv! Should be sent out tomorrow afternoon.

Have free Pizza during the debate (Oh my God. Investing to get students out!)

Rent out the Alumni Auditorium and make it a "grand" affair.

We have two days left to promote these debates. There was a debate as to have the debate on Friday or on Monday, and we felt that considering the circumstances, it would be better to have it on Friday to have at least on campus newspaper an opportunity to cover them.

If these ideas interest you, and if you have any other ideas, please email François Picard (vp.communications@sfuo.ca) Pam Hrick (president@sfuo.ca) and Sylvia Havard-Lewis (elections@sfuo.ca)

14 comments:

Serge Miville said...

Révolution du bon sens. Honnêtement je ne comprends pas pourquoi ce n'est pas un automatisme!

Anonymous said...

Vote Wassim for Chief Electoral Officer.

Anonymous said...

LOL Wassim would do an amazing job at it and would not leave on a trip in the middle of hit lol

Also ther eis no Facebook event made yet???
THis blog is awesome but Facebook event for debate would be good and a face book group for this blog would be awesome

TedHorton said...

Wassim is the new Perez Hilton.

Serge Miville said...

Wassim makes me want to do the democracy dance.

Why can't we get a piece of candy or a free coffee at the Pivik if we vote?

I want candy NOW

Sylvia said...

This trip was planned in December of 2006, thats right over a year ago, and it was for a wedding. I made everyone aware before I signed the contract for the by election that I was leaving on this trip, and they still asked me to do it.

Why?

Because no one wants to do it. So before criticizing the CEO, STEP UP friend, and throw down your resume next year.

Anonymous said...

Whoa! Just friendly suggestions...

Anonymous said...

However, someone has to defend Sylvia... She had made them aware of her vacation, and seeing as she was hired it is hardly her fault.

So, Nick, maybe you should apologize?

Maxime said...

Sylvia works her butt off for this job. I was truly impressed when I found out she was going to do it again this year, after everything she was dragged through last year!
Keep in mind, as with all SFUO jobs, you don't get paid for the hours you put in, if you're part-time it's a maximum of 20 hours. So, in many cases, people work well above that amount, yet still only get paid their uncompetitive salary for 20 hours.
This is basically volunteer work, with a small compensation.

Though I agree there are many things lacking in this election, pinning it on Sylvia is definitely not the way, especially not insulting her for taking holidays?? Honestly.

Anonymous said...

I think it would have been a conflict of interest for me. And Sylvia I know why you went on the Trip.

Anonymous said...

There are no conflicts of interest at the SFUO. Talk to Mark (their lawyer). He tells the board that every year and yet everyone continues to say that. If you're a conflict how is it that she hasn't been for the last three years?

Wassim said...

Here is what Wikipedia gave me for "Conflict of interest":

A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, a politician, executive or director of a corporation or a medical research scientist or physician, has competing professional or personal interests. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper act results from it. A conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the person, profession, or court system. A conflict can be mitigated by third party verification or third party evaluation noted below—but it still exists.

Note: This summary incorrectly implies that conflicts of interest only apply to professionals. A conflict of interest arises when anyone has two duties which conflict - for example an employee's duty to well and faithfully perform their work as purchasing manager, and that same employee's familial duty to their sibling who happens to be tendering for the sale of widgets to the employee's employer. In that case the employee has a conflict of interest, despite the fact that they are not a lawyer, doctor, politician etc.

I fail to see how there are no conflicts of interest at the SFUO. Maybe the SFUO is a perfect political organisation, but I was not aware of their ability to avoid conflicts of interest.

Serge Miville said...

I think we found the definition of 'funny' with that last paragraphe. ;)

Anonymous said...

By conflict of interest I meant me running and campaign and being a candidate. Also, I have a lot of firends that ran in the past election and I doubt that I could have been perfectly neutral.

By the way Sylvia did do a great job for the amount of extra work she had to do. Having the BOA and Exec election at the same time. She also has an amazing team.

I apologize for the comment about the vacation it was un called for.