Ramblings of a Melvin...

Hello.
My name is Chris Melvin Aka Foshjedi2004 and I'm running for SUCS President and Publicity in the 2009 Elections.

I'm the Engineering and Science Faculty Rep as well as Materials Engineering Level 2 Rep.  I also am a member of the European, Real Ale and Engineering Societies.

Here is my 2009 Manifesto

       
Why Should I Vote for you as President?

Well I've been in the society for 3 years, I've noticed what each president has done and the problems/issues they have faced during their presidency. 

As President I promise that i shall take the initiative on new developments for the society and will carry on previous activities and policies from previous execs. 

I will campaign to the SU and Estates about securing a new room for SUCS within the new developments on campus and at the very least ensuring that we don't lose our current room or access to it if/when they start developing Union House.  I'd also help to organise more evening and weekend socials to allow more people to be able to come to them.  SUCS Quiz Teams could also be pretty fun at the Rhyddings, Bryn-Y-Mor, Wig, Brunswick or Westbourne Pub Quizs :D

Why Should I Vote for you as Publicity?

Publicity is an artform.  I've been doing web PR roles for various Mods and websites for years. 

Sometimes you have obvious PR, I.E. loads of posters, banners and the like, other times all it needs is a gentle nudge to mention something and it travels word of mouth.  I was the one responsible for the SUCS LAN events banners last year when the ones done by the KopyShop turned out to be less than ideal - http://sucs.org/~foshjedi2004/LANPARTY/lanparty7.png

I've also been talking with the SU about where the posters for events done by students and societies can actually go around campus.  The SU president told me that all the plinthes are under the juristiction of ENTS since they paid for the new protectors on the plinthes.  I'm going to be talking with the Sabbatical Officers about trying to find more places for societies to advertise at around the University.

What do you think you can bring to these role? / What are your strengths?

I'm strong willed, resourceful and have contacts within the students union to talk about issues with regards to advertising and the feasibility if there are any projects we'd like to undertake, I.E. the SUCS run XMPP Server for the entire student population, probably still need to talk with LIS about that one ;). 

I am also flexible and usually am able to accommodate other people's views into a development.  I'm a good team worker with experience working alongside Engineering firms, Institution councils, within teams for projects and within the society itself.

Where do you think the society is at the moment?

The society has hit a wall to a certain extent, this year there are only 5 applicants in total for Exec roles with 3 of them being CS second years.  Personally I'd love to see more first years being active within the society alongside more Non-CS students allowing a diversified student membership. 

During freshers week next year I plan to talk with each of the Faculties and the Students Union about the possibility of sending emails to the students about services we run and the possibility of doing a small presentation at the start of some of the larger lectures in Faraday A, Glyndwr D and Calaghan about who we are and what services we run.

Where do you want to the society to be in a year? / What do you want to achieve?

In a year I'd like to see the society secure within its location within the union developments in future years and I'd like to ensure that we get active first year members to allow SUCS to have a secure student membership level allowing us to expand and develop once the current members have graduated.  I'd also like to see the student population diversified and the image of SUCS being a fanatical Linux only group dispelled.

How do you think you can make your goals for the society happen?

Student Membership levels can really only come down to having services that students want and publicising events that sucs do (Lightning talks, Console LANs, Gameserver etc), focusing on things that we do that the Uni don't (Trac for 3rd year projects, svn, PostGres/Mysql Dbs).  Appealing to students with details of our library and what  books we have, which books are useful for what courses. 

More accessible social events, not just during the day  when people may have lectures but also evening/weekend events to allow a wider group of people to come including alumni members, such events would be like cinema, Laserquest, playzone, more evening/weekend lightning talks and LAN and/or Console events, if possible I'd also like to do at least one weekend trip out to Bletchley Park or to Oakwood.

Thanks for reading my manifesto :)

Chris
Foshjedi2004